Climate model predictions are telling a consistent (if wrong) story

From AARHUS UNIVERSITY and the department of shredded wheat, comes this story. Maybe they should get out more.

Climate model predictions are telling a consistent story

Three independent methods of modelling climate change impact on yield display the same bleak tendency: When global temperature increases, wheat yield will decline. This is demonstrated in a study carried out by an international group scientists, including Professor Joergen E. Olesen and Postdoc Mohamed Jabloun from the Department of Agroecology at Aarhus University.

The good news is that the comparison of the three very different climate models allowed the scientists to be even more precise in their projections and enabled them to put more accurate figures on the relation between global warming and declining yields. The models unanimously demonstrate that for each 1°C that the global temperature increases, the global wheat production is projected to decline by an average of 5.7 percent.

Evidence-based action is necessary

The world population continues to grow and the standard of living continues improving. These two factors result in an increasing demand for food production. However, due to global warming we run the risk that food production decreases. Wheat is one of the world’s most important food crops and we face an important problem if yields fall concurrently with an increasing demand.

– When talking about global food security it is important to understand how climate change will impact crop production at a global level in order for us to develop fact-based mitigation and adaptation strategies, says Joergen E. Olesen.

Three ways to predict the future

The scientists compared three very different crop model types: grid-based, point-based and regression-based. The two first were simulation models while the third was based on statistical data analyses. Each type included a series of different models and thus included actual implementation of the model types.

A simulation model creates a model of reality based on the existing knowledge of reality. The model makes it possible to predict what will happen if some of the conditions/parameters are changed. Examples of input include facts on how crop growth periods and productivity react to temperature, precipitation and CO2 levels, and how evapotranspiration depends on temperature and atmospheric CO2 concentration. In such models you can tweak the temperature and find an answer to the question “What will happen if the global temperature increases by 5°C?”

Regression models use a statistical process for estimating the relationship between data. For instance, observed crop yield is statistically related to temperature and precipitation during the growing season. This estimated relationship can then be used to predict crop yield when temperature increases.

Grids, points and numbers

The grid-based model used by the scientists was based on the division of the world into geographical grid cells according to longitudes and latitudes. Together with climate and crop system data this division was used to estimate yields and production across the world in present production areas.

The point-based model applied data from 30 different locations (points) representing two thirds of the global wheat production. Results from these 30 locations were up-scaled to cover geographical areas with similar conditions.

The regression-based model was based on global and country-level data. This type allows for indirect effects such the impact of climate variation on crop pests and diseases, or crop adaptation to climate change.

Warmer regions suffer the most

Depending on the model in question, the expected wheat yield will decline between 4.1 and 6.4 percent with each 1°C global temperature increase. Warmer regions are most likely to experience the greatest decline in wheat yield.

This projected impact was similar for major wheat-producing countries such as China, India, USA and France but less so for Russia due to the generally cooler conditions of Russia’s wheat-producing areas.

– By combining several models we were able to improve the confidence of the estimates in relation to climate change impact on global food security, says Professor Joergen E. Olesen.

Read the scientific article “Similar estimates of temperature impacts on global wheat yield by three independent models” in Nature Climate Change here.

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The models unanimously demonstrate that for each 1°C that the global temperature increases, the global wheat production is projected to decline by an average of 5.7 percent.

Perhaps these guys should look at some “evidence based action”, such as crop yields in the “hottest year ever”.

illinois_state_national_wheat_yields_thrash_existing_records

Meanwhile, there’s so much wheat, that prices have been dropping sharply:

wheat-prices

The long term trend seems to favor warmer temperatures and more CO2. But what do I know, I’ve only got some graphs of actual data, while these guys have a unanimous consensus of three computer models.

global-wheat-production

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RoHa
November 23, 2016 6:59 pm

Lessee. We grow wheat on the burning plains of Australia. The Canadians shovel aside a bit of snow and grow wheat on their prairies. But 1 degree warmer, and we’ll all starve. Makes sense.

Gerald Machnee
November 23, 2016 7:17 pm

What assumptions do the “models” m,ake? less moiture with highr temps?
Try 1-2 deg cooler. When global warming causes cooling they may be right.

Gerald Machnee
November 23, 2016 7:17 pm

What assumptions do the “models” make? less moisture with higher temps?
Try 1-2 deg cooler. When global warming causes cooling they may be right.

SAMURAI
November 23, 2016 8:33 pm

For what it is worth, I woke up this morning in Tokyo (well actually in Shonan, a beach area 60 KM south of Tokyo, which is 1C~2C warmer than Tokyo because of UHI) seeing my neighborhood cloaked in snow…
The new normal isn’t a white Christmas, it’s a white THANKSGIVING!….
This is the earliest snow has fallen in Tokyo in 54 years (when the PDO was in a 30-year cool cycle)…
Trump needs to shut down this stupid CAGW ho-x his first week in office…
Yeah, yeah, I know local weather isn’t global climate, but…. snow in Tokyo in November?
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/snow-falls-november-tokyo-time-54-years-43750375

RoHa
Reply to  SAMURAI
November 23, 2016 10:43 pm

November snow in Tokyo is certainly astonishing. (I remember the Tokyo climate well.)
But Thanksgiving in Tokyo is even more astonishing. Only Americans keep Thanksgiving.

SAMURAI
Reply to  RoHa
November 24, 2016 3:48 am

RoHa-san:
As you may recall, November 23rd is a Japanese national holiday (Repect for Workers’ Day) so, being the good American Gaijin-sama, I have an old tradition of preparing a US Thanksgiving turkey feast for friends and family a day early on the 23rd.
During the last La Niña cycle, there were two major once-in-30-year record blizzards over back-to-back weekends in Shonan… I almost had a heart attack clearing mountains of snow from the steps and driveways of elderly neighbors that my lovely wife “volunteered” me for…
Cheers!

Dean - NSW
November 23, 2016 8:56 pm

I wonder whether these chumps actually try to break their models to see if they are reasonable?
In engineering we do all the time by forcing stupid conditions into the models and see what result spits out. If the expected results are not delivered then the model is cactus.

Dilton Dalton
November 23, 2016 8:58 pm

Illinois is a northern state. It does not represent the whole world. Some areas will benefit from warming while others will be devastated by it. Just north of Illinois is a country called Canada. About 1/3 of the country’s surface is permafrost. Warming there will make it possible to grow something instead of nothing. As a percentage increase, that puts Illinois to shame but it does not represent the entire world either.
Your article started out well but then you lapsed into distortion by using actual facts to tell us a big lie.
Here is another lie based on truth.
Barbecued beef kills people. All people who eat barbecued beef will die. There is a 100% correlation.
Of course if you don’t eat barbecued beef you will still die but the first statement could cause uninformed people to stop eating “killer” barbecued steaks and burgers.
Half of all school children in Illinois are below average weight. We should provide supplementary meals at school.
This idea was used in the UK to promote a school lunch program. But the fact is that no matter how much you feed these kids, half will always be below average weight. It is a lie or sorts based on a fact.
As Samuel Clement wrote,”Never believe what you hear and only half of what you see.” I think he had you in mind when he wrote that.

Ed Zuiderwijk
November 23, 2016 9:35 pm

How about this as an observation: the same fundamental error in each of the three models.
(If it sounds like a duck and walks like a duck…….)

Walter Sobchak
November 23, 2016 10:09 pm

Figures don’t lie, but liars figure.

co2islife
November 24, 2016 6:39 am

Three independent methods of modelling climate change impact on yield display the same bleak tendency: When global temperature increases, wheat yield will decline. This is demonstrated in a study carried out by an international group scientists, including Professor Joergen E. Olesen and Postdoc Mohamed Jabloun from the Department of Agroecology at Aarhus University.

Let me get this straight. Warm air, which can hold more precipitation combined with higher levels of CO2, which is plant food, will result in lower wheat production? By increasing the 2 factors that are most significantly associated with higher crop yields, they predict lower crop yields? That research alone should have these “scientists” sued for malpractice.
Watch this video clip. The “science” is pretty settled.
https://youtu.be/QowL2BiGK7o?t=15m56s

Hunter
November 24, 2016 7:53 am

Increasing yield during a period of warming does not necessarily imply that warming is beneficial. Other factors can drive wheat yield up (technological advancements in harvest, better pest and disease management, genetic improvements, etc). The paper accounts for these factors, and still finds a negative effect of temperature on wheat yield, controlling for the other factors. So as long as these positive effects outpace the negative effects of climate change, then sure, nothing to worry about… but I wouldn’t count on it.

Tom Halla
Reply to  Hunter
November 24, 2016 8:22 am

Considering the geographic and climate range that wheat is grown commercially in, from Australia to Canada, temperature per se cannot be that much of a factor, either.

co2islife
Reply to  Hunter
November 24, 2016 9:34 am

What do the geological records show about plant life during the Dinosaur eras? Was the earth desert or rain forest?
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/PageMill_Images/image277.gif

November 24, 2016 8:55 am

Climate change skeptics say that fluctuations in the earth’s climate are caused by variations in the output of the sun. Alarmist respond by stating that variations in solar luminosity and the average solar constant of 1,368 W/m^2 are too small to make much difference. They are both correct and yet both of those explanations are inaccurate and incomplete.
What both sides forgot to mention is that the earth does not orbit in a nice average circle, but in an ellipse:
1) closer to the sun at perihelion, 1/4/17, and hotter with a solar non-constant of 1,415 W/m^2,
2) and farther at aphelion, 6/4/17, and colder with a solar non-constant of 1,323 W/m^2
3) for a total variation of 92 W/m^2.
What both sides also forget to mention is that because of the tilted axis and spherical shape the total insolation arriving at the top of the atmosphere fluctuates by around 630 W/m^2. What are the consequences of that large fluctuation? Winter and summer which the earth has survived for thousands of millennia.
Per IPCC AR5 between 1750 and 2011, 261 years, assuming all natural processes remained constant the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide rose due to human processes, i.e. fossil fuel and land use changes, from 278 ppm to 391 ppm. The consequence to the atmospheric heat balance of 261 years’ worth of additional carbon dioxide was 2 W/m^2. (IPCC AR5 SPM.5)
If the 92 W/m^2 fluctuation due to orbit and a 630 W/m^2 fluctuation due to tilt and shape have no catastrophic consequences what should we reasonably expect from 2?

co2islife
Reply to  Nicholas Schroeder
November 24, 2016 7:21 pm

Climate change skeptics say that fluctuations in the earth’s climate are caused by variations in the output of the sun. Alarmist respond by stating that variations in solar luminosity and the average solar constant of 1,368 W/m^2 are too small to make much difference. They are both correct and yet both of those explanations are inaccurate and incomplete.

It isn’t the amount of energy released by the sun, it is the amount of energy that reaches the earth’s surface, and most importantly the S Hemisphere which as a huge heat sink. There is a clear pattern of glacier and inter-glacier periods in the geologic record. The explanation for that is that the earth is flying through the “fingers” of the galaxy. The “fingers” have more cosmic dust blocking the sun. Recent research has shown a change in the cloud pattern over the equator. Fewer clouds over the oceans will lead to greater warming.
http://annesastronomynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/NGC-1232.jpg

November 24, 2016 2:36 pm

It’s another model, it’s not real and, unsurprisingly, its partial, probably undersubscribed and certainly approximates reality badly in some areas, artificially restricts the model to where corn currently grows……. and, lo……the actual data doesn’t support it. Hello! Sounds familiar………
A Feynman “Guess”, and not real science either. No new laws can ever be proven. It can’t be disproved either. Perfect Pseudo science, they can study it forever. Feynman again.
This is such just cynical pseudo science, in the face of the facts of global greening, grant gathering from the science priests of well funded PC religion with all the money, labelling as heretics the real scientists of independnetly verifiable hypotheses and data based proof for making real science critcisms of their guesses.
J’accuse!
PS This is so shamelessly transparent and just WRONG on the facts. And someone allowed them to publish this as peer reviewed science. Really? Wonder what they were smoking 😉 ?

Dave Fair
Reply to  brianrlcatt
November 24, 2016 4:28 pm

It’s taxpayer dollars they are smoking. Granting agencies have a budget. Budgets must be spent, even on dross.

November 25, 2016 9:35 am

Models developed by leftists all have the same output: “Life on Earth will end as we know it, unless everyone does as we say without question.”
The inputs can be on any subject: global cooling, global warming, acid rain, hole in the ozone layer, ocean acidification, exploding silicone breast implants, GMO foods, etc.
Different boogeyman.
Same scary predictions.
Leftists count on the stupidity of the general public to accept their fantasies of doom, and allow their government to seize more power over the private sector, which is always said to be the “only” solution to the coming (imaginary) catastrophe … that will never come.
Actually, it doesn’t matter if a catastrophe ever comes — it only matters if enough people BELIEVE a catastrophe is coming.
It’s not surprising that so many people will believe scary predictions of the future.
People allow leaders to control them with promises of rewards (such as, you go to heaven) and/or punishments (such as, you go to hell, or climate change will turn the whole Earth into “hell”).
There’s no proof any of this will happen — there’s no evidence — there’s no science.
Just predictions of the future by people with no ability to predict the future.
I know it offends many people for me to dismiss all unproven beliefs based on faith.
But that’s what the coming global warming catastrophe is.
(1) Some people believe their future will be spent in heaven or hell, with no proof.
(2) Some people believe a coming climate catastrophe will turn Earth into a hell for everyone, with no proof.
Two different “religions”.
What surprises me is that people who believe in one, will dismiss the other.
To be scientific (act like a logical, unemotional Vulcan on Star Trek), you can not accept unproven beliefs, both secular and religious, on faith.
Those who claim we are already in the early stages of runaway global warming caused by manmade CO2 …. FIRST have to prove the current climate is abnormal, or even unusual.
That proof does not exist.
There is no evidence for claiming the current climate is abnormal, unusual or even unpleasant.
There is evidence for claiming the current climate is better than it has been for at least 500 years, for humans, animals and plants.

Dave Fair
Reply to  Richard Greene
November 25, 2016 12:54 pm

I have absolutely no comment on what people choose to believe about unproven things. I do care, though, when they attempt to get me to pay for their beliefs.

Dilton Dalton
Reply to  Dave Fair
November 25, 2016 3:29 pm

It really amazes me that so many people with so little understanding of the subject have such strong convictions that they are correct. I guess somebody told them it was a conspiracy and like Donald Trump followers they concluded that any evidence that disproved that idea was false, no matter that is based on well known scientific principles.

Reply to  Dave Fair
November 25, 2016 3:43 pm

I’m trying to say if you have your own personal unproven or unprovable beliefs, it’s hard to claim your beliefs are right, and all other beliefs are wrong.
I’ve got news for you: The costs of beliefs is high NOT only for global warming .
Consider the endless wars between Muslims and Christians and Jews in the Mid-East and elsewhere — perhaps the costs for the US to fight those real “beliefs wars”, still in progress, are much higher than the cost of “fighting” imaginary global warming.

Dave Fair
Reply to  Richard Greene
November 25, 2016 7:20 pm

Richard, it would help if you stayed on-topic.

Dilton Dalton
Reply to  Richard Greene
November 25, 2016 8:17 pm

If the greenhouse had ice in it, the added heat would melt the ice, flooding the greenhouse. If there is more CO2 then it would dissolve in the water making it more acidic. These are happening to the earth and it is resulting in rising ocean levels because of ice melting at the poles and a reduction in the pH (increase in acidity) of the oceans. These are not beliefs or junk science. They are facts. Higher ocean levels reduce land surface and lower pH threatens ocean life, which BTW, generates 2/3 of the oxygen we breath.

Dave Fair
Reply to  Dilton Dalton
November 25, 2016 8:43 pm

Since the oceans will continue their slow rise as long as we are in an inter-glacial and they are massively buffered, what’s your beef, Dilton?

Dave Fair
Reply to  Dave Fair
November 25, 2016 7:25 pm

And Dilton Dalton’s “well known scientific principles” trump observations? [Pun intended.]

co2islife
November 25, 2016 7:22 pm

Three independent methods of modelling climate change impact on yield display the same bleak tendency: When global temperature increases, wheat yield will decline.

Greenhouses do 3 things:
1) They trap heat, and provide a warm climate for growing
2) They generate CO2 to provide plenty of food for the plants
3) The warm air holds more moisture, and the plants are well hydrated
For this research to be valid, every greenhouse in the world must be based upon faulty “science.” Greenhouses prove the conclusion of the highlighted research to be pure junk science.

Dilton Dalton
November 25, 2016 8:29 pm

Gravity causes things to fall to earth. But satellites are observed to stay up. If you make the wrong observations, then you are correct. The projections will never match. Your argument is the same as saying that since you observe that satellites do not fall to earth, this anvil that I am holding over your toes will not crush them when I let go ans I project it will with my model of the earth, because gravity is “pure junk science”
Someone once wondered if there was intelligent life in the universe. You and the other “useful idiots” that argue without knowledge give me reason to reply in the negative. Coal is not coming back no matter what Trump says so if you own shares in a coal mine, I suggest you sell.
One of Trumps allies stated that Global Warming didn’t matter because God would take care of it. But God may take care of it by eliminating the human race. The earth will quite happily continue to circle the sun without humanity.

Dave Fair
Reply to  Dilton Dalton
November 25, 2016 8:50 pm

Your satellite/anvil analogy makes no sense, Dilton.
From the totality of your comments here, I deduce you lack an education and/or of low intelligence.

Johann Wundersamer
November 26, 2016 4:19 am

Great! Thanks for the graphics!