British chips shrink by an inch as climate change slashes potato yields

From the UK Independent

‘Farmers are used to dealing with fluctuations in the weather but if we have two or three extreme years in a row it has the potential to put growers out of business’

pexels-photo-1583884
Britain’s chips are under threat as climate change triggers unpredictable weather and brings sweeping changes to the nation’s fruit and vegetable growers.

The potato snack was left an inch (2.5cm) shorter on average in 2018 after extreme heatwaves robbed them of much-needed water over the summer months.

This was one of the many changes catalogued in a new analysis by the Climate Coalition network and scientists at the University of Leeds.

They explored how rising global temperatures and associated extremes are likely to impact crop production and make British-grown produce harder to find.

Analysis conducted in the wake of last summer’s heatwaves by the Met Office found the event was made 30 times more likely by climate change.

Potato yields were slashed by a fifth in England and Wales in 2018, while carrot production fell by up to 30 per cent and onions by 40 per cent.

At the other end of the weather spectrum, more than half of UK farmers reported being affected by severe flooding or storms over the past 10 years.

The intensity of winter rainfall has gradually been creeping up in recent decades, as the changing climate tampers with weather systems and increases the chances of major downpours.

Read the full story here.

HT/Willie Soon

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Robertvd
February 5, 2019 2:14 am

Farmers always complain.

Robertvd
Reply to  Robertvd
February 5, 2019 2:22 am

You wonder how they produce potatoes in hot and dry summer Spain.

Urederra
Reply to  Robertvd
February 5, 2019 3:23 am

We grow them in places where other crops cannot give good yields, such as Vitoria, Álava. Usually at high altitude. It snowed last Saturday over there, by the way. Not all of the country is hot and dry.

Robertvd
Reply to  Urederra
February 5, 2019 5:27 am

What do you mean? There is no global warming in Spain?

DontGetOutMuch
Reply to  Robertvd
February 5, 2019 6:34 am

I thought the rain in Spain was mainly in the Plain…

Bryan A
Reply to  Robertvd
February 5, 2019 9:50 am

Walter Sobchak
Reply to  Robertvd
February 5, 2019 1:17 pm

Jeffrey Kreiley
Reply to  Robertvd
February 6, 2019 12:29 am

Same in hot and dry Idaho.

Hivemind
Reply to  Robertvd
February 5, 2019 3:23 am

“We’ll all be rooned, said Hanrahan” – John O’Brien

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Said_Hanrahan

JMichna
Reply to  Hivemind
February 5, 2019 6:35 am

Thank you for remembering “Rooned.” Love that poem… classic if not quite epic!

Reply to  Robertvd
February 5, 2019 5:25 am

Alarmists always complain.
#DRRUPERTREADONTHECOUCH. WHY ARE CLIMATE ALARMIST UNCRITICAL OF IMPERIAL WAR AND IMPERIAL POWER STRUCTURES?

https://longhairedmusings.wordpress.com/2019/02/05/jesuisbourgoiseblanchomme/

A look at the Psychiatric notes of a leading climate change alarmist.

Jim of Colorado
Reply to  Robertvd
February 5, 2019 9:51 am

My Great Grandfather came to the US during the Irish potato famine in 1858. Since the Irish potato blight was the result of a changing climate resulting in favorable conditions for fungi growth, was it the result of burning whale oil? If so, let me thank the whalers of the early 1800s.

Ian Magness
February 5, 2019 2:17 am

Oh lord, so crops might be smaller in a one-off drought year in a normally-damp country if those crops are not watered? Who’d have thought?
It’s been a fine AGW day for us Brits. This story stands up well alongside the BBC latest pronouncement from an “Environment Correspondent” that the oceans will get bluer with “climate change”.
See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47092201
We can mark this down for future use as another AGW proponent’s prediction that didn’t happen.

Rich Davis
Reply to  Ian Magness
February 5, 2019 3:03 am

It’s reassuring to see how settled the science is, Ian. Check this out:

https://futurism.com/oceans-color-global-warming/amp/

Personally I prefer the beeb’s deep azure over futurism’s baby-puke green.

Bottom line is something might maybe possibly change and that’s BAAAD.

commieBob
Reply to  Rich Davis
February 5, 2019 4:12 am

No matter what happens, someone, somewhere, will have predicted it. That means ‘they’ can claim that CAGW theory is correct because all the events were predicted.

If all the experts predicted the same thing, and that was what happened every time, it would shake my skepticism. As it stands, they are usually left making up excuses for why their predictions failed. The problem is that someone, somewhere, will have predicted that particular event correctly. We need a way to hold all the alarmists responsible for all the failed predictions rather than letting them take credit for the correct ones.

John Bell
Reply to  commieBob
February 5, 2019 6:23 am

EXACTLY!

Reply to  commieBob
February 5, 2019 7:39 am

“We need a way to hold all the alarmists responsible for all the MANY failed predictions rather than letting them take credit for the VERY FEW correct ones.”

I will remain skeptical so long as the “correct ones” occur no more often than random chance would dictate. There appears to be little that is actually “robust” about their predictive science.

Kerry Eubanks
Reply to  commieBob
February 5, 2019 8:16 am

Psychic readers work the same way. Throw a bunch of stuff against the wall, some of it fairly obvious, relatively high-probability events, and if even one prediction sticks, claim it as proof of their special powers.

Caligula Jones
Reply to  Kerry Eubanks
February 5, 2019 8:28 am

Yes, and alarmists also rely on people’s short memory: flooding caused by a greater than average spring run off is climate change, and here’s a model that proves this is the new normal (more precipitation).

That this occured just three years after a smaller than average spring run off, which was also climate change, which also had a model that proved a new normal (less precipitation)…into the memory hole.

markl
Reply to  commieBob
February 5, 2019 2:28 pm

commieBob said: “We need a way to hold all the alarmists responsible for all the failed predictions rather than letting them take credit for the correct ones.” Name a correct one.

Steve Reddish
Reply to  commieBob
February 5, 2019 2:38 pm

Despite the opening lines of the Beeb article saying the oceans would get bluer, the closing lines said:
“some species of phytoplankton will respond well to a warmer environment and will create larger blooms of more diverse marine organisms. This is likely to show up with more green regions near the equator and the poles, the researchers say.”

So, no matter which way it goes, they can say they predicted it

Gary Pearse
Reply to  Ian Magness
February 5, 2019 4:59 am

Climate scientist proponents of CAGW are getting bluer I’ve noticed. A certain testiness is a symptom of it. The Arctic blast was met with a grim Please-go-way silence until Trump’s cheery tweet. This brought out an explosion of angry silly contradictory remarks about global warming causing them and at the same time global warming resulting fewer of them. One, sent a drawing like children’s art you see stuck on fridges with a flying kettle boiling over the Atlantic. What kind of non sequitur is this? It immediately conjoured B. Russell’s tiny orbitting teapot of which CAGW is a perfect example.

Ask the big question: if CAGW causes a 300% anomaly enhancement in the Arctic, where did all that bitterly cold air come from covering two big continents. Much of Russia was similarly flash frozen. Shouldnt
Chicago have been less cold? It came within a whisker of the record set on the 1970s.

comment image

MarkW
Reply to  Ian Magness
February 5, 2019 7:07 am

Climatologists actually believe that nobody is smart enough to adapt to changing conditions.

Reply to  MarkW
February 5, 2019 4:44 pm

Nor animals. I remember one “study” about a species of bird in Tennessee and how its habitat was severely threatened by Climate Change. Much gnashing of teeth, of course, about human indifference.

Fast forward to hurricane season, same year, and the remnants of a hurricane in the Gulf swept up through Tennessee. What happened to the birds? They flew to CUBA and PUERTO RICO to bide their time… Something like 800 miles to avoid a hurricane and they can’t adapt to a degree of climate change?

The birds are better at getting out of the way of a hurricane than humans are…

MarkW
Reply to  Ian Magness
February 5, 2019 7:14 am

It’s not the drought, it’s the infra-noise from all the wind turbines.
/sarc

Jit
Reply to  Ian Magness
February 5, 2019 9:01 am

Thanks, I had seen that link but couldn’t bear to click on it until you brought it up.

“Scientists say there will be less of them [phytoplankton] in the waters in the decades to come.”

The limiting factor of phytoplankton is supposed to be that the ocean is too warm? This seems to go against “old knowledge”, i.e. that plankton respond to increasing sunlight in the spring, utilising nutrients that have been built up over winter; then blooming, stripping out the said nutrients, and crashing again by midsummer, with a second burst in the autumn.

Unless they are suggesting that the oceans will stratify for longer and nutrients will therefore be depleted for longer? Who knows. Maybe I ought to read the study before pooh-poohing it!

lee
February 5, 2019 2:18 am

The farmers should ell he potatoes to toughen up. Being under the soil should make things easier.

MarkW
Reply to  lee
February 5, 2019 7:08 am

Do you need some WD-40 on the “t” key?

Hugs
Reply to  MarkW
February 5, 2019 11:14 am

When both law and facts are on your side, pound on the tee.

February 5, 2019 2:25 am

I’d watch the fish – those chips look already awfully meagre. What if the fish shrink? OMG.

I’d give Jamie Oliver a call .

Robertvd
Reply to  bonbon
February 5, 2019 2:30 am

And the tomatoes for the ketchup.

Samuel C Cogar
Reply to  Robertvd
February 5, 2019 3:27 am

OH MY, …… does that mean half-full bottles of ketchup on the store shelves?

ozspeaksup
Reply to  Samuel C Cogar
February 5, 2019 3:40 am

probably
the new smaller sizes for the same or more cost trend is growing
industry of course swear theyre not ripping us off.
suuuuure

lee
Reply to  ozspeaksup
February 5, 2019 4:11 am

Just think with that Lancet report on overeating as enforced dieting.

Robertvd
Reply to  ozspeaksup
February 5, 2019 5:32 am

It is the inflation of the fiat currency witch makes ketchup bottles and savings shrink.

Ian Magness
Reply to  bonbon
February 5, 2019 2:53 am

We’ll be lucky if there are any fish at all, leave alone shrunk ones – see the link to the BBC story in my comment above.

Urederra
Reply to  bonbon
February 5, 2019 3:27 am

People eat the fish and throw the chips away, anyway.

dennisambler
Reply to  Urederra
February 5, 2019 4:07 am

Not in my neck of the woods they don’t, lots of people have gravy on them as well, a particular Northern England delicacy.

Reply to  Urederra
February 5, 2019 4:30 am

J. Oliver says the best chips are done twice in beef fat, never mind all that vegie stuff. And the fish batter is then so crispy!

Reply to  bonbon
February 5, 2019 11:58 am

The best fried potatoes are always cooked twice.

Even the easily available frozen french fries and tater tots are pre-cooked. Though they call it blanching.

Cooks that drop stuff with water (e.g. blanched) into fry kettles eventually have an unhappy experience. The easiest alternative is to fry the potatoes until soft, drain and let cool, then fry a second time till crisp.

e.g. the famous puffed potatoes originally served to Napoleon were the happy accident of a cook trying to reheat cold potatoes by frying them a second time. That a sous-cook prepared the potatoes properly is another accident; i.e. sliced lengthwise evenly.

LdB
Reply to  bonbon
February 5, 2019 7:52 am

All I care about is the grapes shrinking and getting less wine in my bottle.

Craig from Oz
Reply to  LdB
February 5, 2019 6:10 pm

Don’t worry, Global Warming(tm) will cause your bottles to be smaller as well.

Hmmm…. “Rule 97% – If it exists, Climate Change will make it smaller.”

(Corollary – If Climate Change doesn’t make it smaller, a research papers will be published until it does.)

Curious George
Reply to  bonbon
February 5, 2019 8:06 am

Don’t you get more chips now?

Samuel C Cogar
Reply to  bonbon
February 6, 2019 3:11 am

Did you hear the one about the Englishman whose car broke down on a rainy night?

Well, he knocked on the door of a Monastery and his host ushered him in to dry off and enjoy a tasty plate of Fish n’ Chips.

After eating, he asked his host, …….. “Are you the fish Friar?”

And his host responded, …….. “No, I am the chip Monk”,

Robertvd
February 5, 2019 2:26 am

Brexit will make potatoes only available for the rich.

Reply to  Robertvd
February 5, 2019 2:48 am

Robertvd

Our children won’t know what chips are.

Rich Davis
Reply to  HotScot
February 5, 2019 3:06 am

We Americans already don’t:)

Reply to  Rich Davis
February 5, 2019 4:32 am

NY knows them as French Fries – did’nt the Governor try to ban that appellation a while back?

leitmotif
Reply to  HotScot
February 5, 2019 3:18 am

HotScot

For once I disagree with you.

http://www.frietmuseum.be/en/

Reply to  leitmotif
February 5, 2019 8:33 am

leitmotif

You know that, and I know that but alarmist types will say it anyway, despite the evidence.

🙂

Rich Davis
Reply to  Robertvd
February 5, 2019 3:10 am

The poor always suffer the most.

Let them eat crisps
🙂

February 5, 2019 2:26 am

“British chips shrink by an inch”
Not the only British thing to shrink by an inch in this cold weather !

Robertvd
Reply to  saveenergy
February 5, 2019 2:35 am

Especially if you can’t allow to heat the house because of expensive green energy. You wonder why africans want to live in Britain?

Reply to  saveenergy
February 5, 2019 9:47 am

COLD WEATHER CAUSES SEVERE SHRINKAGE. DROUGHT IS NOT THE PROBLEM.

Mor evidence:

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/10/18/trump-is-right-to-question-climate-change-causes/#comment-2496356

Utter nonsense – warmth is NOT the problem.

Circa 1990 I went for a swim at the Forty Foot at Dun Laoghaire near Dublin, one fine warm summer Sunday morning. http://www.fortyfoot.org/

The water temperature was colder than I’d ever experienced – I thought my heart would stop – I swam out to a big outcrop, shot back to the ladder, and climbed out, glad to still be alive.

The little man was littler than he had ever been, and the twins were lost for an entire week.

Jonny B
February 5, 2019 2:28 am

Britain has the most stable climate ever : lots of rainfall and opportunity to stock water . Mild winters and warm ( rarely hot ) summers . If anything a bit of variation from rainy winter , raint spring , rainy summer and rainy autumn would be nice ..

griff
Reply to  Jonny B
February 5, 2019 9:38 am

It used to have… since 2000 we have seen a string of severe storm events, tidal surges, extreme rainfall and flooding events, mild start to winter and extreme cold and late snow in the new year. And the odd very hot summer.

The UK climate has definitely changed.

Hugs
Reply to  griff
February 5, 2019 11:23 am

Oh geesus please.

There is about 20 different variables and hundreds of places, and time scales in scores. There ought to be a record of some kind every year somewhere.

The summer had weather. As the winter has weather. Stop talking about weather as global warming. Talk back to me when it starts raining aged inlaws.

Latitude
Reply to  griff
February 5, 2019 2:04 pm
leowaj
Reply to  griff
February 5, 2019 5:12 pm

“… since 2000 we have seen a string of severe storm events, tidal surges, extreme rainfall and flooding events, mild start to winter and extreme cold and late snow in the new year. And the odd very hot summer.”

Compared to… what? 1990 to 2000? 1800 to 2000? 8000 B.C. to 2000 A.D.?

leitmotif
February 5, 2019 2:50 am

“British chips shrink by an inch as climate change slashes potato yields”

Oh dear, blaming climate change for shrinkflation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinkflation

D. J. Hawkins
Reply to  leitmotif
February 5, 2019 9:02 am

If you go to the original story, there is absolutely no attribution for the claim of shrinking chips. Where that trope is coming from, I have no idea.

Khwarizmi
February 5, 2019 2:59 am

comment image
Scientific American, 1920
potatoes: CO2 enriched vs CO2 starved.

Coeur de Lion
February 5, 2019 3:38 am

Oh dear. Tell Prince Charles about it.

MarkW
Reply to  Coeur de Lion
February 5, 2019 7:10 am

Why? Did his shrink an inch too?

Haverwilde
Reply to  MarkW
February 5, 2019 7:21 pm

It and the twins are all in the lock box, along with his shrunken brain. Nothing to worry about, unless he outlives his mother.

David Guy-Johnson
February 5, 2019 3:41 am

What “extreme” heatwave? It was a warmer than normal summer, that’s all.

Tom Abbott
Reply to  David Guy-Johnson
February 5, 2019 7:20 am

“What “extreme” heatwave? It was a warmer than normal summer, that’s all.”

You know those Alarmists, they get SO dramatic.

I bet Alarmists could “cry Wolf” a million times without losing steam.

Steve O
February 5, 2019 3:42 am

“To be able to enjoy our mash, chips or jackets for years to come, we need to take measures to tackle climate change urgently. If we don’t, then the impact on both growers and consumers is just one of the ways our lives will change in a world of climate breakdown.”

This gets to the very heart of the matter. You can accept as true everything the alarmists claim about future weather patterns, CO2 sensitivity and forcings, and mankind’s contribution to global warming. You STILL do not find justification for the actions being proposed. Spend trillions of dollars… or move the potato farms. Growing potatoes o’re thar instead of here doesn’t strike me as that big of a deal, especially considering that if what they say is right, that the potato farms are going to be moving anyway.

David Guy-Johnson
February 5, 2019 3:45 am

Yet in 2017 we had the 2nd highest yield in 9 years. This doesn’t look scary at all https://www.freshplaza.com/article/9053130/uk-potato-production-hits-lowest-level-since-2012/

mikewaite
February 5, 2019 3:47 am

In the UK , according to Wiki, we only use 80 varieties of the thousands theoretically available from the Andean Highlands , of varied climate conditions, (although most modern commercial varieties are derived from those originating in the cool damp conditions in Chile I gather) where they were first domesticated :

-“There are about 5,000 potato varieties worldwide. Three thousand of them are found in the Andes alone, mainly in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, and Colombia. They belong to eight or nine species, depending on the taxonomic school. Apart from the 5,000 cultivated varieties, there are about 200 wild species and subspecies, many of which can be cross-bred with cultivated varieties. Cross-breeding has been done repeatedly to transfer resistances to certain pests and diseases from the gene pool of wild species to the gene pool of cultivated potato species. Genetically modified varieties have met public resistance in the United States and in the European Union.[21][22]”-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato

I would think that there is plenty of opportunity for modifying varieties for different climatic conditions. All it needs is money (of course) and real scientists , like biologists and geneticists , not faux climatologists.

February 5, 2019 3:52 am

June and July 2018 had the highest easterly QBO values since 1948 for those months, that likely assisted the blocking pattern.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/correlation/qbo.data

Graham C
February 5, 2019 3:54 am

I grow vegetables in my yard in Derbyshire. The first-early potatoes weren’t great but the second earlys and main crop were the best I’ve had for years; large crop of large potatoes. My onions were also the best crop for years.

richard
February 5, 2019 3:59 am

What is not stated is that potato yields have doubled since the 1960s

https://goo.gl/images/6h7avQ

Caligula Jones
Reply to  richard
February 5, 2019 7:35 am

Yes, would be interesting to to see a chart going back 500 years. I mean, considering it would be flat (as in zero, as in nada grown AT ALL) for the first part…impressive growth.

Bruce Cobb
February 5, 2019 4:19 am

The real reason they shrank is, of course, because they were in the pool.

Dodgy Geezer
February 5, 2019 4:19 am

“……if we have two or three extreme years in a row it has the potential to put growers out of business’…….”

The British Government issues an immediate tax increase in order to assist farmers increase the length of their chips. In other news, the British Government is concerned at the obesity crisis, and authorises an immediate tax increase to fund initiatives to decrease the size of potato chips…….

Of course, anything has the POTENTIAL to put growers out of business. Unhappy love affairs, tripping on a step and aliens landing in Norfolk all have the POTENTIAL to put growers out of business. Perhaps, to be on the safe side, we should ban everything.

That will, of course, result in a huge tax increase to fund the necessary bureaucracy…..

Dave Ward
Reply to  Dodgy Geezer
February 5, 2019 6:16 am

“Aliens landing in Norfolk”

They did that years ago – and found plentiful work at the UEA Climate Research Unit…

Ferdberple
Reply to  Dodgy Geezer
February 5, 2019 6:57 am

huge tax increase to fund the necessary bureaucracy…..
==========
The most likely event to put famers amd everyone else out of business.

Plants and animals solved the parasite problem via reproduction and death of the host. Could explain the basis for revolutions. Kill the host government to get rid of the parasitic infestation.

Phoenix44
Reply to  Dodgy Geezer
February 5, 2019 9:37 am

They don’t seem to have modeled the effect on price of a decrease in supply. There’s no reason to believe that it will become impossible to grow potatoes in the UK, simply that yields will fall. If that happens, then the price will rise, unless there is some untapped source of potatoes we can import.

But the strangest thing about the story is the suggestion that shorter chips are the problem – personally I prefer the medium to short ones, they tend to be crisper.

Craig from Oz
Reply to  Dodgy Geezer
February 5, 2019 6:17 pm

Aliens landing in Norfolk?

Make a change from Surrey.

John Tillman
February 5, 2019 4:43 am

If longer chips are a must, then let the UK buy potatoes from Idaho. They keep well.

Patricia Billingsley
February 5, 2019 4:49 am

BS. In Maine yield/per acre is steadily increasing, only variable in # of acres. Proper watering is most important factor.
https://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/New_England_includes/Publications/Current_News_Release/2017/Maine%20Potatoes%20-%202016.pdf

H.R.
February 5, 2019 4:50 am

The solution to the chips crisis is simple and is the same as for any crisis:

Stop using fossil fuels. Raise taxes. Form a One-World government.

I dodn’t know why people get so upset when the solution is so simple.

John Tillman
February 5, 2019 4:56 am

Potato yield fell little in 2017. Can’t compare to previous years, since from 2016 data exclude seed and starch, and are for Great Britain only:

https://www.potatopro.com/united-kingdom/potato-statistics

2017: 460,000.00 hg/ha
2016: 462,000.00 hg/ha

However yield did drop last year:

https://potatoes.ahdb.org.uk/publications/gb-potato-production-falls-489mt-lowest-2012

But had nothing to do with “climate change”. Just WX. Potato yield has grown during the postwar era of fertilized air.

old construction worker
Reply to  John Tillman
February 5, 2019 5:36 am

Potato yield: If the farmer planed smaller potatoes producing plans but each plant yields the same number of potatoes or more as the larger potatoes producing plans wouldn’t potato field yield more lbs of potatoes? Sounds like the farmers and restaurants are adjusting to inflation.

Robertvd
Reply to  John Tillman
February 5, 2019 5:40 am

Would a frozen over Thames in winter be better for potatoes?

MarkW
Reply to  Robertvd
February 5, 2019 7:12 am

Easier to get to market?

Barry
February 5, 2019 5:13 am

They’re not British chips in that photo, they’re inferior french fries. Here is a photo of British chips:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/staticarchive/768db3417a945abbdf431c30828fbede7f2f086f.jpg

JMichna
Reply to  Barry
February 5, 2019 6:40 am

Looks like they were chipped from small potatoes.

Moderately Cross of East Anglia
February 5, 2019 5:24 am

Beyond stupid and halfway to Alpha Centauri – nearly as bad as the letter in today’s Times newspaper from an academic claiming we shouldn’t subsidise or build anymore gas power stations because wind and solar will be able to provide the necessary power. How truly uninformed and insane do you have to be to believe such utter drivel – or perhaps just be well paid to put aside your conscience.

February 5, 2019 5:28 am

Alarmists always complain.
#DRRUPERTREADONTHECOUCH. WHY ARE CLIMATE ALARMIST UNCRITICAL OF IMPERIAL WAR AND IMPERIAL POWER STRUCTURES?

https://longhairedmusings.wordpress.com/2019/02/05/jesuisbourgoiseblanchomme/

A look at the Psychiatric notes of a leading climate change alarmist.

troe
February 5, 2019 5:34 am

Climate justice dictates that farmer/victims need gobs of taxpayer cash as compensation. Better them than The Maldives.

Hogwash presented as science because scientists say so.

auto
Reply to  troe
February 6, 2019 11:33 am

troe February 5, 2019 at 5:34 am

“Hogwash presented as science because scientists say so.”
“Hogwash presented as science because self-proclaimed scientists say so.”

Better – no?

Auto

Rod Evans
February 5, 2019 5:43 am

I am coming to the conclusion the Human Induced Climate Change advocates are adopting the same principles and ideas the anti Brexit remain shills have. They think, by pushing any story line no matter how ridiculous or lacking in evidence that might support their exaggeration, they will just wear down the resolve of the educated majority and eventually some of the more bizarre ideas will become accepted truths.
They just don’t know what they are up against do they.

Phoenix44
Reply to  Rod Evans
February 5, 2019 9:44 am

They are generally very arrogant and assume that the people holding a different opinion to them are very stupid. So they churn out these scare stories that get scarier and scarier and thus sillier and sillier, and then scratch their heads and wonder why people are less and less convinced.

I believe that IF we are changing the climate, there COULD be some ill-effects, but that they will be some decades in the future. The idea that a UK summer that was less dry and less hot than the on 1976 could somehow be shown to be “more likely” now because of CO2 is simply ridiculous. As for the claim that if conditions get worse for growing things,then growing things will be harder, then yes. But begging the question is a logical fallacy, so utterly irrelevant.

Filbert Cobb
February 5, 2019 5:53 am

The modeled projections in this “report” used RCP8.5 with no other scenario considered. So of course it was crap

Tom Abbott
Reply to  Filbert Cobb
February 5, 2019 7:37 am

“The modeled projections in this “report” used RCP8.5 with no other scenario considered. So of course it was crap”

They all use the RCP8.5 (worst case scenario) for their climate science studies. RCP8.5 does not come close to representing reality, so all these studies don’t come close, either.

When you base your results on a faulty premise, you get faulty results.

Walt D.
February 5, 2019 5:55 am

Why don’t they use all the Climate Change Horse Manure to fertilize the soil? Bumper potato crops!

Bruce Cobb
Reply to  Walt D.
February 5, 2019 9:18 am

That stuff is toxic! Instead, it needs to be buried underground in a process known as “Equine Crap Sequestration” – ECS for short.

February 5, 2019 6:01 am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=DAZJtFZZYmM

Roger Lewis
1 second ago
Is this an improvement? One really has to ask how do you improve upon perfected absurdist narcissism. Thanks for the laughs. https://longhairedmusings.wordpress.com/2019/02/05/jesuisbourgoiseblanchomme/

https://theconquestofdough.weebly.com/

Alarmists always complain.
#DRRUPERTREADONTHECOUCH. WHY ARE CLIMATE ALARMIST UNCRITICAL OF IMPERIAL WAR AND IMPERIAL POWER STRUCTURES?

https://longhairedmusings.wordpress.com/2019/02/05/jesuisbourgoiseblanchomme/

A look at the Psychiatric notes of a leading climate change alarmist.

Quite a content free piece of polemic this.
WHY ARE CLIMATE ALARMIST UNCRITICAL OF IMPERIAL WAR AND IMPERIAL POWER STRUCTURES?
https://longhairedmusings.wordpress.com/2019/02/05/jesuisbourgoiseblanchomme/

troe
February 5, 2019 6:02 am

science-by-the-pound (kilo) We are doomed because everyone says so minus a fringe of flat earthers and holocaust deniers.

Junk science doesn’t improve with repetition

ResourceGuy
February 5, 2019 6:04 am

They need to fear the shrinking British brains more than spuds.

Phoenix44
Reply to  ResourceGuy
February 5, 2019 9:46 am

Meaning what exactly?

NorwegianSceptic
February 5, 2019 6:05 am

Of course the potaoes thrived much better in the 18-hundreds (during LIA). Jusk ask any irish historian…..

ResourceGuy
Reply to  NorwegianSceptic
February 5, 2019 9:11 am
Bob Hoye
February 5, 2019 6:09 am

As I read the story and comments, in order for the Brits to get back to regular length french fries, we all must change our behaviour.
I won’t go along with such instructions from authoritarians.
But whenever I see a “fry” that is too long, I’ll reduce it to average length.
On the way to zero length.

February 5, 2019 6:14 am

Who cares, the summer of 2018 was amazing!

Rod Evans
February 5, 2019 6:31 am

Maybe there is a global conspiracy operating that has as its priority the removal of any positive news or joyous event from the news coverage. We could call them doom mongers or alarmists…
For most people in the UK used to overcast mild wet summers, 2018 will go down as a perfect summer. The sun shone the temperatures allowed outside activities supper on the warm patio at the sun set that kind of normal happy stuff other peoples around the world take for granted.
What do we have to put with instead of the positive news, We are told it is all doom and gloom because the potatoes found it a bit dry.
Well sorry spud, you normally have it all your own way, so let us celebrate when we have the occasional year when summer arrives as promised.

February 5, 2019 6:37 am

30 times more likely? Where do they come up with such rubbish? So, if the normal chances were 0.01 % x 30 that would be 0.3%, no big deal. But if the chances of a drought were say 2% (seems more likely to me), then the chances are now 60%! So from now on drought is most likely.

I guess we’ll see.

Phoenix44
Reply to  Carl Smith
February 5, 2019 9:51 am

I cannot even begin to imagine how they can tell that a single event was made “more likely” by something. I’m not sure the claim makes any sense. The event happened, so it was 100% likely. It was the only thing that could have happened, since it did happen. And since it did happen, it had definite causes – it was not simply an utterly random event (especially since such things don’t exist anyway) amongst other possible random events.

I could udnerstand if we had say four heatwaves in twenty years whereas previous ten year period has always shown only 2-3, or that it was 30% hotter or 30% longer or something, but this one event was 30 times more likely?

GeeJam
Reply to  Phoenix44
February 6, 2019 3:58 am

It would only be “very certainly more likely” if every UK farmer just grew King Edwards. A ‘floury’ full-flavoured variety which is perfect for mash, sauté & roast – but makes awful soggy chips however long or short.

February 5, 2019 6:49 am

How odd that agricultural yields vary with the weather. Obviously the golden rule is when they decline report it loudly, when they improve ignore it. And when they continually improve year after year globally and the fear of hunger starts to recede in the rear view mirror, start fearmongering about population increase.

February 5, 2019 7:12 am

Well, sometimes any country can have a problem with shrinkage — it’s not the end of the world…..

JMichna
February 5, 2019 7:17 am

“small potatoes”

n. Informal A person or thing regarded as unimportant.
n. Informal An insignificant amount or sum.

john
February 5, 2019 7:20 am

I live in Western Canada. We grow millions of tons of grain, oilseeds, corn, soy and even potatoes. Some years are dry. Some are wet. The odd one is just about perfect. Most of the last 20 have been fairly wet, but last year was the driest in the last 100. Now we are having a cold winter with enough snow already to give us a fairly decent chance at a normal year.
We’ll all be ok. The U.K. stats show that acreage has been cut in half since the 60’s. Yet they grow far more potatoes than they did then. Having no perspective is a choice toward foolishness that the Alarmists jump on regularly. It’s all brand new to them every day and every minor problem. Chicken Littles.

February 5, 2019 7:26 am

I grew up in rural Perthshire and 45 years ago it was well known for growing potatoes. One summer when it was too wet/dry/hot/cold and there was a particularly poor harvest a local farmer was in the pub complaining that the yields were down 50% and it was hardly worth harvesting such a poor crop. Lots of sage nodding heads until someone pointed out he was getting twice as much per ton as the previous year.

February 5, 2019 7:38 am

Nobody of any sense trusts the Met Office. It is an alarmist organisation whose employees have no integrity.

Caligula Jones
February 5, 2019 7:46 am

“We’re running out of potatoes!!! Emergency!!!! Must do more about climate change to grow more potatoes!!!”

“We’re eating too many potatoes!!! Chips are bad for you!!!!”

Same media.

As an old editor had to remind his writers: “We only need copy from you to keep the underwear ads from running together”.

Now its: we need clicks, torque that press release!!!

Curious George
February 5, 2019 8:02 am

Chips are shorter? Wake me up when they get lighter.

Robert W Turner
February 5, 2019 8:30 am

Any moron can use a search engine and see the UK potato yields per year. And it’s clearly the end of the chip, potatogeddon over there in the UK for sure, as they haven’t had a potato harvest this small since 2012.

So if even a moron can take 1 minute and debunk this latest Chicken Littlism, what does that say about the people that believe this stuff? Help me out, what is the proper adjective for someone more daft than a moron?

P.S. The state of Idaho grows as many potatoes as all of U.K. and potatoes are dirt cheap in the US, so maybe the Brits can reduce that $40 billion trade imbalance and buy some of our potatoes?

Neo
February 5, 2019 8:36 am

So, does this include the Russet Burbank—one of the best potatoes for McDonald’s World Famous Fries ?

Grant
February 5, 2019 8:37 am

I’m sure British farmers will adjust just fine

michael hart
February 5, 2019 9:15 am

But do McDonald’s even use whole potatoes? To the best of my knowledge/experience, the fries are made from reconstituted potato. They certainly seem like it. Either way, who cares?

Sheri
February 5, 2019 9:18 am

Wow, who knew the modern world was so incredibly inept and uneducated they can’t deal with weather. Thank you, AGW lovers, for pointing out humans are devolving and will soon lose their speech and language at this rate. I suppose global warming caused that devolution…..

griff
February 5, 2019 9:40 am

I’d just like to put on record that, whatever their length, these are good old British chips and not French fries (not some sort of potato matchstick!). Proper chunky chips!

Reply to  griff
February 5, 2019 10:50 am

So what do you personally call actual potato chips? Fries?

Al Miller
February 5, 2019 10:15 am

Good god…you can go back as far as written records exist and find farmers worried about weather (or changes in climate). Nothing new here, time to move on to some of the many real issues that exist in our world rather than a phoney political campaign to steal our wealth and freedom via scare tactics based on hysterical fears about weather.

Hugs
Reply to  Al Miller
February 5, 2019 11:33 am

This is, as a matter of fact, probably the first time in history when libtards are more ‘worried’* about weather than farmers.

(*) They are not worried for the farmer’s troubles — libtards hate ‘deplorable’ farmers.

February 5, 2019 10:51 am

With regard to elevated CO2 (eCO2) there are some curiosities for the generic potato. The early (1990s) finding was that eCO2 produced more tubers per plant, not bigger tubers; whether this has been contradicted by more recent experiments I do not know.

The potato tuber’s pest defense molecule glyco-alkaloid is apparently affected variably by eCO2; some potato varieties tested seem to have increased glyco-alkaloid content more so than others. I do not know if some experimental potato varieties actually see alyco-alkaloid decrease; if so they will be less tasty, but also less “toxic”.

eCO2 yields potato tubers with more sugar & starch; while the % of citrate is reduced (diluted) & thus to humans the taste will be better. However, the increased soluble sugar content can form more acryl-amide (undesirable) when potatoes are fried.

Yield in a recent meta-analysis for eCO2 grown potato showed an average of 13.9% increase. And, since often a subject of interest, under eCO2 there was an average 13% decrease in protein; as well as several mineral decreases (ex: average decrease zinc =10.7%).

February 5, 2019 10:51 am

and you thought the end of the droughts in the nh is nigh?

click on my name and read my reports on this

David Chappell
February 5, 2019 11:13 am

For the British, chips are not “a snack”, they are a main course item.

February 5, 2019 12:29 pm

“Farmers are used to dealing with fluctuations in the weather but if we have two or three extreme years in a row it has the potential to put growers out of business”

Amazing!

Alarmists feigning rocket science have noticed that farmers have extremely risky livelihoods.

If they actually visited farmers who have been in business decades, they would learn that farmers, who depend upon one crop only, are quickest to fail when a crop fails in successive years.
Smart farmers try to balance their cropland and crops to service different markets over different harvest seasons.

e.g. The farm where I worked occasionally:
Primary product, milk.
* Excess cows and calves were sold at auction.

Ancillary products supporting dairy cows:
* Dry baled meadow grass,
* Dry baled timothy,
* Dry baled hay,
* Corn, primarily dry field corn,
* acres were set aside for growing fresh corn. The fresh corn was sold at a roadside stand the entire fresh corn season.

Any crops in excess of what he needed for winter feed were sold. Preferably later in the season when demand peaked.

Secondary crops:
* Alfalfa, rye and soy beans.
* All three of these were planted in fallow fields to improve the soils.
Some of the alfalfa was baled to feed his cows over the winter; the remainder and all of the rye and soy beans were sold.
* This farmer specialized in raising wheat for the seed market. Preparations each year required that he turn over the soil until weeds no longer sprouted.

Tertiary crops:
* A large vegetable garden for feeding his family.

All cattle and plant wastes were tilled under.

I expect that most British citizens would be ashamed to have their researchers announce such levels of oblivious ignorance. All in search of something frightening enough to promote their religious beliefs and green funds dependency.

Patrick MJD
February 5, 2019 2:31 pm

That looks like a bowl of frozen processed chips to me.

donald penman
February 5, 2019 3:52 pm

I grew a lot of Maris piper potatoes in my back garden in 2004 I followed the instructions that I was given and left trenches between the rows of potatoes for the water to drain and kept watering them frequently and I got a lot of which I was using for a long time after I had harvested them because they did not sprout after a week or so like the potatoes which you buy in the shop they also tasted much better. I noticed that all the farms that I passed while most uncultivated areas looked parched they were constantly watering the crops.

Derek Colman
February 5, 2019 4:48 pm

It’s a complete lie and I have empirical evidence. I have just opened a pack of McCain Chunky Home chips, which are expensive, so I only buy them about once a year when they are on offer. The first thing I noticed was that they are on average significantly longer than the ones I bought a year earlier. This is something very important to me because I love my chips as long as possible, phallic symbolism perhaps? McCain Chunky Home chips do not lie. I therefore believe this report was commissioned by the Potato Marketing Board to justify shrinkflation.

RoHa
February 5, 2019 8:31 pm

This is an absolute disaster. We’re doomed.

Johann Wundersamer
February 6, 2019 3:09 am

“The intensity of winter rainfall has gradually been creeping up in recent decades,”
___________________________________________________

No. The 2019 winter climate is unprecedented in weather records.

and has nothing to do with Climate Change.

Because climate changes every single day every single minute every single second every single “not foreseen split second”.

Move along. Nothing to see here.

Johann Wundersamer
February 6, 2019 3:44 am

“The intensity of winter rainfall has gradually been creeping up in recent decades,”
___________________________________________________

No. The 2019 winter climate is unprecedented in weather records.

and has nothing to do with Climate Change.

Because climate changes every single day every single minute every single second every single “not foreseen split second”.

Move along. Nothing to see here. Now.

All Together Now

The Beatles

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Can I have a little more
Five six seven eight nine ten
I love you

A B C D
Can I bring my friend to tea
E F G H I J
I love you

Bom bom bom bompa bom
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Look at me

All together now
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Black white green red
Can I take my friend to bed
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All together now
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All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now

Bom bom bom bompa bom
Sail the ship Bompa bom
Chop the tree bompa bom
Skip the rope bompa bom
Look at me

All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
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All together now
All together now

Songwriters: John Lennon / Paul Mccartney

All Together Now lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

Alba
February 6, 2019 11:00 am

I live just to the north of Glasgow in Scotland. Last year I grew potatoes in my own garden. I had a very good crip, thank you very much. One of the best in recent years.

morgo
February 7, 2019 12:10 am

everything in the supermarket is shrinking chocolate cereal biscuits ice cream etc

morgo
February 7, 2019 12:50 am
February 8, 2019 2:48 pm

If it rains sometimes and it doesn’t rain other times that’s *weather*, not climate!