“IT is now more than 200 years since the great astronomer William Herschel observed a correlation between wheat prices and sunspots. When the latter were few in number, he noted, the climate turned colder and drier, crop yields fell and wheat prices rose. In the past two years, sunspot activity has dropped to its lowest point for a century. One of our biggest worries is that our politicians are so fixated on the idea that CO2 is causing global warming that most of them haven’t noticed that the problem may be that the world is not warming but cooling, with all the implications that has for whether we get enough to eat.
“It is appropriate that another contributory factor to the world’s food shortage should be the millions of acres of farmland now being switched from food crops to biofuels, to stop the world warming, Last year even the experts of the European Commission admitted that, to meet the EU’s biofuel targets, we will eventually need almost all the food-growing land in Europe. But that didn’t persuade them to change their policy. They would rather we starved than did that. And the EU, we must always remember, is now our government – the one most of us didn’t vote for last week…
Read more here from Christopher Booker.
*************************
Notes and Links
CROPS UNDER STRESS AS TEMPERATURES FALL
by Christopher Booker
The Sunday Telegraph, 14 June 2009
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5525933/Crops-under-stress-as-temperatures-fall.html
The photogrgaph of a failed wheat crop being bailed as hay was taken by Jennifer Marohasy near Falls Gap, western Victoria, in November 2006.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Putting out vastly more CO2 emissions is perhaps one way we might think of protecting the crops from the coming cold dry decades, because CO2 is a plant food that helps protect plants from stresses, such as the coming cold and dry. But the problem with that idea is that man-made CO2 emissions are too small, even with our best efforts, to make a significant contribution to world-wide atmospheric CO2 levels. Our best efforts are dwarfed by the volcanic and other geological emissions of CO2. Of course, even if we could make a significant addition to natural CO2 levels, that would not protect us from the coming cold. Better strategy will be to look to improvements in farming practices, and in food storages, and to build more dams for water storage and flood prevention.
Seems the US has had another bad crop harvest – all due to a cooler climate.
During the LIA Europeans had to resort to cannibalisation to survive.
Quite clearly Herschel’s observation was validated economically as well and strongly suggests that human population levels are, like every other species, variable according to the climate. It’s the climate that drives our activity and hence emission of CO2, not we it.
It’s the ingrained belief in the re occurrence of future catastrophes that seems to drive human fecundity – as if the human species were ensuring enough survive the next time a global catastrophe is visited on us. Species which experience catastrophic reductions in numbers seem to compensate by having catastrophic increases in population numbers.
Now let’s wait for the usual suspects to wade in with their “faux” erudition.
So who are going to be the cannibals and who the food supplies – given that Greens are general vegans, it looks like we meat eaters are going to have no problem in surviving the next global cooling. After all the Cairn’s Aboriginals preferred Chinese to Anglo Saxons two centuries ago as food because the Anglo’s apparently had stinky flesh.
Vegan steak – yum yum.
Louis, the version I heard was that white fellas were too salty…
That aside, this post highlights a problem for all farmers. With all the varying forecasts and predictions, who is a farmer to believe in deciding whether or not to crop?
For example, I have lost faith in the BOM three month predictions – would not bet the farm on them, and for many cropping is betting the farm. Then along comes this quiet sun thing. I looked up our old rainfall records and found that during these quiet times growing season rainfall had been lower, and droughts had been a little more frequent, but within these cool cycles, was the occasional bumper year.
Years ago I collated and studied these records and the only guide I could find was that if there were good opening rains before the beginning of May, there was an 80% chance of an above average year. That’s good odds. Did that this year. Opening rains ANZAC. Wheat crop in. Went dry for 5 weeks – should have looked at the sun? Good rains again – relief.
The relationship between long range weather experts and farmers is like the recipe for eggs and bacon. The hens are involved, but the pig is committed.
Bad weather is one thing, but if farmers listen too much to the forecasters and modellers, and decline to commit when things look right to go, a lot more people would not get fed.
Helen,
Brett Pollock of Wooleen station in the Murchison has 145 years of climate records in his possession. He told me that the droughts in that part of the world last about 7 years on average, according to the records. 7 years is a third of the 21-22 year sunspot cycle, and it would be interesting to get hold of the data and analyse it as well.
“and it would be interesting to get hold of the data and analyse it as well.”
Why don’t we do it then?
Helen, that is possibly interesting where you found ” if there were good opening rains before the beginning of May, there was an 80% chance of an above average year.” But when does your year start for defining an above average year.? It is easier to tip at half time than at the kick off.
Bazza,
Mediteranean growing season = effective rainfall April to Sept. Discount summer rains Jan – March unless there are big monsoon dumps in March, then count about 30%. April rains counted. Oct rains not significant, Nov Dec damaging for harvest. (The summer rains, when we get them, are good for native pastures).
In only one year of early growing season start has this formula failed us. Mostly the 20% have been average years. For decades we have declined to crop if the opening rains came late June, early July. Avoided a lot of loss years, and only missed out on one bumper. Takes about 4.5 to 5 months for wheat to grow. Our growing season is too short to wait till half way through to make a decision.
Average year generally defined as sufficient rain in growing season to get average crop yield.
A good early start with a dry finish can still deliver an average yield. A late start is highly vulnerable to a short growing season and dry finish.
Bazza, of course it is easier to pick at half time. In NSW Nth Coast and SEQ we know that a really big Summer/Autumn wet season (1st or 2nd decile) will produce a three month dry spell in Spring. A milder wet season, (3rd to 6th decile) will usually indicate a more even rainfall distribution in Spring.
The BOM forecasts merely indicate volumes without reference to the actual value of the rainfall event to farmers and wildlife. We have just watched 600mm (6 megalitres) per hectare, over an area greater than 3 million hectares, run off into the sea. And because only a small portion of it was captured in dams, it is of no value to farmers and no value to wildlife, either now or in spring. Yet, half a megalitre in October is more valuable than all of the water we have just wasted because it represents more than a 100% improvement on what we would otherwise have had.
It will turn a 6 month growing season into a 9 month season. It will produce the wide growth rings in tree trunks that some people mistake as “wet years”. It will turn a one offspring possum season into a two litter season with twins. The diamonds are always in the detail.
Jan,
I will email and find out in what form it is – probably fountain pen entries in a ledger :-).
Ian Mott,
you mean the devil is in the detail?
My stooopid question of the day.
The bah-humbug in me wonders whether the problem is in the global cooling itself or in the uncertainty of long-term weather forecasts. With reasonably good forecasting, some farmers would plant the usual crop, others would curse and blow it off for a year, and a third category of farmers would temporarily switch to a crop that is better suited to the weather conditions for that particular year.
In moderate global warming (that peaked in 1998) or in moderate global cooling, there are always winners and losers. What’s the optimal global average temperature for agriculture? Hell if I know. However I do know that ice ages are NOT great for agriculture at medium-to-high latitudes. And we are due for another one in the near geologic future.
“probably fountain pen entries in a ledger :-)”
Well then the sooner we get photocopies the sooner we can start entering data :- but where?
No Louis, the devil and the diamonds are always in the detail.
Surely, the Murchison data will only be of use to folks in the Murchison?
I still don’t know squat about agriculture. So, another day, another stooopid question.
Suppose that anthropogenic CO2 has a major impact on climate change. Suppose further that the featured wheat crops are representative of what our current round of global cooling is doing to agriculture. In the short run, wouldn’t it make sense to burn MORE low-sulfur coal, in order to slow down global cooling?
And maybe we should rethink the scrubbers in power plant smokestacks in the higher latitudes. When prevailing winds blow the smoke away from heavily populated areas, ixnay the scrubbers altogether during the Winter. The particulates will increase the amount of solar radiation absorbed by the snow.
Perhaps that’s what His Goreness had in mind all along. Save the precious climate-warming coal until we truly need it during next Ice Age. How shrewd!
Jan,
contacted Wooleen and they send all their data to BOM, and they only collect the rain data, not temperature.
Ian, oh right thanks for the correction – and I suppose Murchison data is applicable but it still would be interesting being very rural – if no warming trend at all then that is solid evidence.
Hi Louis
I am at present on holidays – will not be home for a week or more. The dataset I used some years ago is with a rellie. Anyway, all that data was sent to BOM, and it does not have temp records.
Been reading http://www.spaceandscience.net/id16.html
temp to tank by 2012 …
Now according to the hypothesis that the sun drives temp and climate; quiet sun = cooling = drier = more droughts. According to the AGW hypotheses, increased Co2 = warming = drier = more drougnts. One has to be wrong, and three years is not that long to wait for an indication. In the meantime farmers had best keep doing what they do best.
Louis: “contacted Wooleen and they send all their data to BOM, and they only collect the rain data, not temperature.”
That might be interesting too to my mind anything the is obtained independently from the BOM has the potential.
Jan,
Might see if the BOM has it archived. Mundiwindi data on the edge of the Gibson would be another interesting dataset – I think the Obrien’s are still collecting it. (harking back to 1979 days though).