Climate news

Climate change 'will make hundreds of millions homeless'

Carbon dioxide levels indicate rise in temperatures that could lead agriculture to fail on entire continents

the Guardian,
12 May, 2013

It is increasingly likely that hundreds of millions of people will be displaced from their homelands in the near future as a result of global warming. That is the stark warning of economist and climate change expert Lord Stern following the news last week that concentrations of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere had reached a level of 400 parts per million (ppm).

Massive movements of people are likely to occur over the rest of the century because global temperatures are likely to rise to by up to 5C because carbon dioxide levels have risen unabated for 50 years, said Stern, who is head of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change.

"When temperatures rise to that level, we will have disrupted weather patterns and spreading deserts," he said. "Hundreds of millions of people will be forced to leave their homelands because their crops and animals will have died. The trouble will come when they try to migrate into new lands, however. That will bring them into armed conflict with people already living there. Nor will it be an occasional occurrence. It could become a permanent feature of life on Earth."

The news that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have reached 400ppm has been seized on by experts because that level brings the world close to the point where it becomes inevitable that it will experience a catastrophic rise in temperatures. Scientists have warned for decades of the danger of allowing industrial outputs of carbon dioxide to rise unchecked.

Instead, these outputs have accelerated. In the 1960s, carbon dioxide levels rose at a rate of 0.7ppm a year. Today, they rise at 2.1ppm, as more nations become industrialised and increase outputs from their factories and power plants. The last time the Earth's atmosphere had 400ppm carbon dioxide, the Arctic was ice-free and sea levels were 40 metres higher.

The prospect of Earth returning to these climatic conditions is causing major alarm. As temperatures rise, deserts will spread and life-sustaining weather patterns such as the North Indian monsoon could be disrupted. Agriculture could fail on a continent-wide basis and hundreds of millions of people would be rendered homeless, triggering widespread conflict.

There are likely to be severe physical consequences for the planet. Rising temperatures will shrink polar ice caps – the Arctic's is now at its lowest since records began – and so reduce the amount of solar heat they reflect back into space. Similarly, thawing of the permafrost lands of Alaska, Canada and Russia could release even more greenhouse gases, including methane, and further intensify global warming

Drought, cold cripple U.S. winter wheat crop – Western Kansas considered a disaster area

The winter wheat crop is expected to be far smaller this season compared to last, particularly for hard red varieties used in bread, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported Friday.

NBC News,

11 May, 2013

In the first government projection on the harvest's anticipated size, the National Agricultural Statistics Service estimated winter wheat production will be down 10 percent to 1.49 billion bushels, due to fewer acres — 32.7 million acres, some 6 percent fewer acres than a year ago — and a 1.8-bushel decrease in average yields, to 45.4 bushels per acre.

The government's forecast comes amid a season marked by drought and late spring freezes in the Midwest's major wheat growing areas, particularly in Kansas — the nation's biggest wheat-producing state.

Dean Stoskopf, who is growing 900 wheat acres near Hoisington in west-central Kansas, expects to have an average or below-normal crop because of all the dry weather.

"We were fortunate enough to get some rains here, where not everybody did, but it is still a wait and see what we are going to end up with," Stoskopf said in a phone interview. His wheat greened up, but Stoskopf is mindful that there is no subsoil moisture to carry the crop to harvest if the weather turns hot and the rains stop.

The wheat heads — where the kernels develop — have just emerged, meaning it will likely be July before Stoskopf can harvest if all goes well.

"We have a ways to go before we have a wheat crop," he said.

Nationwide production of hard red winter wheat, typically used to make bread, is expected to decline 23 percent to 768 million bushels. But that'll be offset somewhat by soft red winter wheat types — favored for cookies and pastries — which are projected to be up 19 percent at 501 million bushels.

One bushel of wheat yields about 42 pounds of flour — enough to make 73 loaves of bread.

Far western Kansas is considered a disaster area, and farmers told tour participants earlier this month that crop insurance agents have already begun writing off acres there. Wheat tour participants examined 570 fields, finding that in south-central Kansas, which got late winter snowstorms and heavy spring rains, the wheat looks good and production there is expected to offset a bit the losses elsewhere in the state.