Abrupt
climate change and the world’s food production
This is the situation with the world's oceans at present.
It is known that 80% of the warming on earth has been absorbed by the oceans and this is shown in the following map which shows temperature anomalies in the world oceans with many "hot spots".
Whether or not we are going to see an el-Nino develop we are seeing a major uptick in extreme weather events - floods and droughts - everywhere on the planet
Changes
in the Earths Ocean and Average Temperatures. All Data taken from
NASA GISS and NOAA.
We have already seen worrying signs, such as the failure of the Russian wheat crop which was, in part responsible for the Arab spring.
Here climate change researcher, Paul Beckwith, from the University of Ottawa talks about the possibility of multiple crop failures
Here climate change researcher, Paul Beckwith, from the University of Ottawa talks about the possibility of multiple crop failures
Here are just some of the recent stories that testify to this. Thanks to Kristy Lewis in Sydney.
GRAINS-Wheat
up for 2nd day as harsh weather threatens crops
SINGAPORE,
Nov 26 (Reuters) - U.S. wheat rose for a second
session
on Wednesday as cold weather threatens to curb yields in
top
exporters the United States, Russia and Ukraine.
Soybeans
edged lower, giving up some of last session's
gains,
while corn was largely unchanged after rallying 1.8
percent
on Tuesday on the back of strong demand from ethanol
producers
and animal feed makers.
FUNDAMENTALS
*
Chicago Board of Trade wheat is being underpinned by cold
weather
hitting freshly planted winter crops. The U.S.
Department
of Agriculture rated 58 percent of the U.S. winter
wheat
crop as good to excellent, down from 60 percent the
previous
week, following the cold spell.
*
Major Black Sea wheat producers Russia and Ukraine may
fail
to harvest a record wheat crop next year due to the poor
condition
of their winter plantings, traders and forecasters
said.
*
The market is monitoring crop conditions in Argentina,
where
excessive rains in some areas have threatened wheat
quality.
*
U.S. FOB Gulf corn basis offers were 5 to 7 cents a bushel
higher
for January to March loadings with a firmer barge market
and
competition from processors helping boost flat prices.
*
The rally in soybeans on Tuesday was driven by gains in
soymeal,
a key protein source in animal feed, which remained in
short
supply domestically. The record-large U.S. soybean harvest
is
97 percent complete, but robust export sales of soybeans and
soymeal
have kept domestic processors in the hunt for fresh
supplies.
*
Traders also cited a Congressional Budget Office
preliminary
forecast for U.S. soybean plantings to drop by 2
million
acres in 2015. A CBO spokesman said the office did not
release
new official U.S. crop projections this week, but
confirmed
that estimates circulated among grain traders on
Tuesday
were preliminary forecasts.
*
Commodity funds bought a net 9,000 Chicago Board of Trade
soybean
contracts on Tuesday, trade sources said. The funds
bought
8,000 in corn and 4,000 in wheat.
Poor durum crop likely to impact pasta consumers
Poor durum wheat crop likely will mean higher prices or lower quality pasta for consumers
From
family dinner tables to fancy restaurants, plates of pasta are likely
to be a little pricier in the coming year because of a disappointing
durum wheat crop in the northern Plains and Canada.
Durum
is ground into the semolina flour used to make pasta products. About
half of the nation's durum is produced in North Dakota, where wet
weather during spring planting and the fall harvest led to a crop
that's more than 4 percent smaller than last year's, and of much
poorer quality.
Nationally,
the crop is about 8 percent smaller than last year and similar
production problems in Canada and Europe brought the global
production to its lowest level in 13 years, North Dakota Wheat
Commission Marketing Director Jim Peterson said.
"There's
not enough (top-end durum) ... for everybody to pursue," he
said.
It's
led to soaring prices for the best durum, which is bad news for
restaurants, particularly family run businesses like The Pasta Shop
in Marquette, Michigan, which makes its own noodles. Owner Marc
Reilly called the rising price of semolina "a nightmare."......
Concern
amongst olive-growers as crops fail
Olive
growers in the south of France are reporting crop failures well above
average this summer. The fruit is dropping from the tree for
unexplained reasons and the Department of Agriculture has stepped in
to try and determine the cause.
Olive
trees have thrived in the south of France for thousands of years,
becoming an absolute necessity in any stereotypical Provençal scene
along with lavender fields or vineyards. In the Alpes Maritimes
alone, over 4,500 hectares of land is dedicated to the traditional
crop, but this summer it is seems the harvest of the aperitif
favourite is threatened.
The
Department of Agriculture has become concerned about the autumn olive
produce for 2014, as startlingly high numbers of olives are falling
victim to the chute physiologique phenomenon. The chute is a yearly
occurrence whereby physiological factors, usually weather-related,
cause olives to shrivel and drop from their tree. It is unknown why
weather changes have this effect.
Aside
from the volume of plants affected, there is particular concern this
year as many olives are falling without shrivelling at all, while
others are falling with and without their stalks.
In
general these losses are sustained in June and July, before the olive
pit is fully formed and harvested. This year, it shows no signs of
slowing as we enter August.
According
to Maud Cuchet Damiens, the Chambre of Agriculture’s olive
specialist, “there is no evidence of the exact cause for this
failure be it bacterial, fungal, viral or due to an insect… the
phenomenon this year is beyond a normal chute physiologique in terms
of intensity and the timeframe.”
Jean-Michel
Duriez of the Association Française Interprofessionnelle de l’Olive
(Afipol) says the condition can be caused by excess water, improper
fertilisation or defects in the olive pit, but most importantly “the
olive tree is a fruit tree which, in cases of stress, has a marked
tendency to prioritise its own survival over that of its fruit.”
At
the end of last year, November 2013, it was noted by the Department
of Agriculture that the olives of la Trinité, the area which is
reporting a particularly bad crop fail, were behind on qualitative
development, with aroma and structure taking longer than usual to
progress. They were not available for harvest at that time, delaying
the usual time scale.
Olives
are harvested from November to February for oil extraction and in
autumn to be eaten whole.
At
present, leaves and fruit from failing crops are being tested by the
Chamber of Agriculture for any discernable causes which may help
prevent future losses for the olive growers of the Alpes Maritimes.
Kiss
Your Guacamole Good-Bye: Drought-Stricken California Farmers Stop
Growing Avocados
But new techniques may help growers squeeze more fruit from fewer acres with less water
When
Chipotle warned investors back in March that it might suspend serving
guacamole at its restaurants if avocado prices rose because of the
California drought, climate change hit home for chip-and-dip lovers,
who took to Twitter in distress.
Things
have not gotten better since then.
It
takes 74 gallons of water to produce one pound of avocados—and
drought-stricken California produces 95 percent of the avocados grown
in the United States. No wonder Chipotle’s bean counters are
worried.
One-third
of the state’s avocados are grown in San Diego County, which has
some of the highest water prices in the state. In Valley Center, a
town that is home to many family farms, avocado growers have seen
water rates rise steeply in recent years—so much so that irrigating
their groves has become more expensive than the price they get for
selling their avocados.
Water
isn’t the only challenge. University of California Cooperative
Extension farm adviser Gary Bender points out that avocado growers
have been hit by a triple whammy: rising fertilizer costs, spikes in
water rates, and stagnant wholesale prices owing to competition from
cheap imports from Peru, Chile, and Mexico.
This
has forced many small farmers to shut off the water and let their
groves go dry.
Growers
often don’t report their fallow acreage, and the San Diego County
Farm Bureau and the California Avocado Commission can’t say how
many avocado farms have gone out of production. But by conservative
estimates, a couple thousand acres have gone fallow just in Valley
Center.
“If
you drive around here, I could show you thousands of acres of
abandoned avocado groves,” said Eric Larson, executive director of
the San Diego County Farm Bureau.
Valley
Center pays some of California’s highest water rates because of its
elevation, which means water must be pumped up to the town.
A
handful of farmers have tried switching to wine grapes, but most
farms are on rocky hillsides not conducive to growing crops other
than avocados.
“The
bottom line is growers have to find ways to increase production on
the same land and produce more fruit per acre,” Larson explained.
That’s
where farm advisers like Gary Bender come into the picture. Now
retired, the veteran horticulturist is an expert on all things
avocado and is sought out by growers desperate to increase crop
yields while reducing water use.
Bender
has been working with several farmers to experiment with high-density
planting that spaces trees nearer to each other and prunes them so
they grow up rather than out, as branches that receive more sunlight
bear more fruit. Packing more trees on less land also reduces water
costs.
Growers
who have run trials found that they could increase their yields
substantially—double or triple the industry average of 5,000 to
7,000 pounds of fruit per acre.
Farmer
Steve Howerzyl grows avocados at two locations in Escondido, a few
miles from Valley Center. One 14-acre farm relies on municipal water,
which costs about $1,100 per acre-foot of water, compared with the
$1,500 per acre-foot that Valley Center farmers pay. On the other
farm, he only has access to scarce groundwater, so he has had to cut
down trees and he farms only three of 20 acres.
“The
only way you can compete with cheaper imports and the high cost of
water is if you go high-density and get more production per acre,"
Howerzyl said.
There
are few other options for staying in business as water prices rise.
“If
we can’t get more [for avocados] than our water costs, we will be
done in Valley Center, where groundwater is drying up,” Bender
said.
In
the long term, Larson expects total acreage to fall, but that won’t
spell doom for avocado growers or guacamole lovers.
“San
Diego County may produce more avocados than it does today,” he
said, “but on fewer acres, as the growers who do understand the
business develop techniques to produce more fruit per are.”
Climate Change Threatens Bees: Even More Evidence
With the threat neonicotinoid use poses to honeybees gaining international attention, researchers are now focused on finding other factors that are contributing to a worrying decline in bees across the globe. Climate change, they say, is certainly to blame, and parasites may be one reason why.
The parasite in question, Nosema ceranae, has long been a pest to honeybee populations. Parasites that invade a hive can spoil food supplies, larvae, and even disrupt wintering, causing bees to abandon their hives in what is called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) - a wide-spread problem that deadly pesticides (neonics) are largely at fault for.
With this invasive parasite exacerbating the CCD problem, researchers are worried that its increasing prevalence could prevent honeybee populations from ever recovering.
A study recently published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B even details how N. ceranae, hailing from Asia, is bullying out bee parasites native to the United Kingdom.
"Our results reveal not only that the exotic parasite is a better competitor than its close relatives, but that its widespread distribution and patterns of prevalence in nature depend on climatic conditions too," researcher Myrsini Natsopoulou said in a recent statement.
It had previously been thought that N. ceranae was not a major threat to global bee populations because the parasite is particularly susceptible to the cold. However, according to researcher Adjunct Reader, this may soon not be the case.
"In the face of rising global temperatures, our findings suggest that it will increase in prevalence and potentially lead to increased honey bee colony losses in Britain," he explained.
This, of course, is not the first time researchers have linked bee decline factors to climate change. Researchers are finding that certain bee populations are declining with the flowers that they have adapted to pollinate, while changing seasonal weather is causing the windows of time when bee workers emerge and specialized flowers bloom to fall out of sync.
Dismantling
ski lifts in Europe as world warms up
With
temperatures rising faster in the Alps than the rest of the world,
alpine countries are working together to adapt to climate change and
hope to set an example.
A
recent Austrian climate change report found that the country's
temperatures had risen twice as fast as the global average since
1880, with the number of sunshine hours in the Alps increasing by 20
per cent.
While
this may please holidaymakers or locals enjoying longer summers, it
is also likely to cause more landslides and forest fires, affecting
the agricultural sector and local economy, the Austrian Assessment
Report found.
"Just
imagine, you have a relatively narrow valley and in that small space,
you have a street, a railway line, maybe power lines and some houses.
If a landslide hits there, there will be serious damage," Georg
Rebernig, managing director of the Austrian Environment Agency, told
AFP.
"Preventing
this is what we're trying to do when we talk about a strategy for the
Alps," he said ahead of UN climate talks in Lima on December
1-12 meant to pave the way towards a global climate pact next year.
Rebernig's
office is part of the C3-Alps project, which groups ministries and
research institutes from alpine countries - mainly Italy,
Switzerland, Germany, Austria and France - to discuss ways to tackle
climate change.
It
is only one of several European initiatives promoting the sharing of
information and experiences in the Alps, a mountainous region of
around 200,000 square kilometres with a population of 14 million.
"The
effects of climate change can be seen and felt ... we have to look
ahead, take action," said Karine Siegwart, vice director of the
Swiss federal office for the environment, also part of C3-Alps.
"This
is a cross-border problem and it requires cross-border
collaboration."
A
UN report earlier this month warned that Earth was on a likely
trajectory for at least 4C warming over pre-industrial times by 2100
- a recipe for worsening drought, flood, rising seas and species
extinctions.
Alpine
countries are already shifting their focus to adaptation solutions,
acknowledging that climate change will not be stopped or turned
around anytime soon.
"We
have to take climate change very seriously. But we also need local
support and to sensitise communities and the population, because the
effects of climate change will be felt at a local level," said
Siegwart.
Low-lying
resorts have long invested in snow cannon to ensure white slopes
during the ski season but some have radically changed their marketing
strategies -- like Switzerland's Stockhorn ski region, which
dismantled its ski lifts to refocus on winter hiking and snowshoeing.
Rather
than building flood defences, authorities in northern Austria
relocated some 250 households which sat close to the Danube and were
badly hit by flood waters in 2002. The move cost more than $A119
million.
"Danger
zone plans" are regularly drawn up to identify no-build areas at
risk of floods, landslides or erosion, while the mountainous Tirol
region has invested some 125 million euros to build avalanche
defences over 17.5 kilometres of roads, so they can remain open all
year round.
Meanwhile,
farmers in Germany are being encouraged to grow crops that are more
resistant to heat and dry spells.
Glaciers,
the most common symbol of climate change in the mountains, have
shrunk by 15 per cent in Austria over the last 15-20 years, according
to Andrea Fischer, a glacier expert at the Interdisciplinary Mountain
Research Institute in Innsbruck.
Snow
levels and flora are moving up mountains and river water is dwindling
as glaciers retreat.
But
regions and local communities can cope with the changes, Fischer told
AFP.
"Mankind
is used to always adapting and dealing with difficulties. The idea of
a stationary environment is pleasant... but it's not life. Life is
about permanent adaptation," she said.
Alpine
countries are still drafting strategies to deal with climate change
but they can already be a model for others, Rebernig said.
"If
you look at other mountain regions, they're often not strong economic
regions. The Alps are different," he said.
If
local authorities can work together and gather the necessary research
early on, "then other regions who didn't have these means will
be able to learn from this".
But don't worry!
We have another Talk Fest and the bureaucrats and pen- pushers can tell each other (and the rest of us) that everything is under control.
You can go back to sleep.
Lima
climate change talks best chance for a generation, say upbeat
diplomats
Hopes rise
for global warming deal after US-China carbon commitments inject
much-needed momentum into Peru talks
UN
climate negotiations opening in Lima on Monday have the best chance
in a generation of striking a deal on global warming, diplomats say.
After
a 20-year standoff, diplomats and longtime observers of the talks say
there is rising optimism that negotiators will be able to secure a
deal that will commit all countries to take action against climate
change.
The
two weeks of talks in Peru are intended to deliver a draft text to be
adopted in Paris next year that will commit countries to reduce their
greenhouse gas emissions without compromising the economic
development of poor countries.
Diplomats
and observers of the UN climate negotiations said recent actions by
the US and China had injected much-needed momentum.
“I
have never felt as optimistic as I have now,” said Tony de Brum,
the foreign minister of the Marshall Islands, which are sinking as
sea levels rise in the Pacific. “There is an upbeat feeling on the
part of everyone that first of all there is an opportunity here and
that secondly, we cannot miss it.”
Beyond
Lima, there is growing evidence of the dangers of climate change, and
of countries’ failure to act.
The
UN environment programme warned earlier this month that
industrialised countries were falling short of the emissions
reductions needed to prevent warming of 2C above pre-industrial
levels, the goal set by world leaders. Carbon dioxide emissions are
expected to reach a record high of 40bn tonnes in 2014. Meanwhile,
2014 is shaping up to be the hottest on record.
Observers,
however, said there was fresh optimism surrounding the Lima talks
after the US and China declared on 12 November that they would work
together to cut carbon pollution.
Under
the deal, China committed to cap its output of carbon pollution by
2030 or earlier and to increase its use of zero emission energy to
20% by 2030. The US agreed to reduce its emissions by between 26% and
28% from their 2005 levels by 2025.
The
EU, the next biggest polluter after the US and China, earlier pledged
to cut emissions by 40% from their 1990 levels by 2030.
Christiana
Figueres, the UN’s top climate official, said the commitments,
which have been made well in advance of a March 2015 deadline, had
given the talks a boost.
“It
is hugely encouraging that well ahead of next year’s first-quarter
deadline, countries have already been outlining what they intend to
contribute to the Paris agreement. This is also a clear sign that
countries are determined to find common ground,” she said in a
statement.
Todd
Stern, the US state department’s climate change envoy, said the
US-China deal could push other big polluters such as India, Japan,
Brazil and Russia to come forward with their own post-2020 targets.
That in turn boosted prospects for a good outcome in Paris.
“I
think it will spur countries to come forward with their own targets,”
he said. “Generally if you are holding stock in the Paris
negotiations your stock went up.”
Andrew
Steer, the president of the World Resources Institute, an
environmental thinktank in Washington, said the US-China deal had
changed the atmosphere surrounding the talks.
“There
is in the air a sense of momentum,” he said. “You’ve already
got commitments of about half of all the greenhouse gas emissions
that need to be reduced.”
The
deal likely to be done in Paris will likely be a hotchpotch of
targets such as those announced by the three top carbon polluters,
according to an analysis by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
The
test for Lima will be the degree to which negotiators can corral
those separate action plans from up to 190 countries into a single
agreement.
If
the talks are to succeed, they will have to come up with a draft text
that outlines the structure of that agreement - how to ensure
countries commit to deep enough cuts to limit warming to the 2C goal,
and how to verify their actions.
The
US is pushing for a deal that would avoid setting emissions reduction
targets that are legally binding under international law, because
that would set up a clash with congress.
Many
developing countries, however, insist on legally binding targets.
They also argue that only the industrialised countries should have to
cut emissions.
The
negotiators will also try to ramp up pledges for the Green Climate
Fund, which was set up to help developing countries deal with climate
change. So far, the fund has raised $9.7bn (£6.2bn) from 22
countries, just short of its initial $10bn target.
The
fund is woefully behind its goal of mobilising $100bn a year in
public and private finance by 2020.
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