Climate Change vs Corn

And when is Sugar going to be possible to grow in mainland US due to climate change?

 

The world has been warming ever since the last ice age. Man isn't causing it.

 

Please describe exactly what you think happens to CO2 put into the atmosphere by human activity.

Otherwise, your statement is equivalent to "Trees have been falling since the last ice age. Man isn't causing any trees to fall."

 

What a crock of poor science. Corn was first domesticated in Mexico, it will not only be growable in Canada. Many of the varieties planted may change. The researchers assumed uniform heating from global warming, while the theory says that warming will not be uniform at all.

The number one cause for corn price instability is the us governments policy - the mandate for fuel and tarrif on sugar. Simply removing the tarrifs on sugar and ethanol and removing the mandate would provide less demand for corn and lead to a more diverse crop mix. The combination of these policies is unsustainable.

We grow some, its just a much lower yield than in better climates like brazil or hawaii. Wouldn't it be better to import the sugar and grow what grows well here? US manufacturers that want to use sugar in their foods are now producing them in mexico where the tarrif caused by the corn lobby is not in place.

 

I once had a Tshirt that read, "Global Warming: It's the sun, stupid!"
Alas, the shirt has worn out.

Carbon Dioxide Through the Geological Eras

 

Mims: Research shows Texas is not warming - San Antonio Express-News

I won't be surprised if temps in rest of the continental USA havent risen either.

 

More importantly astronomers are predicting a Solar minimum phase lasting from 2013 to around 2050.
The global warming silly season will soon be over,as millions starve from crop failures due to shortened growing seasons caused by global cooling.
(And CO2 levels will continue to rise)

 

Texas has highly variable weather with much heat associated with ENSO, as this controls rainfalll patterns, and less rain increases summer heat. Depending on which dates you choose you will either get flat temperatures or warming on a yearly scale, but most fair studies show warming. Texas being lower in lattitude will experience less warming than areas further north according to both the theory and reality. This means those politicians blaming the texas drought entirely on global warming are wrong. I would also say my governors solution of prayer to end the drought was equally wrong. I would not say that that article is fair, but would agree that the blame for texas heat waves and drought on global warming is exaggerated. Texas is warming IMHO though, and this does make the large variablility in our weather worse. I went to a crawfish boil on saturday, at a friends house overlooking lake travis, and the water was very very low. Our rainy season has ended so it looks like anouther hot summer and drought year for central texas. We did get this prediction early on information on ENSO. We do know that ENSO may change because of climate change, but no one can predict if its changing in a better or worse way for Texas.

Back to the subject, texas does grow corn, and last year the crop was ruined by drought. I assume that most of the corn growing areas of texas will be converted to other crops in future decades as corn needs a great deal of water, and increasing population in texas would rather use the water for other things. There have been a couple of studies of corn yields nation wide, and corn yields have not dropped with global warming, because locally the conditions stayed favorable to corn. This US national statistic does not hold true for texas.

 

The link between excessive heat and reduced yields of corn and soybeans is well established, and was established before global warming was much of an issue. It's highly nonlinear and starts to kick in around 90F.

Its consistent enough to affect commodities price forecasts. Business people with their money on the line pay close attention to heat waves and their effect on crop yields.

Retrospective analysis of corn and soybean prices shows that heat stress is the number one driver of variation in US yields.

Google the words corn heat damage, or equivalent, and you'll see plenty of articles.

From the NBER, not exactly a hotbed of liberalism:

"Extreme heat is the single best predictor of corn and soybean yields in the United States."

Is Agricultural Production Becoming More or Less Sensitive to Extreme Heat? Evidence from U.S. Corn and Soybean Yields

Really nothing new with this research, other than attribution. Not at all far-fetched that this will continue and intensify.

Maybe they can genetically engineer modern high-yield corn varieties to withstand heat waves, maybe they can't. But for sure, if it were easy, they'd already have done it, because there's a need for that now, and has been for some time.

 

While this is true, we must understand global warming does not mean local warming. This is the impact on the corn crop so far.

U.S. farmers dodge the impacts of global warming – at least for now, Stanford researcher says

All of the difference in NA was do to government mandates and subsidies not global warming. Remove this government created demand from corn and there would have been more excess corn grown to export.

I would say the government policy is the key to price forecasts. We can expect local warming in other parts of the world and their government policies to continue to push corn prices higher.

Natural varition not global warming. Global warming reducing corn in north america is directly contradicted by the stanford study above. It is entirely false.

It likely did decrease corn and wheat in other regions.

But even if we stopped producing co2 today, the world would likely continue to warm. The solution might be that the government should remove tarrifs on sugar and ethanol, reduce the corn ethanol mandate and continue to fund crop research.

 

Since the 1950s corn yield per acre has increased substantially through traditional means of selective breeding, but also increased use of irrigation, fertilizer, and pesticides - even as corn has been pushed by government policy to areas of the country where climate and soil are less suitable. There has been genetic modification to include pesticide in the stalk - bt - and be immune to herbicide - round up ready. These have decreased the amount of water and pesticide used but with yet to be determined effects.

I would say instead of global warming being a problem for corn, so much land dedicated to corn because of government policies is bad for the environment. It has led to large amounts of irrigation, fertilizers, and herbicides that are now creating a giant dead zone in the gulf.

I have great confidence that scientists can continue to improve corn yields even in the face of climate change.
Florida-led team to research heat resistant corn | Grains content from Southeast Farm Press

The question in my mind is really how much damage are we doing to the environment by growing so much corn.

http://lwicker.myweb.uga.edu/corn.htm

 

Solar activity is pretty high right now... Might want to check that again.

 

Having been raised in the corn belt (Central Indiana), nearly every single trait of corn has been amplified. However, what matters is the entire combination of traits that maximizes crop yield. What will happen is the various heat tolerant hybrids will be introduced on a large scale when it becomes a necessary trait for maximum yield. Till then, pest resistance and large size are the dominators for now.

 

We are reaching the end of the current solar maximum.
Activity is actually low.Fewer sunspots, but the ones that occur are extremely powerful.BTW Thats whats causing disruption of the jetstream .This same activity is predicted to create extreme weather for the next year.
After that the Sun goes into a minimum phase.Solar physicists can tell already by examining the Suns internal fields that the minimum will have very few Sunspots.
Much like during the Maunder Minimum which coincided with the "Little Ice Age"when the Thames froze over.

 

This illuminates the dilemma.
Bioengineering crops to withstand heat,when the Earth is entering a cooling phase.
We all thought the Titanic was a major F up.

 

Alternatively, you could see what happens when scientists actually model that. Take a general circulation model. Check that it can replicate roughly the cooling observed at the Maunder minimum of solar activity. Then see what happens, going forward, if you turn the sun down to that level. Answer: Slightly slower warming.

RealClimate: What if the Sun went into a new Grand Minimum?

Here's current total solar irradiance. As you can see, the current maximum is ... well, not that different from the last one, by eye at least.



On net, I'd say planning for more heat waves in the future would be the more sensible course.

 

And as long as the rest of the thread is wandering off-topic, I'll bring up droughts.

Left unsaid here is that they only modeled the heat. Which is what they intended to do, so no slam there. They are just pointing out that the predicted increase in heat waves has serious implications for yields, given the currently observed relationship between heat and yield.

But, if this guy linked below has modeled the hydrology anywhere near correctly, that isn't going to matter. Because there isn't going to be much of anything growing in the Midwest by the end of the century anyway. No surface moisture, and nothing to recharge aquifiers.


https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/new...rought-may-threaten-much-globe-within-decades

So I guess my main objection to the study is that it's predicting the growth of a crop that isn't going to be there anyway.

 

Sugar has of course been grown in Florida for many decades. Note that US Sugar has been bailing out of their old holdings, presumably because they realize that global warming will cause sea-level rise to drown them along with the rest of south Florida.