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Scientists Say Climate Change Is Damaging Iowa Agriculture
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Radio Iowa reports that 155 scientists from 36 colleges and universities in Iowa are jointly issuing a call for action against global warming and calling on the US Department of Agriculture to update its policies to better protect the land. 'The last couple of years have underscored the fact that we are very vulnerable to weather conditions and weather extremes in Iowa,' says Gene Takle, director of the Climate Science Program at Iowa State. Both years were marked by heavy spring rains followed by droughts that damaged Iowa's farmland. 'This has become a real issue for us, particularly with regard to getting crops planted in the spring,' says Takle adding that Iowa had 900,000 acres that weren't planted this year because of these intense spring rains. 'Following on the heels of the disastrous 2012 loss of 90% of Iowa's apple crop, the 2013 cool March and record-breaking March-through-May rainfall set most ornamental and garden plants back well behind seasonal norms,' says the Iowa Climate Statement for 2013 . 'Iowa's soils and agriculture remain our most important economic resources, but these resources are threatened by climate change (PDF)." When the Iowa climate change statement was first released in 2011, 44 Iowa scientists signed on and last year's statement was signed by 137 Iowa scientists. "It's easy to set up a straw-man argument, to say, 'Oh, well climates always change; there have been changes in the past. This might just be natural,' " says David Courard-Hauri. "And often that gets played on the Internet as, 'Maybe scientists haven't thought about the fact that there have been natural changes in the past and maybe this is related.' " Of course scientists have thought about that possibility, says Courard-Hauri, but the evidence strongly suggests the climate is changing faster than could be expected to happen naturally."
I take it that they're going to allow us to adapt to climate change this way rather than have to, you know, stop polluting.
Is that you, Bobby Jindal?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
More or less the entire scientific community of the planet has been in a consensus about this for most of the last decade or two and our government still does not give a fuck. Iowa is not going to accomplish by itself what the whole freaking world didn't all together. The only way we'll ever start making progress on climate change is if somebody finds a way to outspend big oil, the car manufacturers, and every other petro-lobby.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
The first Earth Day took place on April 22, 1970, to " to create awareness for the Earth's environment and to encourage conservation efforts."
The phrase "Damn tree huggers" has been heard ever since. Yeah, even in Iowa. So, 40 years of deliberate ignorance and acrimony is coming home to roost? Tough grid.
"You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson
Is it any coincidence that Iowa is like right next door to Nebraska, and that both of these stories involve so called "scientists"?
I smell a conspiracy to pollute our precious bodily fluids. Or communists. Or something.
And Isn't Area 51 almost also next door to Iowa? You never can be sure, since the government also makes all of the maps.
Three Squirrels
excerpt:
U.S. Corn Belt Expands to North "Warmer Climate, Hardier Seeds Help Crop Gain on Wheat, North Dakota's Staple
RUGBY, N.D.—Wheat has long dominated the windswept farm fields of the northern Great Plains. But increasingly, farmers here are switching to corn, reflecting how climate change, advancements in biotechnology and high corn prices are pushing the nation's Corn Belt northward.
...
The shift, which is occurring in northern Minnesota and Canada's Manitoba province as well, shows how warming temperatures and hardier seeds are enabling farmers to grow corn in areas once deemed inhospitable to the crop."
KGB is under $1000/lb in California at harvest time (now). The cops have multiple checkpoints on I-80 and I-70 going east. Current estimate is CA grows 60% of the nations sweet leaf.
Iowa can continue to send money out of state for an agricultural product.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
When the overwhelming majority of scientists working in fields related to climatology say "AGW is real", and even the very small number of researchers working in fields related to climatology who are publicly skeptical rarely if ever actually publish papers in journals backing up their skepticism, I have to say, seeing some random AC on /. posting links to notorious denier sites doesn't exactly convince me that said AC actually a. knows what the fuck he's talking about, b. cares about what the fuck he's talking about, or c. is ever going to be willing to even consider really actually fucking learning a fucking thing about what he's talking about.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You know what's awkward for the deniers?
When you talk about the ozone layer.
The same people who said "if we stop using halons and CFCs, we can fix the hole in the ozone layer"
are the ones saying "hey, this global warming stuff is a problem"
Unlike the denial industry, the scientists have already been proven correct once.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
AGW is real, in that humans have caused the climate to warm, but that doesn't mean we can or should do anything about it.
Yes, that's the only way, and fortunately that's not going to happen. When all is said and done, if you could give people a choice between driving their cars and economic growth now, and a few degrees warmer temperatures and a few feet of sea level rise, they are going to prefer driving and growth.
Of course, the idea that we even have that choice is an illusion. Global warming is inevitable and we better just learn to live with it.
Make what the fuck public? Jesus, fucktard, the evidence, the models, all of it out there.
How about you actually go look, instead of hiding up your own ass and only visiting denier sites that function as you're echo chamber.
You have absolutely no fucking idea what you're talking about, and worst of all, you think that's a good thing.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
There are uses to hemp beyond recreational substance or medicine.
We have had a 50 meter rise in sea level in about 20,000 years. Does that give ANYONE a clue? Do you think any government could have stopped that?
Egypt was the most powerful nation on earth about 5000 years ago because of its fabulous growing regions. They are now desert caused by NATURAL climate change. Could any government reverse that change?
Based on lack of Sunspots of late, we may have an inordinately cold hard winter (climate change?) and some areas in the upper midwest already had 20,000 steers freeze to death. Climate change? Well, the same thing happened back in the 1960s, so was it climate change? Tell me when the next Maunder Minimum will occur? No solar scientist knows if or when. We still don't understand the long term variations of climate due to the variability of the Sun's output. Vary the sun up or down .01-.02% and the earth has large changes.
Scientists afraid of losing their job don't necessarily want to publish papers that go against the grain of politics. To do so may eliminate one's income.
There are damn good reasons to eliminate pollution where they occur, but the U.S. is not going to eliminate Asia's soot, carbon and heavy metals and chemical pollution. About 25% of the Los Angeles air pollution was noted in the paper recently to be from Asia/China. The US is NOT going to stop that by spending large sums in the US.
If we start spending massive sums before we really understand what is needed or even after, we may doom society to merely working for the government bureaucrats on a futile search for "stability" that can never be reached meaning we will all be serfs to an omnipresent government.
http://albertaventure.com/2013/06/albertas-farmers-adapt-to-climate-change/
“It’s jokingly been said by some people that we’ll eventually become the grape producers of America.”
The Good:
One of the ways this is measured is through the boundary for corn heat units, which measures where corn can be grown in the province. The northern boundary for these units has moved up a couple hundred kilometres since the 1910s, and it’s advanced about 50 kilometres since the 1940s.
The Bad:
His county was flooded four years ago, but he didn’t get any rain at all in July or August of 2012. “You can go from one wet year to extremely dry with no gradual buildup. Basically you just get hit with it and you have to survive it,” he says. “Nothing is consistent anymore. You think you have things figured out and then it throws a loop at you to say to you, ‘No, you don’t.’
Follow The Money:
agriculture-oriented investment funds have taken an increased interest in Canadian farmland?
Iowa agribusiness has been cultivating more land than ever due to high commodity prices. Between 2001 and 2011 Iowa went from under 1700 million bushels of corn to over to almost 2400 million, while soybean is nearly the same during that interval.
We did not become 40% more efficient at growing corn since 2000. That growth represents more land use; land that was considered marginal when commodity prices were low is now viable. Marginal means flood plain, land with poor drainage or limited access to water. What's actually happened here is that since the marginal land is now in the rotation, farmers incur higher risk of big losses during outlier years.
Two bad years after apparently 10 good years (at least) is not Climate. It's weather. And "Weather Is Not Climate." Or so I'm told whenever we get a cold spell.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
We're mostly growing crops that nutritionally not the best for our population, and by not rotating in crops of different nature (how about more green leafy veggies or other veggies that can be eaten fresh and not processed 1400 different ways before consumption?) or allowing fields sufficient time to recover...the soil depletion will likely be the death of the food basket section of the US.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
How much under? What would a 200lb agent bring? Is that hanging or live weight? What's the price elsewhere? Really don't want to pay California taxes.. So, is the cold war back?
Stop saying there is no consensus. There is a quasi consensus *on the science*. Once politics , denier, and teh conservative STARTS tio admit that point and stop trying to denie it with all their strength, we MAY take a step toward a solution. But as long as news media trump up some fake "let both side speaks" as if there were two side of the debate, and all the associated shenanigan to refuse admit the science is real, there cannot be any step toward a solution as long as people/politician deny the science. Once that hurdle is gone, solution will be found. But we haven't gone past that step.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
155 scientists from 36 colleges and universities in Iowa
That would mean there are more scientists and universities in Iowa than there are in the country I currently live, which is one of the more civilized in Europe. Now I may have been sleeping for all those years, yet....
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
And yet the AGW models The overwhelming majority of scientists working in fields related to climatology today get paychecks that rely on people being focused on their alarmism
Where are you suggesting these pay checks issue from? What would the UN, say, stand to gain by influencing IPCC research toward alarmism -- or bias in any direction, for that matter? In the other corner, as it were, who is bankrolling the denial camp?
Also I am pretty sure the latest IPCC report made a point of stating more clearly and unambiguously then ever before that climate change is real and man-made. We discussed it here on /. at the time.
Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
Let's stick to the science, whether it supports AGW or not (at the moment the probability of AGW being the most significant factor in our climate is decreasing - as far as I can tell).
Then maybe you should be looking more closely at the actual science, as the IPCC AR5 review upgraded their assessment of the majority of climate change being human-caused to "extremely likely" (95%+ probability). And while a few specific effects of climate change are now considered less likely, others such as polar ice melt have been outstripping projections.
Be careful about cherry picking your science, or letting others do so for you. Read the AR5 executive summary for yourself; it's by far the most comprehensive review of the actual science. And its conclusions are not that everything's fine - quite the opposite.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
You seem blissfully unaware of two things:
1) Weather != climate
2) Weather is an inherently chaotic system, and adding more energy (c.f. global warming) increases the chaos, i.e. makes for more unexpected/extreme weather.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Having lived in Iowa for awhile, I have to jump in and say that no, you're quite wrong. A typical Iowa farm does rotate crops between fields - usually between some variety of corn, soybean, and either alfalfa or wheat. They have even gone beyond and introduced no-till, contour plowing, and many other means of conserving the soil.
If there is a problem in farming there, it isn't in any alleged lack of crop rotation, but in the constant (and in many cases over-) use of Anhydrous Ammonia as a fertilizer - and in huge quantities.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Screw you. Unaware that weather is not climate...
I freaking state that in my post!!
The trend, from a climate perspective is for the start of the growing season to get earlier. This means that on the trend line for that variable, last year's value will be an outlier in the overall climate trend.
I'm getting sick of chaos being used as the trump card to invalidate any measure that doesn't meet the expected values.
A large portion of North America last March and April were unseasonably cold. Where I live, we had 20 days in April with snowcover on the ground (the first 8 being some of the days without snow). It was unprecedented weather for that time of year (i.e. unseen in my lifetime). The icing out out lakes in the area set records or were close to the records for lateness.
I am not disagreeing with global warming or that it can cause anomalous patters in weather. But all predictions and forecasts were opposite to what actually happened. This can not be waved away by your two points. I can only be factored in by making better and more reliable models.
It can also be factored in if the same thing doesn't happen again for a long period of time. Then the data from last year is just like what I said it might be and is an outlier from the trend. But in that case the trend has to move back to a general earlier data for the start of the growing season, like the models predict.
If I were in Iowa I'd worry less about the impact of climate change on the agriculture, which will take decades versus the immediate impact diverting massive amounts of ground water into ethanol production for fuel, which scientists estimate will take centuries to replenish. Stopping climate change today won't refill the underground aquafiers and without water, there are no farms, nor rural communities to farm them.
Without fertilizer a field needs to be left fallow about one in every 3-4 years, normally you would put livestock on it when fallow. Without fertilizer the global harvest would drop about 20%, this is why it's widespread use was called a "revolution in agriculture". Of course like coal burning itself we have traded sustainability for efficiency, and we have too many people now to turn back.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I didn't write anything about "bankrolling" a "camp". That sound suspiciously like conspiracy theory to me. As for paychecks... they do come from somewhere, yes? I'm not suggesting any kind of big conspiracy, as you seem to be doing. I'm simply saying: AGW is what they're doing, and they are getting paid for it. Is there something about that with which you disagree?
They are paid to research the climate. The climate exists and needs to be studied regardless of what it's actually doing, so as long as their research is based on actual data they would be getting paid to do their job no matter what... so there is no logic in asserting that funding grants are biased toward researchers who advocate AGW. Such bias would be pretty easy to show, since there seems to be a complete lack of angry climatologists whose grant applications have been repeatedly denied.
So the idea that researchers are crying AGW because that's what gets them funded seems to be a total non-starter. Got any others?
=Smidge=
Just as a point of reference, Iowa has been an incredibly fertile place to grow many types of crops. It is one of two places in the world that had huge loess deposits. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loess:
"Loess tends to develop into very rich soils. Under appropriate climatic conditions it is some of the most agriculturally productive terrain in the world."
Now, it's another thing entirely that Iowa farmers have been systematically killing their soil with heavy application of ammonia, fertilizers and the practice of fence-to-fence planting rather than the traditional "steward of the land" approach that prevailed so long ago.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
Hint : IT WASNT A THEORY
I guess you're unaware of what a theory is. Theories of gravity are still theories despite being confirmed to a lot of decimal places for the regimes where they apply. The speculated effect of surface emitted CFCs on the ozone layer is a theory.
Any rational person would be concerned about the lack of good data collection before the era of satellites. This problem cripples all of climate research.
I find it interesting how people babble about how bad "deniers" are while simultaneously demonstrating profound ignorance of scientific matters.
If you actually bothered to just even look at historical climate records, you'd realize that your statement is total bullshit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:All_palaeotemps.png
Even if it were true, it would make no difference, because it is hard to image climate that's less hospitable and stable than the climate that has existed during the past 7 million years, with regular glaciation cycles covering much of the northern hemisphere.
The same people who said "addressing CFCs will destroy the economy" are the same people (the very same) who said "addressing acid rail will destroy the economy" are the same people (the very same) who say smoking isn't linked to cancer, are the same people who say "addressing climate change will destroy the economy". And these people call their detractors "alarmists", and themselves "skeptics". It is madness through and through.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Isn't Dr Lindzen lead author of Chapter 7 of the recent IPCC report. I thought that document sounds like it only includes one point of view. If you choose your "expert" based on what you want to hear... then sure... the IPCC reports _are_ progressively weaker. Of course, the rest of the climate science community thinks of Lindzen as a crank, but to you he is Galileo. And what that fuck is he talking about? Who cares! He's sticking it to them alarmists!!!
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Has anyone published a comprehensive plan for world-wide replacement of fossil fuels? One that address the loss of the benefits of fossil fuels. Much of the quadrupling of the population of Africa in the last 50 years was fed by the over production of subsidized Western farms. A self impoverish West will not be sending food anywhere. India and China will not re-impoverish themselves, who is going to make them?
Posters on another thread voiced the dangers of a world wide economic collapse from an American debt default. The American money machine runs on oil, sun beams and unicorn farts will not power it.
We do, however, know that CFCs are harmful to the ozone layer, and there obviously were no CFCs up there before the modern era.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
I'm getting sick of chaos being used as the trump card to invalidate any measure that doesn't meet the expected values.
You aren't the only one. It was clear to me the moment the AGW High Priests invoked chaos to explain what was happening that they'd made it impossible to falsify their claims because if things go the way they predict, it's considered to be proof that they're right, and if it doesn't, they just invoke chaos. IANACS, but to me, at least, ever since they started explaining inconvenient events with chaos, AGW became, as Popper would phrase it, a meaningless noise.
That being said, I do think that cutting back on CO2 emissions is a good thing and that the farmers in Iowa should be taking better care of their topsoil, because that's just common sense, and AGW has nothing to do with it.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Phasing out CFCs had higher profit margins for the chemical companies and no significant opposition from anyone else, thus it was done.
Oh, it was the chemical lobby. You know there is a real history to this that you can look up. I recommend doing so, because it is a fascinating window into how power structures really work regarding these types of issues.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Do you even know what a scientific theory is? Do you understand that a theory doesn't actually have to graduate to anything more? A scientific theory is a statement that describes all current known evidence and is contradicted by none. Furthermore, a theory should be able to predict the results of new experiments in the same field. There is no such idea as "just a theory" in science because a theory is a very powerful and well vetted tool. It is entirely different than the use of the word in the vernacular.
Satellites are not the only means of collecting climate data. Ice cores go back tens of thousands of years and even human recorded history goes back thousands of years.
As long as the elements removed by the crop are replaced and disease organisms controlled monoculture can be practiced indefinitely. The field of poor Florida sand by my house has been planted in potatoes every year for almost a hundred years. Yields are four times what they were in the 1920s. For the last four years the farmer doubled cropped with corn being planted after the potatoes were harvested in May.
What's it to you whether climate disruption is real or not? Why are you so hot to deny it? You don't want to feel guilty for living a western lifestyle that generates lots of CO2, something like that? Makes you angry that you could be accused of contributing to the problem? You'd really throw our future away over such a petty emotional response? Really?
We're looking at the facts. And the facts say that big changes are happening, that we're the cause, and some of those changes are very bad. Yes, so bad that civilization could collapse. I know you think that's alarmist. You'd better wake up and pay attention. Do you understand why civil war is raging in Syria now? At the root it is crop failures thanks to an extended drought. If our food production falters, watch out. As Syria goes, so we all might go if we screw this up. Climate disruption has destabilized many civilizations in the past. The Mayas and the Pueblo Indians fell, and even the Roman Empire took a hit. If you think we are immune to that, because we're much more technologically advanced than those ancient civilizations, think again.
As to the accusations that scientists are making this all up to secure more funding, think more carefully about that. Not saying that such pressures can't lead to the production of less than stellar science, but this is beyond ridiculous. Any scientists who could show that climate disruption is not caused by us, and convince others because they are right, would publish in a heartbeat. The rewards for such groundbreaking work would be so great that some would break ranks to publish. There are so many organizations eager to publicize such work that it would be no problem finding a publisher. Yet this has not happened. Why? Because climate disruption is real.
Now, many of the more rabid environmentalists indulge in shaming. That's counterproductive. Try to get past that, and let's look at the problems, and think what is best to do about it. It's not only climate disruption, there is also ocean acidification. It may be that we need not be proactive, and the problem will fade away thanks to peak oil. We may be able to engineer our way out of this. Build dikes, scrub CO2 from the air, build more canals to maintain water supplies, and other measures of that sort. We can also act now, try to shift our energy production towards carbon neutrality. We will have to eventually anyway, so why not start now? We certainly should shift towards processes that save us money regardless of whether climate disruption is a problem or not.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Wouldn't growing a fodder crop like wheat be the same as fallow?
Negative, you need a nitrogen fixing crop like Alfalfa, Soybeans, etc...
Wheat is pretty much the definition of a 'depleting crop'.
I don't read AC A human right
The code for one of the major models, the GISS Model E is here.
Links to other models and both raw and cooked data can be found on this page.
All of what you ask for is out there, you just have to be willing to put in the time to look for it.
The climate models don't get fed much raw data, just starting conditions and whatever scenario they're evaluating for a particular run.
The evidence! The models! It must be true! Someone wrote SimEarth and it shows that AGW is real, so it must be! Look at how much happier the Sims are when I spend simoleans on solar plants and fusion plants!
If only we had cheat codes for real life, we could actually pay for all that.
What's really sad is that irrational rants like yours that make literally zero logical arguments get modded +5 Insightful. Either most people really are so gullible that they fall for it, or there really is a giant conspiracy to dupe people...or both.
You have absolutely no fucking idea what you're talking about, and worst of all, you think that's a good thing.
The hypocrisy is killing me...wait, I mean, the planet...
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
The midwest has never suffered from floods and dustbowls before in modern history.
*yawns*
Honestly, the poor agricultural techniques practiced are probably more to blame than anything else. Corn, Soy, Corn, Soy, Corn, Soy, oh and Alfalfa on occasion.
Miles of mono-crop with poorly tended farm soil and bad farming practices. There is a reason the dustbowl happened. And no, we didn't change ANYTHING except discover a deep underwater aquifer.
You do know what scientific models are, fall back to a conspiracy, and use Ad Hom attacks.
Nice argument~
DO you know the facts all this science is based on? at all?
Let me clue you in:
1) CO2 is transparent to visble light
2) CO2 is opaque to infrared light.
3) Visible light creates Infrared frequencies when it strikes something.
Predictions form these faces:
1) The globe will trend up on top of preexisting cycles. Check
2) The upper most atmosphere will not warm: Check.
and so on and so on
What do you propose will happen with the extra energy that is trapped?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
What extra energy? What would "extra" energy even be? What qualifies as "extra"? And who says it's trapped? The earth is radiating energy constantly.
The energy coming in that the top of atmosphere (TOA) can and is being measured. The energy leaving at TOA can and is being measured. From the conservation of energy the difference has to be the change in energy within the system. The difference is positive meaning more energy is being retained. It's as simple as that.