By Chad Kruger
Reprinted from: WSU CSANR Perspectives on Sustainability
In two prior posts (threats and variability), based on our research, I have argued that climate change is not likely to be a major cause for concern for agricultural production in the Pacific Northwest until at least mid-century. A little bit of warming and a little bit of CO2 elevation is actually positive for most crops in the PNW. In this post, I’m going to tell you why I might be wrong. Continue reading
By Chad Kruger
Reprinted from: WSU CSANR Perspectives on Sustainability
The observed temperature records of the US Pacific Northwest show a small, but statistically significant amount of warming of just over 1 degree F since the year 1900. A paper published in March of this year by Abatzaglou, Rupp and Mote (2014) used a multiple linear regression model to “tease out” the contributions of different influences on climate and “to apportion trends to internal climate variability, solar variability, volcanic aerosols, and anthropogenic forcing [a.k.a. human greenhouse gas emissions]”. Unsurprisingly, the finding of this study was as expected:
Anthropogenic forcing was a significant predictor of, and the leading contributor to, long-term warming; natural factors alone fail to explain the observed warming.
Photo: Andy Simonds
By Chad Kruger
Reprinted from: WSU CSANR Perspectives on Sustainability
One of the caveats I always state when presenting the results of our research on projected climate change impacts on PNW agricultural production is: we don’t yet know if climate change will disrupt our existing regional climate cycles. To date, the climate forecasts for our region indicate a future where climate change amplifies the current cycles – resulting in a future that is warmer and possibly slightly wetter on average, but still keeping the pattern of relatively short-cycling between wet and dry periods. These wet and dry periods rarely last for more than a couple of years. Continue reading
By Chad Kruger
Reprinted from: WSU CSANR Perspectives on Sustainability
In a recent interview that covered the gamut of oft-cited threats to agricultural sustainability and food security (drought, food safety, energy disruption, economics, terrorism, chemical pollution, genetic pollution, impacts on pollinators, soil erosion, climate change, etc.), I was asked which threat I thought was the biggest. I was completely stumped. For every threat that came to mind as “the big one” I could come up with at least two arguments why a different threat was bigger. Continue reading
By Chad Kruger
Reprinted from: WSU CSANR Perspectives on Sustainability
A new paper published in Environmental Science & Technology (DeLucia et al., 2014) suggests that scientists have drastically underestimated the earth’s theoretical potential to produce biomass – by as much as 2 orders of magnitude! That’s going to take a minute to wrap my mind around.
By Chad Kruger
Reprinted from: WSU CSANR Perspectives on Sustainability
Palouse (photo: Nikki Stephen)
The US Global Change Research Program released the Third National Climate Assessment a couple of weeks ago. Unlike some other recent climate report releases (USDA’s Climate Change and Agriculture Report, the Northwest Climate Assessment and the IPCC AR5 Draft Report), this one seemed to have been picked up to a much greater extent by the major national and regional news agencies. In fact, I’ve been interviewed by two separate NPR reporters in the region for my interpretation on what the Assessment means for PNW agriculture. Part of the reason for the media attention likely stems from the much more aggressive promotional messaging – specifically stating that climate change is hurting the economy now (I’ll have more to say on that idea in a future post).
By Chad Kruger
Reprinted from: WSU CSANR Perspectives on Sustainability
I’ve seen a lot of crazy ideas in the realm of agricultural technology and even toyed with a few crazy ideas myself. Crazy ideas seem to have an appeal in our society that exceeds any rational expectation for the likely success or concern regarding the downside of any given technology. Perhaps this is because people are always looking for the next revolutionary technology like tractors, hybrid seeds, and solar fence electrifiers. Or perhaps it’s because we’re hard-wired to expect technological silver bullets to solve distinctly human problems. In fact, I suspect the reason that our own crazy (and not quite perfect) idea for a household-scale biogas reactor is among the most visited pages on the CSANR website is because it conjures up images of this infamous science fiction idea:
Who wouldn’t want to have that? Continue reading
By Chad Kruger
Reprinted from: WSU CSANR Perspectives on Sustainability
Nick Bond, the Washington State Climatologist, pointed out an interesting observation at a meeting I attended last week. For summers from 2000-2010, nighttime temperatures (T-min) in many locations in the Pacific Northwest have shown a strong warming trend while daytime temperatures (T-max) have shown a general cooling trend (Panel 1). Each circle on the map is scaled based on the station’s temperature trend with red indicating increasing temperature and blue decreasing. This could be part of the reason I’ve had trouble sleeping at night in recent summers – more below!
Panel 1: Summer Min (nighttime) and Max (daytime) Temperatures: 2000-2010; Source: http://www.climate.washington.edu/trendanalysis/ Continue reading
By Chad Kruger
Reprinted from: WSU CSANR Perspectives on Sustainability
Over the past several months we’ve seen: a freak early-season snow storm in the Dakotas that killed tens of thousands of cattle that could take affected ranchers more than a decade to recover from, continued and expanding drought conditions in the corn belt of the Upper Midwest, extended drought cutting off irrigation water in the “produce basket” of the Central Valley of California, massively destructive storms and flooding in the Gulf Coast, and a deadly virus killing piglets in more than half the country. In spite of this, we’re just finally seeing reports that the price of food is creeping higher – a whopping 0.4% two months in a row! – with the increasing price of bacon the one most people are complaining about. Continue reading
By Chad Kruger
Reprinted from: WSU CSANR Perspectives on Sustainability
Several modeling studies have been conducted in recent years to estimate the potential impact of climate change on future crop production. These studies generally indicate that the magnitude of the potential near-future impact (through 2050) is relatively modest for most crops in the Pacific Northwest – and usually somewhat positive. Climate variability, on the other hand, already impacts crop yields at magnitudes equal to or greater than those projected for mid-century, and often in a very negative way. So why do these studies focus on future climate if current climate seems to be the bigger concern?