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Climate report draft outlines challenges for future farming
By JIM RUTLEDGE
D.C. Correspondent
 
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A complex scientific review prepared by more than 50 of the nation’s top climate scientists asserts in no uncertain terms that human activity is changing the world’s climate and forecasts for the country – and for the farming community, increasing temperatures and more intense storms that could offset and prolong some future crop growing patterns.
 
The conclusions are detailed in a worldwide climate assessment presented in a 669-page draft, the U.S. Global Change Research Program Climate Science Special Report (CSSR), dated June 28. “This report concludes that ‘it is extremely likely’ that human influence has been the dominate cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century,” the draft’s executive summary states.

For the past two months, the National Climate Assessment update draft has been under review by the White House’s Office of Science and Technology and officials were expected last week to either approve the findings or recommend changes by August 18, the federal deadline imposed by Congress.

According to the report’s lead author, Katharine Hayhoe, director of the Texas Tech University Climate Science Center, the deadline was to ensure that the study and its conclusions would be released by this autumn and published by the end of 2018, she told the Wall Street Journal.

Hayhoe declined to comment to Farm World, but through a spokesperson said any statements about the study could be followed on her various social media platforms.

In a report on Propublica.com, she said the study was intended to stress the scope of the increasing climate crises facing the country.

“As a climate scientist, I feel communicating this science is a moral responsibility,” she said. “We are the physicians of the planet,” and “climate change poses risks to people and our economy.”

This draft document is a quadrennial government study prepared in exhaustive detail by 13 federal agencies, the fifth and final draft led by three top government climate experts: Donald Wuebbles of the National Science Foundation, David Fahey of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Earth System Research Lab and Kathleen Hibbard, head of NASA’s Terrestrial Ecology Program.

The report, the authors said in its executive summary, was designed to be the authoritative assessment for the government on the science of climate change. The lengthy draft presents 15 chapters of scientific statistics and data supported by dozens of graphs showing changing weather patterns across the country, and temperature swings that highlighted the conclusions by thousands of studies that found with “very high confidence” humans are responsible for climate change.

“Many lines of evidence demonstrate that human activity, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are primarily responsible for the observed climate changes in the industrial era,” write the authors.

“There are no alternative explanations, and no natural cycles are found in the observational record that can explain the observed changes in climate.”

Specific to agriculture

For farmers, they noted: “Recent studies indicate a correlation between the expansion of agriculture and the global amplitude of CO2 (carbon dioxide) uptake and emissions.

Conversely, agricultural production is increasingly disrupted by climate and extreme weather events, and these effects are expected to be augmented by midcentury and beyond for most crops. “Precipitation extremes put pressure on agricultural soil and water assets and (will) lead to increased irrigation, shrinking aquifers and ground subsidence.” 
 
As a result, much of the United States will see longer growing seasons, and the report finds forecasting changes in cropping patterns and additional harvests.

“Longer growing seasons can also limit the types of crops that can be grown, increase invasive species or weed growth or increased demand for irrigation, possibly beyond the limits of water availability,” the authors said. “They could also disrupt the function and structure of a region’s ecosystems and could, for example, alter the range and types of animal species in the area.”

Since 1980, the experts cite that climate change has cost the nation’s economy more than $1.1 trillion through extreme weather events and other disasters from across the United States. “The last few years have also seen record-breaking, climate-related weather extremes and the three warmest years on record for the globe.”

Between 1901 and 2015, the average annual surface-air temperature has increased by about 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit across the United States, the report said, making recent decades the nation’s warmest in more than 1.000 years, and “days of extreme heat have become more common.”

This initial draft report, which includes thousands of studies, shows the faste strising sea levels in more than 2,000 years and a five- to tenfold increase in U.S. coastal flooding over the past 50 years. 
Since the last National Climate Assessment was published three years ago, “2014 became the warmest year on record globally, 2015 surpassed 2014 by a wide margin and 2016 surpassed 2015,” the executive summary said. “Sixteen of the last 17 years are the warmest years on record for the globe.”
 
According to a summary of the assessment prepared by the National Geographic Society, the key findings include:

•Global evidence makes clear that today’s climate is changing rapidly compared to the natural climate changes that have occurred throughout Earth’s history

•The frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation and extreme heat events are increasing in most regions of the world, consistent with the expected physical responses to a warming climate

•Human activities – especially emissions of greenhouse gases – are primarily responsible for the observed changes in climate since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution; there are no alternative explanations or observed natural cycles that can explain recent climate change

•Atmospheric CO2 levels have now passed 400 parts per million, a concentration last seen about 3 million years ago, when average temperature and sea levels were significantly higher than today

•The world is not reducing emissions enough to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius relative to pre-industrial temperatures by 2100, the goal of the Paris Accord

The authors state: “Global climate is projected to continue to change over this century” and the “magnitude of climate change will depend on the amount of greenhouse (heat-trapping) gases emitted globally.”

The climate assessment is likely to run into conflict with the White House and U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who has said “it is very challenging” to determine the exact cause of climate change. While campaigning last year, President Donald Trump called global warming a “hoax.”

Environmentalists and others are waiting to see what the White House says about the study and its climate forecasts. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters it is withholding comment until the review is completed. Eugene Takle, an Iowa State University climate expert, said he’s waiting to see what the specifics of a White House decision would say, or directives, if any, to federal agencies.

A negative decision he said, “could set back critical long-range planning in agriculture, defense, environment, homeland security, energy and other areas relating to food security, the environment and national security.”

Farm World reached out to the Union of Concerned Scientists for comment, but received no reply to inquiries. To read the draft report, visit www.nas.edu/catalog/24712/review-of-the-draftRachelFWMorrisonFarms 3x9 6330 MorrisonFarmsLLC EMAIL PcRlimOaOte-Fsc iTenOce -BspIeLciLalI-Ereport 
8/23/2017