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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   30475 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023

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Will climate change negatively affect crop yields? Has it already?

The wiki article on climate change seems to think so:

Climate change is affecting food security. It has caused reduction in global yields of maize, wheat, and soybeans between 1981 and 2010.

This links to IPCC 2019:

At the global scale, Iizumi et al. (2018) used a counterfactual analysis and found that climate change between 1981 and 2010 has decreased global mean yields of maize, wheat, and soybeans by 4.1, 1.8 and 4.5%, respectively, relative to preindustrial climate, even when CO2 fertilisation and agronomic adjustments are considered.

More on them later. But first, a little detour in the land of reality.

They obviously need all kinds of counterfactuals, because crop yields have greatly increased during that period. Plants generally love heat and CO2, and the earth is greening.

How then did lizumi et al get their results? Basically, they compared the simulations on a model on the yield of various crops under a no climate change (A) and with climate change (B) scenario, taking out the technological improvements. This would be fair enough (if you like models) , but the results show little to no difference (advantage B for rice and wheat, advantage A for maize and soybean).

So they added a third simulation out of nowhere, where they told the model to keep the CO2 to 1850 level (thus artificially lowering the yield the model predicts), but all the rest is like B (simulation C) . Then they averaged the bullshit C value with B and compared that to A, where A finally looked good.

https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/cb1df87d-a961-4f51-b986-ac0a633f0ffd/joc5818-fig-0004-m.jpg

Red mountain: The model‘s ‚unaided‘ answer B.

Blue mountain: random nonsense C.

Grey mountain: Unholy mixture they can now pass off to the IPCC as „considering CO2 fertilisation“ because hey, it‘s only half-garbage.

Because the amplitude of the observed CO2 fertilization varies with the field conditions and crop cultivars (Ainsworth et al., 2008; Hasegawa et al., 2013), the estimated impacts of the theoretical CO2 fertilization may be more optimistic than the actual outcome.

Or more pessimistic. Where‘s my all-else-equal 600 ppm simulation I can mix with B for a nice yield boost?

If you don‘t like the results of your model, don‘t mess with the „uncertain“ variables until it spits out the answer you’re looking for.

ANNECDOTE TIME!

As someone who has actually done it; it certainly effected my crops negatively in zones 9 and 13 (beans, avocados, stone fruit, nightshades, corn, rice, etc etc)

Corn has done fine every year; but everything else has had complete failures a couple times due to the seasons becoming unreliable. I've had killing frosts as late as april; when I look at the journals people had before they never went past late feb/early may.

I've also had complete failures of stone fruit due to temps swinging between 60-90 degrees in a couple days; which again was never reported in any of the journals going back 60-80 years.

Also, I've had failures of some squashes and such because the pollinators either swarmed early or late due to the seasons starting early or late; which is annoying as fuck.

Basically; my growing seasons are still perfect but the timing has became unreliable; which sometimes leads to completely unavoidable unpredictable total failures.

You can't put up frost cloth when you have no warning it's gonna sudenly drop below 40 after a 72 degree day.

We had our peas ruined 3 years in a row. Its not rising or lowering levels of this or that factor, its unreliability and unpredictability. Too much rain to early, cold snaps in April etc. This year a freakish wind storm in May wrecked all kinds of crops on neighboring farms and orchards. The average rainfall will probably be, well, average this year. But having a lot of it fall all at once over 2 days in May still wrecked all the peas.

Yup.

Unpredictability is the actual risk from climate change to mass agg; at least in the USA.

In coastal Socal this year we had a very long cool spring so my eggplant is just now setting flowers; and if it doesn't set fruit before it swings to full summer I'm gonna have to build enclosures for shade cloth and all sorts of other silly bullshit.

I've had killing frosts as late as april; when I look at the journals people had before they never went past late feb/early may.

Uh, April is before May, right?

get off my back ok jeez i meant march fuck god damn

Right after Smarch.

I'm guessing he meant March, not May.

You’re not taking any positives into account, like CO2 gains , longer growing season etc. Ask grandpa how many bushels per acre he got with his perfectly reliable swingless seasons. These increased intermittent losses, if they exist (complete failure in the past was hardly unknown, see famines) , are definitely included in the increasing yield recorded, and presumably in the model of the jokers above.

I have the journals, and productivity is the same on average; ignoring years where it is +-0.

I use solely traditional methods of fertilization and so I can rule out productivity increases from technology (excepting market access to things like cheap fish emulsion, rock phosphate, etc.) and things seem about the same across the board.

That said, productivity increase from non-heirloom crossbreeds (especially in stone fruit where the difference is MASSIVE) make it hard to know for sure in some areas.

If I solely grew for yield and not for pleasure (because it is a hobby for me), I could be seeing much higher yields even staying organic by choosing more hybridized plants and using some GMOs.

EDIT: Complete failures in the past where usually due to conditions that just didn't exist in my growing zones until recently. EG; the zone 13 farm is seeing the first drought in 3600 years at least. Nobody alive or their parents or their parents or their parents or their parents or their parents back to the conquiesta has recorded weather like we are seeing now.

It still isn't catastrophic because modern irrigation tech; but its defo not good. Lotta cows getting slaughtered early.

Ask grandpa how many bushels per acre he got with his perfectly reliable swingless seasons.

Careful, he might die laughing.

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