Fed report says climate change risks crops, water

uscitizen

uscitizen

Villified User
May 27, 11:16 PM EDT

Fed report says climate change risks crops, water

By JUDITH KOHLER
Associated Press Writer


DENVER (AP) -- Climate change is increasing the risk of U.S. crop failures, depleting the nation's water resources and contributing to outbreaks of invasive species and insects, according to a federal report released Tuesday.

Those and other problems for the U.S. livestock and forestry industries will persist for at least the next 25 years, said the report compiled by 38 scientists for use by water and land managers.

"I think what's really eye-opening is the depth and breadth of the impacts and consequences going on right now," said Tony Janetos, a study author and director of the Joint Global Change Research Institute at the University of Maryland.

Scientists produced the report by analyzing research from more than 1,000 publications, rather than conducting new research. It's part of a federal assessment of global warming for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, sponsored by 13 federal agencies, led by the Department of Agriculture.

"Just to see it all there like that and to realize the impacts are pervasive right now is a little bit scary," said Peter Backlund, director of research relations at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder.

Drought-strained forests in the West and Southeast are easy prey for tree-killing insects like bark beetles. Snow in the Western mountains is melting earlier, making it more difficult for managers overseeing a long-established system of reservoirs and irrigation ditches that serves Western states.

The Southeast doesn't have the same kind of storage system because rain historically has been more consistent. Current weather disruptions have the region struggling with drought, Janetos said.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CLIMATE_CHANGE_CROP_FAILURE?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US

What I have been saying.
 
uscitizen said:
May 27, 11:16 PM EDT

What I have been saying.
Click to expand...


Me too. At least it's satisfying to some extent to see that it's now being made official.

We've seen quite a change in the past 3 years or so in the patterns of bird migrations and insect populations, types and quantities. These both are clearly related to changes in precipitation patterns. People who have resided here for far longer than we have, have said that they've never seen some of the weather patterns that we've experienced recently. How much of this is due to climate change and how much is cyclic for this region is beyond me.
 
Thorn, wasn't the ogalla aquifer made from the last ice age or something like that ?
So we have to wait for another ice age cycle for it to refill ?
 
uscitizen said:
Thorn, wasn't the ogalla aquifer made from the last ice age or something like that ?
So we have to wait for another ice age cycle for it to refill ?
Click to expand...

That's what people are presuming in the absence of any read evidence. Nobody really knows where that water came from. We do know, though, that rainfall does nothing to replenish its levels and we're using it up at an alarming rate.

I say convert from water-hogging cotton crops to switchgrass, for cellulosic ethanol! Far less water usage, less tending, lots less pesticide (if any), no defoliant, 'way cheaper harvesting, and depending on where it is, perhaps more than one crop per year.
 
uscitizen said:
Yeah this sort of blows those away who say we will just irrigate and plant more land.
Click to expand...
In what way does it blow away the idea of planting more land using irrigation? If the current climatological patterns are going to last 25 years more (as if those making the predictions are doing more than a marginally educated guess how long things will last) then finding ways to adjust and compensate are essential. Better to find a way to react to these changes (such as making our own ways to transport water where we need rather than rely on the weather) than sit around and cry doom.

If the SE doesn't know how to irrigate crops efficiently, let them ask Idaho. Over the last 5 decades Idaho has been expanding irrigation systems successfully to triple their arable land. Or ask Israel, who have accomplished incredible (one might say miraculous) advances in desalination and irrigation.

Water is still available, but unfortunately not where we are used to having it. Water is made of the most common, and eighth most common elements in the universe. Unlike other animals on this planet, we do not have to take what nature dishes out and die out when the cards go bad. Man is different. We have a CHOICE: to sit and cry, or stand up and make our own changes to compensate. trick is to make the adjustments quickly and efficiently, rather than cry, moan, wail, bitch, debate, get drunk, and then finally start adjusting 10 or 20 years after we should have started.
 
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