Jul 272012
Over half of the United States is in the grips of a historic drought that has hit the Midwestern agricultural belt of the nation especially hard, generating fears of food shortages, price spikes, and a dangerous “new normal” in what could be called America’s “climate change summer.”
The recent increase in extreme and unusual weather conditions that has spawned everything from the deadliest tornado in history last year to thunderstorms that left millions of people without power along the Mid-Atlantic just weeks ago has already cost billions of dollars and disrupted tens of millions of lives.
But the most consequential effect of what some say are the first direct climatological manifestations of a warming planet could be the dry and hot conditions that have led to the worst drought since the Dust Bowl in many locations.
America’s grain belt and agricultural heartland are suffering under nearly unprecedented conditions, barely experiencing any rain in more than a month’s span. Officials and forecasters now say the drought covers just under 100 percent of the nation’s High Plains as well as almost 90 percent of the entire Midwest. The crisis is also spreading into the South along with record heat and record low rainfall.
The most extensive U.S. drought in five decades intensified this week across the Midwest and Plains states that produce most of the country’s corn, soybeans and livestock, a report from climate experts showed on Thursday.
`
And the drought is worsening in the South, which was just,recovering from last year’s drought – the worst Texas had seen in a century.
`
Almost 30 percent of the nine-state Midwest was suffering extreme drought, nearly triple from the previous week, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor for the week ending July 24. Conditions in the Midwest, which produces roughly three-quarters of the corn and soybean crops in the world’s largest producer and exporter, worsened despite the first measurable rainfall in a month in some areas.
`
More than 53 percent of the United States and Puerto Rico are in moderate drought or worse, a record-large amount for the fourth straight week in the Drought Monitor’s 12-year history.
`
Most concerning to weather experts is that instead of beginning to recede, the almost nationwide drought is surging in intensity even as it continues to hold its grip on an area of severe drought only eclipsed nearly 80 years ago.
`
America’s drought event has reached “historic levels” and will continue through at least the end of July, says Dr. Jeff Masters.
`
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and the federal government announced that over 1300 counties in 30 states are officially drought disaster areas, stretching across te heart of the country’s farming belt from California to Delaware.
`
The devastating combination of searing heat and little to no rainfall over several months is wreaking havoc with everything from family farms to major agribusiness operations across the Midwest. Crop yields are limited to non-existent and cattle and other market animals are either lean or beginning to die off.
`
Government officials are sounding alarms that the situation has gotten so serious that food supplies in the U.S. may begin to be depleted as supply chains show signs of stress due to dramatically reduced agricultural output. The Obama administration is asking Congress for emergency drought aid funding as Secretary Vilsack says an “extra prayer” for rain.
`
The Obama administration warned Wednesday that food supplies were at risk from the worsening drought afflicting more than half of the country and called on Congress to revive lapsed disaster aid programs.
`
President Obama reviewed the situation with Tom Vilsack, the agriculture secretary, who called it “the most serious situation” in about 25 years and added that he was praying for rain. “I get on my knees every day, and I’m saying an extra prayer now,” Mr. Vilsack told reporters at the White House after his discussions with Mr. Obama. “If I had a rain prayer or rain dance I could do, I would do it.” Mr. Vilsack said 1,297 counties, or roughly a third of those in the nation, had been designated disaster areas. He said 39 more were being added on Wednesday.
`
More than three-quarters of the nation’s corn and soybean crops are in drought-affected areas, and more than a third of those crops are now rated poor to very poor, Mr. Vilsack said. The price of corn has increased in recent weeks by 38 percent, and the price of beans is up 24 percent. The country may still have the third-largest corn crop in history because earlier good weather encouraged planting, but Mr. Vilsack said the drought would increase food prices into 2013.
……….
`
The administration has lowered the interest rate for emergency loans and has worked to streamline aid programs. Mr. Vilsack said Congress could help by restoring disaster programs that expired last year or by providing other assistance through the Food, Farm and Jobs Act, a pending overhaul of the nation’s nutrition and agriculture program.
`
Long-term effects of the drought are likely to get worse every day the farm belt is scorched. Even if the nation’s food supply remains stable, the most dramatic fallout from the 2012 drought will be skyrocketing food prices. The government has released highly conservative estimates of increases in beef and poultry prices by nearly 5 percent for next year.
`
Corn prices have already spiked more than 50 percent in the open market, leading to guaranteed pain for Americans at the grocery store within months and more serious, potentially life-threatening consequences for developing countries relying on American grain.
`
Without rain, officials with the USDA say they’re “not going to know” how far and fast food prices will go up.
`
A fierce drought has been scorching crops this summer, but it’s still too soon to know exactly how much of a hole it will burn in your wallet.The U.S. Department of Agriculture has just released its latest forecast for retail food prices. Although beef and poultry prices are expected to rise as much as 4.5 percent this year, the USDA left its earlier forecast for overall food inflation about where it was — at 2.5 percent to 3.5 percent for this year.That could change if the drought continues, USDA economist Richard Volpe said Wednesday
`
When it comes to rain, “it’s a moving target; it’s changing every day,” he said. “Until we get that first heavy rain, we’re not going to know for sure” just where prices will end up in 2012. But it’s clear the general direction is up – especially for meat. And 2013 will see even more food price inflation as the drought impact works its way through the pricing pipeline, he said.
`
The USDA report concluded that “the severe drought in the Midwest is expected to affect prices for corn and soybeans as well as other field crops which should, in turn, impact retail food prices.“
……
It’s different in less prosperous regions of the world. Many shoppers in poor countries pick up a simple sack of cereal at an open market. There’s no elaborate packaging for the food or light fixtures for the store. The price paid by the customer tracks closely with the cost of the crops. So a spike in commodity prices can translate much more directly into a jump in the retail price.
`
What’s the cause? Besides some of the lowest rainfall totals ever recorded for the summer months all across the Midwest, excessive heat has blanketed the country for most of the year. The first six months were already some of the hottest ever recorded in the United States. Now forecasters say this July is likely to demolish the 1930′s-era record for the hottest in history.
`
These temperature records are not that difficult to comprehend when taking into account all of the ominous signs scientists have linked together as fallout from man-made climate change. While hotter and drier weather is well known to be the calling card of global warming, experts contend that the avalanche of extreme events in just the past year alone could be a sign that we have reached a tipping point where these devastating and unpredictable phenomenon will be the “new normal” in a warmer world.
`
Scientists find that climate change will bring more severe weather like tornadoes and extreme wind and hail events, along with sharp increases in wildfires across larger and larger swaths of the American West. Both have already made their mark in the past 12 moths with record-setting storms and fires that incinerated thousands of homes and nearly destroyed the Air Force Academy in Colorado.
`
Likewise, the experts are forecasting more frequent and severe drought for much of the North American continent, as well as most of the world’s heavily populated regions. This year’s drought disaster is likely just the beginning of a hotter and drier future for the planet that could lead to even more devastation.
`
NCAR image showing what global drought conditions could look like in just 20 years if carbon emissions are left uncapped. (Notice the pink bullseye over the U.S. Midwest and Plains)
`
Scientists with the National Atmospheric Research Center predict “enormous” consequences for “society worldwide” as climate change dramatically increases the risk of widespread drought conditions over the next 30 years. In other words, it’s possible the farm fields of the Midwest will not recover for a very long time.
`
The United States and many other heavily populated countries face a growing threat of severe and prolonged drought in coming decades, according to a new study by National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) scientist Aiguo Dai. The detailed analysis concludes that warming temperatures associated with climate change will likely create increasingly dry soil conditions across much of the globe in the next 30 years, possibly reaching a scale in some regions by the end of the century that has rarely if ever been observed in modern times.Using an ensemble of 22 computer climate models and a comprehensive index of drought conditions, as well as analyses of previously published studies, the paper finds much of the Western Hemisphere, along with large parts of Eurasia and Africa, may be at threat of extreme drought this century.
`
……
`
“We are facing the possibility of widespread drought in the coming decades, but this has yet to be fully recognized by both the public and the climate change research community,” Dai says. “If the projections in this study come even close to being realized, the consequences for society worldwide will be enormous.”
`
As noted above, this year’s drought is still ranked behind the Dust Bowl era and another drought from the 1950′s in terms of either size, scale, or length. In these traditional demarcations, 2012 is not quite the worst on record (though it’s very close). But many scientists say the realities of climate change make such statistics obsolete. They say other forms of data, such as taking temperatures and how many trees have died, into effect is a more accurate and reliable tally of the climate change-infused 2012 drought.
`
Significantly hotter temperatures –remember, July will be the warmest ever recorded — has made the impacts of this drought perhaps the worst in American history. Millions of acres of trees alone have been killed, with similar acreage in vital food crops likely to be destroyed by the searing heat.
`
June temperatures produced 2,284 new daily highs nationwide and tied 998 existing records. In most places, the shoe-melting heat translated into drought, and the Department of Agriculture set a record of its own recently by declaring 1,297 dried-out counties in 29 states to be “natural disaster areas.” June also closed out the warmest first half of a year and the warmest 12-month period since U.S. record keeping began in 1895. At present, 56 percent of the continental U.S. is experiencing drought, a figure briefly exceeded only in the 1950s.Higher temperatures have a big impact on plants, be they a forest of trees or fields of corn and wheat. More heat means intensified evaporation and so greater water stress.
`
In New Mexico, researchers compared the drought of the early 2000s with that of the 1950s. They found that the 1950s drought was longer and drier, but that the more recent drought caused the death of many more trees, millions of acres of them. The reason for this virulence: It was 1 degree C to 1.5 degrees C hotter.
`
The researchers avoided the issue of causality by not claiming that climate change caused the higher temperatures, but in effect stating: “If climate change is occurring, these are the impacts we would expect to see.” With this in mind, they christened the dry spell of the early 2000s a “global-change-type drought” — not a phrase that sings but one that lingers in a foreboding way in the mind.
`
Adding to the idea that the Earth’s “tipping point” in keeping back the most intense and economically devastating consequences of global warming has been reached is the dramatic news from NASA researchers that Greenland is, quite literally, melting before our eyes.
`
Summer thaws usually obliterate less than 50 percent of Greenlands’s historically impermeable ice sheet, but 2012′s record temperatures caused nearly all of it to melt in less than a week, as displayed in stunning satellite images.
`
While the scientific and climate community has taken notice and sounded alarms on the far-reaching effects of climate change, the nation’s political leaders have yet to embrace this reality.
`
Even the Obama administration refuses to place any blame for this year’s exceptional drought and heat on climate change. Agriculture Secretary Vilsack chided reporters who asked him about whether the government believed global warming played a role in the severity of the Midwestern drought, insisting that the administration was focused on “near-term” problems and that it was more important to “help” farmers with “low interest rates.”
`
Q: Could you talk a little bit about the drought itself? Is it very unusual? Did anyone see it coming? Is it from climate change? Is there anything you can do to prepare?SECRETARY VILSACK: I’m not a scientist so I’m not going to opine as to the cause of this. All we know is that right now there are a lot of farmers and ranchers who are struggling. And it’s important and necessary for them to know, rather than trying to focus on what’s causing this, what can we do to help them. And what we can do to help them is lower interest rates, expand access to grazing and haying opportunities, lower the penalties associated with that, and encourage Congress to help and work with us to provide additional assistance. And that’s where our focus is.
`
…..
Our focus, to be honest with you, in a situation like this is on the near term and the immediate, because there’s a lot of pressure on these producers.
`
Uhhh, uh oh. I’m just wondering now how long have we actually got.
Comment removed by administrator
Climate change is real, is harmful and is happening before our eyes and yet there are still many people that insist on turning a blind eye to all the signs and proof and dismissing it all as nothing more than paranoia.
40% of the corn crop in America is diverted to make ethanol, a so called and mandated ‘green’ fuel that actually take more than a gallon of gasoline to make a gallon of eithanol. In other words, a total waste! Saves no gasoline nor dependence on imported oil at all. If this 40% of the crop was available to feed our stomachs instead of our gas tanks, the inflationary food costs of this or any drought would be substantially less. Even without a drought, food would be cheaper if corn wasn’t used to make ethanol. That is extremely important if you are poor or middle class on a tight budget.
Our society continues to believe that what happens to the earth is irrelevant to our well being. This is becoming harder and harder to maintain. We are now having an election where neither candidate has said anything to my knowledge about the environment. Nothing. Nada. And that is to say nothing when it comes to the climate – which like guns is unofficially off limits as an issue. To paraphrase Leon Trotsky about war, just because they are not interested in the climate, doesn’t mean that climate is not interested in them. Whoever wins, there will be a convention of 800 lb gorillas camped on their front lawn. Nature is back and she is not in a good mood. This might be an auspicious moment to start a betting pool on how much longer denial will be possible.
I just keep getting hotter and broker. And I watch tv and see the Republicans in Congress denying climate change, so the Koch brothers’ pipelines can keep gushing. I saw the Republicans in Congress support the ill-conceived, unregulated, no-consequences, hundreds of billions of dollars Wall Street giveaway that Bush asked them for, but march in lockstep to block any help under any terms for anyone since. Evidently, they hunger for more dire consequences.