Hotter and Drier than the Dust Bowl of the 1930s

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

"And people say, I know not why, that we shall have a warm July."

Sir William Shenk Gilbert in Pirates of Penzance Act I.

Some of this is attributed in the article to global warming. The question here is have we passed the tipping point, or is this just a local phenomenon for this year?

If we get a second year like this, will there be a world wide shortage of corn and soya?

The SW Ontario apple crop was ruined this year by an early thaw which caused the trees to bud followed by a hard freeze which destroyed most of them. We are now experiencing a very dry period for the farms in my area.

[Wiecher 192]

The Balkans have extreme water shortages as well, according to the news.

Here in the Netherlands it's raining a lot, as usual, and not too warm, not even 20 C.

It was very warm the last couple of weeks in Eastern Europe, when I was on holiday. Temperatures in Romania and Hungary were up to 37, with heavy thunderstorms.

But it's not exceptional, just the continental climate.

And about the title, the dust bowl was more a result of bad land use causing rapid erosion than of just drought and heat, I believe.

[AcmeSigns 97]

Professor Richard Seager, who is widly quoted in This article] from the Huffington Post (yeah, that's where I always go to get unbiased reporting) is also quoted in This article as saying,

"Of course, those droughts took place well before any human beings lived in North America, so far in the past that it might be easy to imagine that nothing like that would happen during our time. But scientists like Richard Seager of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory have used tree-ring data to find evidence that the Plains and the Southwest were struck by a series of severe droughts that went on for multiple decades between 800 A.D. and 1500 A. D. as well. How mega were these droughts? There’s evidence that there were widespread blowing sand dunes across the Great Plains during the Medieval period, creating dust storms on a level that weren’t seen again until the 1930s—though in that more recent case, the dust was due more to poor soil erosion by farmers of the period than the dry weather."

I'm curious as to how dry spells in the 8-1500's can be attributed to 'man-made global warming' (note: I'm not a big Al Gore fan)? No flourocarbons then. No co2-spewing internal combustion engines. Maybe it was the bison farts (cows weren't here yet)?

Man hasn't been on the planet long enough to have recorded every weather event for every year (yes, tree rings and glacier core samples give some indication of past history~but the results can often be 'skewed' by whoever is doing the analysis). Who can say for certain that what we're experiencing isn't cyclic? And let's not forget the meteor stike that resulted in the Chicxulub Crater in Mexico some 65 million years ago that is widely attributed to the extinction of the dinosaurs. The planet seems to have survived, what I remember described from school as being a century-long blocking out of the sun, and come back quite nicely from the countryside I see around me. It wasn't all that long ago (1970s) that the doomsayers were predicting another ice age.

It's too hot. It's too cold. Sounds like a global version of Goldilocks to me.

Maybe all of the 'The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" rhetoric should be put off for a few years while we see what happens. If we screw the planet up so bad that it kills us off...well, the planet will be just fine. You don't even what to think about what will happen if a super-valcano goes off. Oh...and that isn't man made.

[Easy Bakes 253]

water rationing here in parts of texas that didn't get the spring rain we did.

food prices here are on the rise not due to the drought but lack of labor to haul in the crops.

[Duke87 1,070]

Y'know, the causes have no bearing on the consequences. Naturally hot and dry is just as destructive as man-made hot and dry. Corn doesn't care what makes the weather.

So the question is, how to deal with the worst case scenario?

  Edited August 9, 2012 by Duke87  

[Easy Bakes 253]

if its hotter then normal in one place its usually cooler in another.

we have balance.

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Balance doesn't matter if the cooler is not in an arable sector. Cool over the Great Lakes doesn't help the farms in Michigan and Ontario if there is no rainfall and it is something like 3^oC warmer on average. This leads to massive crop failure, and both we and our cattle eat plant products. No crops, no food. Can you spell famine? What happens when food prices get out of reach?

[Duke87 1,070]

And balance isn't necessarily helpful even if all affected areas are equally arable. If I have one bedroom that's sweltering hot and another that's freezing cold, I do not have a comfortable place to sleep even though the average temperature between the two is normal. And if one cornfield gets frosted over while the other gets baked, I do not have corn.

  Edited August 9, 2012 by Duke87  

[Ocram's Razr 964]

Eat Washington Apples! (especially red delicious, yellow delicious, and other garbage) Washington State is doing pretty well. We see no famine over here though prices on certain foods have gone up.

[Superbacon 380]

Illinois is doing relatively well despite the lack of rain during the summer. The water table is alright, too. Although we've been getting more rain in recent weeks, and it hasn't been as sunny.

[Wiecher 192]

I read on the news an El Niño has started. This phenomenon in the southern pacific has a large impact on global weather.

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

The current days of rain in Huronia may have just saved enough of the crops to winter over.

[SteveMSim 275]

Here in the Texas Metroplex, the official high yesterday was only 98°F after a "cool" front moved in, which was the first time in two weeks the temperature was below 100°. But the heat and drought are taking its toll. Lots of dead and dying trees around here. At this rate, the only things that will be able to grow around here soon are cactus and mesquite.