Drought in China adds pressure to world food prices
The soil lies cracked and broken in China's Shangdong Province, thirsting for rains that will not come. China's key wheat producing region, lying just south of Beijing, has received just 12 millimeters (1/2 inch) of rain since September, according to the Chinese news service Xinhua. If no rains come during the remainder of February, it could become the worst drought in 200 years. The latest precipitation forecast from the GFS ensemble model predicts the possibility of rains of around 1/2 inch for Shandong Province early next week, but these rains would help only a little. A longer-range 2-week forecast from the operational GFS model shows little or no rain for the region from late next week well into March. Columbia University's International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) projects that spring in Eastern China has an enhanced probability of being dry, with only a 20% - 25% chance that the region will see above average precipitation, and a 40% - 45% chance of below average precipitation. So the great drought will likely continue, and China's ability to feed itself may be greatly challenged this year.
Figure 1. A dried cornfield in a mountainous area of Jinan, capital of east China's Shandong Province, Jan. 18, 2011. Image credit: Xinhua/Zhu Zheng.
Figure 2. Drought conditions in China's Shandong Province this February have reached the "Severe" category. Image credit: Beijing Climate Center.
Impact on global food supplies and food prices
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the drought in north China seems to be putting pressure on wheat prices, which have been rising rapidly in the past few months. This has helped push global food prices to their highest levels since the FAO Food Price Index was created in 1990 (Figure 3.) China is the world's largest producer of wheat, and if they are forced to import large amounts of food due to continued drought, it could severely impact world food prices. However, the FAO's regional representative for Asia and the Pacific said in an interview with Reuters last month that the situation is not as severe as in 2008, when global food riots erupted. "In general, the supply/demand situation of food grains has become very tight at the moment but enough stocks means there is no cause for alarm," Konuma said. "We still maintain sufficient stocks, which is about 25 percent of annual production. As long as there are sufficient stocks, that means the world has enough food still to feed the people." However, he said that if food stocks continued to decline over the next few years, there would be cause for concern.
The record food global food prices have been partially driven by two other huge weather disasters, the Russian summer heat wave and drought of 2010, and the Australian floods of December - January 2011. Both Russia and Australia are major exporters of grain. Russia issued a ban last summer on grain exports because of their drought, which slashed the wheat harvest by 40% and damaged soils to such an extent that 10% of Russian wheat fields could not be planted this year. The Russian heat wave of 2010 is now estimated by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters to be the deadliest in human history, with 55,736 deaths. The Australian floods caused at least $1.7 billion in agricultural damage, reducing their wheat crop significantly. Fortunately, bumper crops were harvested in non-flooded areas of Australia, and the winter crop harvest in country was up 19% over the previous year's crop, and was the biggest since 2003 - 2004. Australia has been struggling with severe drought in recent years that caused more agricultural damage than the floods did.
Figure 3. The global price of food between 1990 - January 2011, as measured by the U.N.'s FAO Food Price Index. The FAO Food Price Index is a measure of the monthly change in international prices of a basket of food commodities. It consists of the average of price indices for Cereals, Oils and Fats, Sugar, Dairy, and Meat, weighted by the average export shares of each group. Food prices between 2002 - 2004 are given a benchmark value of "100". Global food prices in January 2011 were the highest since the FAO Index was established in 1990. Image credit: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Drought outlook for Northern Hemisphere summer of 2011
The spike in global food prices this winter raises the concern that a severe drought in a major grain producing region in North America, Europe, or Asia this summer could severely impact grain supplies and food prices. Fortunately, with La Niña conditions over the Eastern Pacific weakening, and possibly abating by summer, the chances for such a drought are lower than they would have been if La Niña were to stay strong into the summer. The latest precipitation forecast from Columbia University's International Research Institute for Climate and Society (Figure 4) shows few areas of drought concern for the coming Northern Hemisphere summer. However, our skill at predicting drought months in advance is limited. For example, IRI's February 2010 forecast of precipitation for the summer of 2010 did not highlight Russia as an area of possible concern for drought, and Russia ended up having one of its worst droughts in history. IRI did highlight the Amazon as a region likely to have below-average summer rains, though, and the Amazon ended up having a 100-year drought last summer.
Figure 4. Global precipitation forecast for June, July and August of 2011, made in February 2011. Only a few scattered regions of the globe are predicted to have above-average chances of drought (yellow colors.) These areas include the Northwest U.S., Southern Brazil, and Northwest China. Image credit: International Research Institute for Climate and Society
Commentary
The recent unrest in the Middle East, which has been attributed, in part, to high food prices, gives us a warning of the type of global unrest that might result in future years if the climate continues to warm as expected. A hotter climate means more severe droughts will occur. We can expect an increasing number of unprecedented heat waves and droughts like the 2010 Russian drought in coming decades. This will significantly increase the odds of a world food emergency far worse than the 2007 - 2008 global food crisis. When we also consider the world's expanding population and the possibility that peak oil will make fertilizers and agriculture much more expensive, we have the potential for a perfect storm of events aligning in the near future, with droughts made significantly worse by climate change contributing to events that will cause disruption of the global economy, intense political turmoil, and war.
I will be doing another post on Thursday or Friday.
The New York Times' Andy Revkin in his Dot Earth Blog has a more in-depth look at the food and climate change issue that I recommend.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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Hey,
Originally it was 65 dead and 300+ missing, now its 98 dead with 226 missing. there is about 30-40 Japanese language students in the CTV building. The Japanese search and rescue crew that arrived today is working on that building as they want to take there fellow country people home, dead or alive. As the hours pass it is looking less and less likely that anyone else will be found alive. September 4th quake was 7.1 and 12km's deep. Feb 22nd quake was 6.3 and 5km's down. people in Christchurch have commented it felt much stronger than the September 7.1 quake
Freezing temperatures in Florida combined with the worst freeze in Mexico in more than 50 years has led to a shortage in produce like tomatoes, cucumbers and bell peppers, as well as avocado, eggplant and green beans.
"It's definitely a scramble for product now," says Paul Kneeland, director of produce for Kings Supermarkets. "Basically the wholesale cost doubled in the last three or four weeks. The opportunity to go to different regions isn't helping because Florida had their issues and Mexico has now had their issues. California is not ready."
I saw a wider version of that image on Tuesday:
Click for larger image:
An ominous sight indeed...
The report said it was "too early to estimate impacts on agriculture" in the northeast region of Mandritsara, as well as the southeast districts of Vangaindrano, Farafangana, Vohipeno, Ikongo, Midongy sud, Befotaka and Manakara.
Initial findings by aid agencies found that an estimated 40 percent of food crops and up to 10 percent of cash crops are damaged in Manambolosy (in the northeastern district of Mananara Nord). In Antanambaobe (in the same district) 70 percent of crops are damaged, the report said.
OCHA’s Gelas said the main issue in the aftermath of the cyclone was food security, especially in the south where an assessment team was scheduled to visit in the next few days to determine, among other things, whether there was a possibility of replanting specific rice seeds to enable a harvest in April.
Kah-"Daffy" just made another statement.
He now Blames Uprising on "Osama Bin Laden".
Can we fit him on top one of the SRB's ?
We got 6 plus hours til launch still.
Today's is (& I'll add tentatively) the 3rd to last. But the scheduled last for Discovery.
Sure Pat...bring him on:)
Launch Complex 39A White Room Cam
Bonus Live View of ATV2 docking to ISS
we ain't seen nothing yet. the protests have only just begun.
video from cnn 132 launches in 132 seconds
sorry about the caps- I got 8th floor view to the south
when is the launch?
O.K. Thank-you for setting me straight. We'll I hope the third to the last mission goes perfect!
cloudy with a chance of afternoon SQUAWK!!!!
so, no complaints from anyone about gas prices unless you live in California....
HWY 1 is a "GO" for Discovery.
Amy- I'd complain, but ya'll got more reason to complain than me
:)
:)
Weather/Koi Cams are back
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showers with imbeded t shower moving nnw towards space centre
1
It's sith brainwashing LOL
don't confuse StormJunkie with Hurricanejunkie- they are two different people
Now can you show us the non-ethanol version?
;-)
It is usually slightly more expensive what with the free money being thrown at corn-ethanol...
Hey!
overcoming air resistance?
88 Earthquakes in the last week, could these all be leading up to the big one?
MESOSCALE DISCUSSION 0124
NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK
1034 AM CST THU FEB 24 2011
AREAS AFFECTED...PARTS OF ERN OK/TX...WRN AR AND NWRN LA
CONCERNING...SEVERE POTENTIAL...TORNADO WATCH LIKELY
VALID 241634Z - 241730Z
THUNDERSTORMS ARE GRADUALLY INCREASING IN BOTH AREAL COVERAGE AND
INTENSITY WITHIN BROADER WARM CONVEYOR FROM THE I-35 CORRIDOR SOUTH
OF THE DFW METROPLEX...NWD INTO OK. THIS ACTIVITY IS EVOLVING
WITHIN A VERY STRONGLY SHEARED ENVIRONMENT THAT IS EXPECTED TO ONLY
STRENGTHEN INTO THE AFTERNOON HOURS AS LLJ INCREASES IN RESPONSE TO
DEEPENING CYCLONE. ALTHOUGH CONSIDERABLE CLOUDINESS IS OBSERVED
ACROSS THE WARM SECTOR IT APPEARS LARGE SCALE ASCENT/COOLING WILL
GRADUALLY STEEPEN LAPSE RATE ENVIRONMENT ENABLING NEAR-SFC BASED
CONVECTION TO ROOT INTO MORE BUOYANT BOUNDARY LAYER PARCELS.
SUPERCELLS AND POSSIBLE TORNADOES CAN BE EXPECTED...ESPECIALLY LATER
THIS AFTERNOON AS CONVECTION SPREADS INTO THE LOWER MS VALLEY.
..DARROW.. 02/24/2011
ATTN...WFO...LZK...SHV...TSA...FWD...OUN...
LAT...LON 32029634 35599561 35039295 31689387 32029634
T-03H00M & THE COUNTDOWN CLOCK IS HOLDING AT T-03H00M 232 NTD,ALL
HOLDING
PLANNED HOLD
IS 2 HOURS
**************************************
*THE NEXT PLANNED HOLD IS AT T-20M00S*
**************************************
ICE TEAM READY FOR PAD ENTRY 232 NTD,*ICE
CLEAR ICE TEAM & CLOSEOUT CREW TO PAD 232 NTD,SAFETY
SECURITY
PERFORM ICE/DEBRIS INSPECTION 105 NTD,*ICE
INGRESS ORBITER CREW COMPARTMENT 232 NTD,OTC,OVCC
132
GO FOR FLIGHT CREW WAKE UP 232 NTD
PERFORM COMM CHECKS 132 OTC,ASP
ALL ORB TEST TEAM SWITCH TO CHNL 212 212 OTC
CONFIGURE & INSPECT CREW MODULE FOR CREW 212 OTC,ASP,OVCC
INGRESS
PERFORM POTABLE SUPPLY WATER ADJUST 212 OTC,CECL
PERFORM IMU PRE-FLIGHT CALIBRATION 212 OTC,CGNC
NOT PERFORMED____________ (CONTINGENCY)
PERFORM ER OPEN LOOP CHECKS 132 NTD,OTC,CCSE
CBRS, RANGE
232
175
ER OPEN LOOP CHECK COMPLETE 232 NTD,OTC,CCSE
CBRS, RANGE
Thanks I think. I respect your viewpoint but I still disagree with you. I think I've held my tongue long enough. When the petulant brat in the room keeps on going with his little temper tantrums and derisive jabs at those who differ with his political views, it's time to say something. People like that need to be told things in unpleasant terms because hostility seems to be the only language they speak. I am tired of sugar coating and trying to be nice.
As for Faux News, I never watch it so I do practice "turning the channel" as you suggested but when I have been exposed to it I feel like I need to be wearing a hazmat suit. The ridiculous opinions and nuggets they pull out of their butts is on par with toxic waste. That's my take. I thank you for the civil response. Have a great day.
From what I have been reading they do not yet have a grip on the reason for these quakes. Not seeing sstress build up on the Reelfoot fault but there may be a stress on another fault line further to the West of the Mississippi valley area, not enough sensors to determine.
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