Global warming in action: Chinese bread basket suffering worst drought in 200 years
Welcome to the new normal. Climate scientists have been predicting massive droughts and failed crops for years due to AGW. Russia and China were hit last year. This year, China is getting hit much worse.
East China wheat basket braces for worst drought in 200 years
While China for now has the financial reserves to buy any grain it needs, it will not be able to export. Of course US crops are not doing so well right now themselves.
U.N. Food Agency Issues Warning on China Drought
What the business people are failing to discuss in the NY times article is what happens to all those who depended on China for grain. What they also stupidly do not address is what happens when China starts buying all the grain from other nations whose own supplies will be hit by AGW. These things have global effects. For example last year’s AGW caused food shortages triggered riots in the mid east and put the whole region in an uproar. We are still not at the point when the issue is pandemic. That is coming.
Recently Chinese officials, calling it the worst drought in 50 years nationwide, have begun trying to offset the problem with water from the Three Gorges Dam.
China faces worst drought in 50 years
Chinese authorities will step up the release of water from the Three Gorges Dam in a bid to tackle a drought in southern China which has put pressure on drinking water, crops, shipping lanes and electricity production in what is traditionally China’s most water-abundant region.
Now back to some science about this. This has long been predicted.
The full report can be found here:
Drought under global warming: a review
The full PDF can be downloaded for free. This is not happy reading.
Climate models project increased aridity in the 21st century over most of Africa, southern Europe and the Middle East, most of the Americas, Australia, and Southeast Asia. Regions like the United States have avoided prolonged droughts during the last 50 years due to natural climate variations, but might see persistent droughts in the next 20–50 years.
Here is the USGCRP global report.
key findings:
3. Widespread climate-related impacts are occurring now and are expected to increase. Climate changes are already affecting water, energy, transportation, agriculture, ecosystems, and health. These impacts are different from region to region and will grow under projected climate change. (p. 41-106, 107-152)
4. Climate change will stress water resources.
Water is an issue in every region, but the nature of the potential impacts varies. Drought, related to reduced precipitation, increased evaporation, and increased water loss from plants, is an important issue in many regions, especially in the West. Floods and water quality problems are likely to be amplified by climate change in most regions. Declines in mountain snowpack are important in the West and Alaska where snowpack provides vital natural water storage. (p. 41, 129, 135, 139)5. Crop and livestock production will be increasingly challenged.
Agriculture is considered one of the sectors most adaptable to changes in climate. However, increased heat, pests, water stress, diseases, and weather extremes will pose adaptation challenges for crop and livestock production. (p. 71)
We are seeing it now. Food and water shortages are fundamental. Economies can not run on stocks and bonds when the issues are food and water. We are seeing the beginnings of a global collapse that will render billions starving if action is not taken. This gets much, much worse.
How many must suffer before those in power wake up? And further, and much worse, if it really does depend on conditions becoming so terrible that even a Tea Partier is convinced, it will be too late.
People do not realize that there is an inertia to the system. What we are seeing in the Midwest and in China and around the world will be the new normal. If we stopped all emissions tomorrow, the system would still get worse for the next 100 years. However, it would peak in ways that would be difficult and painful to manage. If we wait 30 years to act, it is much too late. The system peaks there such that civilization as we know it ends and billions really will die. Physics really does not care one bit what we think about it or how we would prefer nature to work. It will do what it does without any parameter for mercy in the equations.
This is real. This is now.
How many will starve this year, right now because of this?
