Vermont weather geek's hodgepodge of weather and climate news and opinion. Often Vermont focused, but taking a national and global approach, with sometimes an appropriate dash of fun, outrage, cynicism and compassion.
We really haven't noticed it yet, but climate change is cutting into agricultural yields, and the problem will keep worsening as the world warms.
There aren't any big worldwide food shortages, at least not yet, due to climate change, but a new study suggests we are definitely heading in the wrong direction.
"Global agricultural productivity has declined by about 21 percent in the last 60 years as a result of climate change - the equivalent of seven years' lost production - a study has found.
The decrease was most pronounced in warm regions such as Africa (30 percent) and Latin America and the Caribbean (26 percent) according to research published in Nature Climate Change, which looked at data from 1961 to 2020."
The seeming disconnect behind what seems to be adequate food supply and lost production is explained this way:
"Ariel Ortiz-Bobea, professor of applied economics at Cornell University and lead author of the study, told SciDev.Net: 'These numbers don't mean that we are producing less than we did back in 1961 - we've actually produced more year after year. Instead, our study is saying that global agricultural productivity is almost 21 percent lower than it could have been in a world without climate change.'"
Improvements in productivity have helped keep up yields, but it's not translating to resilience to climate change.
There are considerations that the study might not have entirely taken into account. Per Preventionweb.net:
"This research doesn't consider small-scale agriculture which persists in different parts of the world, like Africa and Latin America, probably because this type of production is usually not included in official records," said Carolina Greta-Sanchez of the Center of Atmospheric Sciences at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
Other research is similar to the one I described above.
"Rising global temperatures are likely to cause deep losses to the world's most important crops - despite farmers' best efforts to adapt. A global analysis to crop yields suggests that, by the end of the century, each degree Celsius of warming will reduce the food available per person any about 121 kilocalories a day.
Under a 3 degree Celsius scenario - roughly our current trajectory - 'that works out to giving up breakfast for everyone,' says Andrew Hultgren at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne."
The research cited in New Scientistsaid the six main global staple crops. They found that all crops except rice would suffer in a hotter world. (Rice crops like hotter nights)
An example of the projected reduced crop yields with climate change is corn. Yields would fall by 12 to 28 percent by the end of the century, depending on whether greenhouse gasses rise moderately or very quickly.
The number these researchers came up with take into account how farmers would adapt to hotter temperatures, and the fact crops might be fertilized a bit because of higher carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.
Ash tree leaves in Huntington, Vermont killed by a May 18 freeze
All of Vermont was declared a disaster area on Friday.
No, not that one. We're talking about the mid-May freeze that wrecked a lot of the state's agriculture way before the first drops of flooding rains fell at the beginning of this month.
As WPTZ-TV reports, the disaster declaration from the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture means eligible farmers can be considered for Farm Service Agency emergency loans to help them bounce back from the deep freeze that damaged a variety of crops on the night May 17-18.
"This declaration is important as our farmers try to recover after the May freeze,'" said Vermont Agriculture Secretary Anson Tebbetts in a statement. "This designation will offer more resources to those that were hit hard by this weather event."
Farmers have eight months to apply for the emergency loans.
Gov. Phil Scott is also seeking an agricultural disaster designation for this month's extensive flooding.
Under a separate Federal Emergency Management Agency umbrella, Caledonia, Chittenden, Lamoille, Rutland, Orange, Washington, Windham and Windsor countieshave all been declared disaster areas due to this month's flooding. . More counties might be added to that disaster list.
The remains of frostbitten ash tree leaves in Huntington, Vermont on May 21. A freeze three days earlier caused a Vermont agricultural disaster.
It's becoming clear that last week's record setting freeze in Vermont severely damaged the state's apple, blueberry and other fruit crops, and hit vineyards hard, too.
Though it can take days or even weeks after a big freeze to figure out damage to crops from apples to grapes to blueberries, the grim news is becoming apparent.
As Vermont Public reports,quoting Terence Bradshaw, associate professor at the UVM Extension Fruit Program:
"'In my 25 years of working with fruit crops in Vermont, I have never seen frost or freeze damage this extensive," Bradshaw said in a press release the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets sent out Tuesday. 'We expect a difficult season for growers and appreciate the continued support that our community provided to these vital operations that are so important to the Vermont agriculture community."
I smell a disaster declaration coming for Vermont and surrounding areas because of the freeze. Vermont Agriculture Secretary Anson Tebbetts is urging farmers to keep track of their losses to help with possible federal aid.
If the freeze prompts a federal disaster declaration, that would be the second weather event within five months to put parts of the Green Mountain State under such a designation.
The freeze last week was a sort of "perfect storm". A very warm spring prompted a wide variety of fruit trees and plants to bloom earlier in the season than most people can remember.
The leaves on this ash tree in Huntington, Vermont were black and shriveled three days after a devastating May 18 frost in Vermont and the Northeast.
Then, a quick hitting blast of frigid air, lasting less than two days, crashed southward into New England, causing record low temperatures on May 18. Virtually all of Vermont except areas very close to the Lake Champlain shore fell far below freezing. There were some reports of temperatures getting into the upper teens, with many reports of readings under 25 degrees.
Temperatures of about 29 degrees or lower while fruits and vegetables are in bloom or starting to set pretty much guarantees damage. The further it goes below 29, the worse it gets.
As Vermont Public reports, Tebbetts visited Shelburne Vineyard, among other farms, and saw extensively damaged grape vines. Owners of the vineyard don't know yet whether the vines are so damaged that they might not ever recover for future years.
Tebbetts said he is worried about a range of crops that could have terrible damage. "The losses caused by the late spring frost is heartbreaking of those who produce fruits, produce, berries and wine," Tebbetts said in apress release issued by his department. "The hard freeze will mean significant losses for our growers and those who make their living off fruits and vegetables. The extent of the damage may not be known for several weeks, but early indications are discouraging."
Green Mountain Orchard in Putneysuffered what they call "catastrophic" damageto their apple crop. Blueberries are also damaged, However, some blooms on the blueberry bushes looked at least partly intact and bees were working over them after the frost, so there is some hope
It's been a tough year. Peach trees can't handle super cold weather in the winter. In early February, it got down to 18 below in Putney, ruining any prospects for a peach crop this year.
I checked around the social media accounts of several orchards and berry farms around Vermont but none that I found had posts from the day of the freeze or after. These farmers probably don't know the extent of damage yet, don't want to talk about it, and don't want to mislead their customers with information that might later turn out to be inaccurate.
I bet that blueberries, strawberries, apples, wine and other Vermont goods will be harder to come by as the year goes on, and be more expensive if you do find these goods. Problems with wine production could last a few years.
The freeze takes both a financial and emotional toll on farmers. Crop insurance would only cover some of the loss. And nothing solves the worry and despair this kind of thing causes.
"On the morning after the frost, growers at Scott Farm Orchard in Dummerston surveyed the property, orchardist Erin Robinson said sitting beside apple trees that were limp and glistening with ice. 'It is the most brutal feeling to love something os deeply and be so powerless to protect it,' Robinson wrote in an Instagram post. "
Orchardists try to find optimism. They note that many of the apples are dead this year, but the trees that supply them are fine and will produce more apples in future years.
Frost damaged leaves on a magnolia tree in Williston, Vermont after the May 18 freeze.
Other crops should be fine. Hay for feed seems unaffected, though a possible developing drought in Vermont could mess things up there. Corn really hasn't been planted yet, so that'll be OK.
Most plant nurseries and garden centers seemed to have been able to protect their stock. I'm not sure how CSAs are doing, but I have a feeling they'll mostly recover.
As you can see in the video in the bottom of this post, the freeze killed leaves on certain trees, mostly oak, ash, locust and sumac. In most places around the state, hillsides remain green, despite a few bare and brown patches left by the frost.
Although the spring freeze might have been severe enough to damage fall foliage prospects in a few locations around Vermont, I'd say 95 percent of the landscape should be fine for tourists. Barring some other unforeseen misfortunate, that is.
Unfortunately, this Vermont agriculture disaster is consistent with the effects of climate change. A too-warm spring got buds and fruitlets going too soon. The climate is also more prone to "weather whiplash" than it once was, so we got a nasty cold spell.
Obviously, I can't draw a direct line between the freeze and climate change, but the circumstantial evidence is there.
Tonight, another weird late season frost is forecast in Vermont. It won't be as severe as last week's freeze, but it surely has farmers and orchardists wondering how much more than can take.
VIDEO
Images take around Richmond and Huntington, Vermont three days after the freeze show damage to leaves on trees, mostly oak, ash, locust and sumac. These trees are expected to sprout replacement leaves and be OK, but some trees that are already stressed might have trouble recovering.
The leaf damage is pretty striking, as you'll see.
Green Mountain Power released this photo on December 24 of debris tangled up in Charlotte power lines after the destructive wind storm that hit just before Christmas.
The storm that swept Vermont and most of the rest of the nation just before Christmas might prompt a federal disaster declaration here in the Green Mountain State.
As VTDigger reports, the storm caused more than $2 million in damage to Vermont towns and municipal and non-profit utilities. This comes from an assessment by Vermont Emergency Management.
Vermont Emergency Management has asked federal officials to double check their math and determine whether the storm qualifies as a major disaster.
"To qualify for a major disaster declaration, Vermont must show at least $1.14 million in in total costs for response and public infrastructure recovery, and each individual county must demonstrate damage and recovery costs of at least $4.44 per capital to qualify."
If that storm turns out to be a major disaster, at least in the eyes of FEMA, we'd get a big bunch of federal aid. So far, the counties that might be declared disaster areas are Addison, Caledonia, Chittenden, Essex, Franklin, Grand Isle and Orleans counties. Additional counties might be added as assessments continue.
The storm caused widespread damage in the majority of states east of the Rocky Mountains. Here in Vermont, most of the damage was due to high winds. Gusts reached 71 mph in Burlington, the second highest wind gusts on record there.
Countless branches and trees succumbed to the high winds in Vermont. Many of those trees also brought down power lines. At least 75,000 Vermont customers lost electricity, some for severals days. One storm-related death was reported.
Non-profit utilities suffered a large portion of the damage. As VTDigger reports:
"Nonprofit organizations such as Washington Electric Cooperative and Vermont Electric Cooperative spend the following days restoring power to as many houses as possible in the areas they serve. The repair costs for these cooperatives were immense. For instance, Washington Electric figures it spent $1.3 million on repairs, while its annual budget for emergency storm management is just $300,000."
If a federal disaster is declared in Vermont, municipal and non-profit utilities could be reimbursed for 75 percent of restoration costs and 75 percent of the cost of debris removal, road repairs and staff overtime related to the storm.
The damage tally that could lead to the disaster declaration does not include damage to private, non-government entities.VTDigger notes that Green Mountain Power reports this storm, a heavy, wet snowstorm a week earlier caused some of the most damage in the utility's history. GMP allocates $6 million each year to handle storm recovery.
I'm not sure how well that money lasted in 2022. Other events, like wind in February and severe summer thunderstorms caused damage to GMP's system too, but not nearly as much as the December storms.
The December wind storm also caused damage to Vermont's agriculture industry. At least 56 maple producers suffered damage, mostly in Franklin, Chittenden, Addison and Rutland counties, the Rutland Herald reported.
The wind damaged or destroyed some maple trees. Also, falling branches damaged the tubes that collect maple sap.
Some hoop houses, used to grow winter crops within plastic cages, were also damaged. Some dairy and other farms reported roofs blown off barns.
Vermont is sometimes regarded as a bit of a haven from climate related calamities, but parts of the state, or the whole of the region has been declared a federal disaster area frequently in recent decades.
Excluding the Covid-19 pandemic, Vermont was included in five federal disasters since 2017, pretty much for floods or wind or the combination of the two.
FEMA is expected to begin assessing Vermont data on the storm this week. The agency probably has its hands full, as that same pre-Christmas storm caused plenty of damage in other states as well. Meanwhile, California keeps getting pummeled by storms, too.
People are just beginning to digest the latest big fat report from UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was released Monday, but the initial news reports on it paint a grim picture.
Latest UN report on climate change, released this past week, has a gloomy outlook.
"Deadly with extreme weather now, climate change is about to get so much worse. It is likely going to make the world sicker, hungrier, poorer, gloomier and way more dangerous in the next 18 years with an 'unavoidable' increase in risks, a new United Nations science report says."
'"The cumulative scientific evidence is unequivocal: Climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health,' says the major report designed to guide world leaders in their efforts to curb climate change. Delaying cuts in heat-trapping carbon emissions and waiting on adapting to warming's impacts, it warns, 'will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.'"
Among the unhappy nuggets in the report:
Today's children who are still around in 2100 will see four times more climate extremes than they do today, even if the world's temperature goes up by another few tenths of a degree. If temperatures go up by a little more then 3 degrees Fahrenheit by then, they would feel five times the number of disasters like floods, storms, heat waves and droughts.
The report says that 3.3 billion people are already highly vulnerable to climate change and 15 times more likely to die in extreme weather. Large numbers of people are already being displaced by climate change.
By 2050 - less than 30 years from now, about a billion people will face coastal flooding problems form rising seas, and many will be forced out of their homes from flooding, tropical cyclones and sea level rise.
Some places could become uninhabitable, and others will become too hot for people to work outdoors. That's a problem if you're trying to grow crops,the AP notes.
It's not just us humans that are having and will have a tough time with climate change.
Vox outlines some major issues different species face with just a little more warming
The IPCC says that 14 percent of all plants and animals on land would face a high risk of extinction. If there's three degrees of warming, up to 29 percent of species on land could go extinct.
Local populations of species are already decimated by climate change, even if the entire species isn't gone yet.
Individual climate-related events can wipe out entire swaths, even majorities of some species. A subspecies of marsupial was essentially erased in a 2005 Australian heat wave. The enormous wildfires in the same nation decimated iconic Australian koala bears.
The Pacific Northwest heat wave last June killed millions of ocean, lake and river aquatic animals. Just a little more warming could eliminate 90 percent of the world's already suffering coral reefs.
The bottom line is the news in the latest report is bad, perhaps worse than most people would have believed. As the New York Times reported:
"'One of the most striking conclusions in our report is that we're seeing adverse impacts that are much more widespread and much more negative than expected,' said Camille Parmesan, an ecologist at the University of Texas, Austin and one of the researchers who prepared the report."
A lot of discussion regarding climate change is how we adapt to it. But the report indicates we need to step up the rate of adaptation. And if nothing is done to sharply reduce greenhouse emissions, things will have gone too far for any of us to adapt.
"'There has been the assumption that, 'Well, if we cannot control climate change, we'll just let it go and adapt to it,' said Hans-Otto Portner, a marine biologist in Germany who helped coordinate the report. But given the expected risks as the planet keeps warming, he said, 'this is certainly a very illusionary approach.'"
Here's the problem as I see it: I know that most governments can walk and chew gum at the same time. But issues other than climate change facing the world are incredibly complex. The pandemic isn't over. We have what really amounts to a global crisis with Russia's monstrous invasion of Ukraine.
Sure, the fact that we're close to the point where climate change will limit humanity's ability to feed itself, climate change is the ultimate crisis. But you can't just blow off the other crises.
Even if nations commit to aggressively combating climate change, which is a big if, do we have the bandwidth to actually get the job done? And done on time?
The IPCC estimates we'd have to eliminate almost all carbon emissions by 2050 to get a handle on things. That's only 28 years from now. Meanwhile, judging from the new record highfor the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere set last year, emissions continue to rise.
It's not like the IPCC hasn't been giving us a head's up on all this for the past couple of decades at least.
"The panel of more than 200 scientists puts out a series of these massive reports every five to seven years, with this one, the second of the series, devoted to how climate change affects people and the planet. Last August the science panel published a report on the latest climate science and projections for future warming, branded 'code red' by the United Nations."
The AP quotedclimate scientist Katharine Hayhoe of the Nature Conservancy as calling this latest report as the "Your House is on Fire" report.
However, she and others still advocated hope. The AP article again: "It's really bad and there's a good chance that it will get worse,' Hayhoe said. 'But if we do everything we can, that will make a difference....That's what hope is."
"'Fear is not a good advisor and never is,' German vice chancellor and minister for climate and economy told the AP. 'Hope is the right one.'"
All that dark bluish color in the middle of the nation of the NWS home page is an immense area of freeze warnings due to a huge record cold surge. That's spreading east, so much of the East will have freeze warnings later this week. Snow for us in Vermont again
Temperatures in parts of South Dakota were in the upper teens this morning. It was close to 90 degrees there earlier this month. Snow was falling this morning in places like Kansas City, Missouri, which is pretty much off the charts for this time of year.
What I'd feared would happen this spring is happening. After that February freeze, spring took hold strong and early. Everything from the Plains to the Eastern Seaboard bloomed way earlier than normal.
In this case, the United States freeze will probably lead to higher prices for fruits and some vegetables. Blooms and early stuff on cherry, apple, peach and other trees are going to be nipped in widespread areas of the nation.
On a smaller scale, home gardens will be ruined, too.
Record lows will fall quite a few cities from Texas to the Great Lakes. All in all a depressing state of affairs, but on the bright side it is April. The cold snap will end quite soon and we'll be back to the normal springtime warmth and outbreaks of severe weather in the Midwest and South soon enough.
VERMONT/NEW ENGLAND EFFECTS
A pretty strong storm is forecast to form along the cold front ushering in this frosty air. Forecasts keep trending colder and colder with this storm, as it's now expected to move across southern Vermont or western Massachusetts on up through New Hampshire and into Quebec, strengthening all the while.
It'll never really warm up west of the Green Mountains under this scenario, so expect mixed rain and snow for Wednesday, trending more toward all snow in northern New York, especially the Adirondacks.
The cold air on the back side of the storm will really assert itself more later Wednesday and Wednesday night, bringing snow to pretty much everybody in Vermont again, even on valley floors.
The only places that might escape any snow are around the lower Connecticut River Valley.
Wednesday night and Thursday morning will also be the coldest we've seen since the opening days of the month. With the snowflakes flying, it'll be between 25 and 30 degrees for most of us at dawn Thursday. That's enough to threaten early leaves, flowers, gardens etc. That's especially true since winds will be howling from the northwest, gusting over 35 mph.
Most of the snow falling late Wednesday and Thursday morning will be in the mountains, but you'll see flakes in the valleys as well.
At this point, the National Weather Service in South Burlington isn't expecting any huge accumulations of snow, except in the high country of the Adirondacks and northern Green Mountains, where locally four to eight inches of snow could pile up.
In the valleys, it will be more like a dusting to as high as three inches. Still, the second snowfall in a week around these parts is a bit much for some of us.
Thursday will be a lousy day with clouds, strong winds, scattered rain and snow showers and temperatures that will stay at or below 40 degrees. Yuck!
It will sort of warm up again by Saturday before another kind of cold system comes along toward Sunday. For most if not all of us, the Sunday system looks like it will be pretty much snow-free, except maybe on the highest mountain peaks.
