Norway heading for a grain disaster?

By Dag from Ringerike

The outlook for the grain farmers in the southern part of Norway looks very grim. And – the southern part of Norway is our grain basket. I guess this region of the nation grows about 80 % of the volume.

This year the spring has been delayed for about 2 to 3 weeks. Last week we had torrential rain that during two days loaded our soil with water of one and half normal precipitation for a month in southern Norway. The consistency were enormous. Our two main transport lines from southern Norway to Troendelag, through the valleys of Gudbrandsdalen and Oesterdalen, roads and railways lines were washed away. In one community, Kvam in Gudbrandsdale, several houses were destroyed by the local flood.

http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/distrikt/hedmark_og_oppland/1.11050277

This article explain the conondrum for the farmers. Because of the flood and the wet weather, they can not seed their soil. The government subsidize the grain farmers by the volume of what they produce. No production, no money from the government.

I was listening to our local broadcast, NRK Buskerud, 3 days ago, where a farmer union officials was discussing the issue. He said that only 50 to 60 percent of the fields had been seeded because of the wet conditions on the fields, and the date 6th of June would be the last day for seeding. It looks not very good because we have persistent rain and showers every day in our region.

There is a political debate about the big subsidizes from the government to our farmers. What a farmer told us in our local paper, if he got 0,5 kroner more of the end prize of a bread, that is 30 kroner, he would not need any money from the government. The reality is that it is the next part of the economic chain is taking the profit, and – the biggest subsidizers for the farmers is not the government, but the house wifes, that brings in the needed money for the household.

Our grain harvest in 2011 was a total disaster, because near 90 % became fungus infected related to the wet weather condition during harvesting in late August and early Sepember. Last year, what saved our harvest, was one week in September, when the fields dried up after persistent rain patterns during August.

The insane policy of our government, is that they abandoned the policy that Norway should have at least 2 years storage of grain, in the middle of the 9thies. It was a lesson of the ww2 years. Statens Kornforretning (our main grain supplyer at that time) was privitazed, and became a big player in the salmon business – in Chile!

Felleskjoepet, our main manager of our grain supply today, has warned several times about of our fragile grain supply system, but it looks like they are speaking against deaf ears. Our political establishment is decoupled from reality.

In this article, Christian Anton Smedshaug, Manager of the Agri business of Felleskjoepet, says that we need at least one year of grain storage. Now, we have nothing. The market shall solve the issue our politicians are saying
.
http://www.utredningskontoret.no/file=279

I anticipate that the volume of our grain harvest this year would be significant lower compared to what we harvested the years before. Due to a delayed spring, the grain harvest could be postponed to the weeks in September. So, time will tell…..what we get.

– Dag from Ringerike

Now long before people are fighting in the streets for food?  When it happens will global warming be blamed? Or, global cooling?

Advertisement

Creeping Closer to a Killing June Frost

The Chatham Daily News has more details, bur consider this:

Mother Nature’s icy grip on area farm crops and backyard plants and gardens over the weekend has resulted in a huge financial loss across Chatham-Kent and southwestern Ontario

This marks the second consecutive year that killing frost has had a major negative impact on the municipality’s multi-million dollar agricultural industry.

A sure sign of a next grand minimum little ice age is a June killing frost in the Northern Hemisphere breadbaskets according to my friend George, a dedicated systems thinker. We are getting closer and closer. Stay Tuned!

Has the Cold Already Arrived?

Here are some records to consider:

Cold Wave hits China, coldest in 30 years.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2012/12/22/Bitter-cold-snap-grips-China/UPI-40031356187955/

An internet search on “China Bitter Cold 2013” will bring up more of the same, indicating this was not just a one-time episode.

Moscow Cold, Snow, 50 year records broken.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/9711789/Heavy-snow-in-Moscow-and-the-first-snowfall-of-the-season-in-Europe.html

An internet search on “Moscow cold snow records broken 2013” or “Russia…” will show more of the same.  Here’s a few reports from April 2013:

http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_04_01/Moscow-struggles-with-record-snowfall/

http://iceagenow.info/2013/04/record-snowfall-moscow/

Alaska longest snow season on record, breaking a 30 year past record.

http://www.today.com/id/51929453/ns/local_news-anchorage_ak/t/anchorage-sets-record-longest-snow-season/

Europe also hit by record cold, snows:

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/16feb_deepfreeze/

Darkest Winter (lack of sun due to incessant clouds, snow, rain) for Germany in 43 years.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germany-weathers-darkest-winter-in-43-years-a-885608.html

Very nice blue-glowing clouds picture at this website, reproduced above.

Ooops we must correct that, it is the Darkest Winter ever recorded for Germany:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/winter-weather-plagues-germany-as-spring-begins-a-890166.html

OK, having said all that, it is true that “weather is not climate”, even though climate is produced by the averaged aggregate of measured weather data.  So what are the averages saying?

Finally the more scientifically inclined members of the “warming” community are admitting that something is not correct with their theories.  As documented here:

Has Global Warming Come to a Halt?

http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/climatechange/has-global-warming-come-to-a-h-1/61445

Note the trends on this website:  From 1950 to 1975 approx., no basic change in global temps.  From 1980 to 1998, a warming trend.  Then from 1998 to today, global temperatures have leveled off.    Note the graph of El-Nino/La-Niña events, and how the peaks give rise to global changes.  Likewise the small volcanic symbols, indicating sun-blocking dusts in the upper atmosphere.  This particular website takes the “warmist” view, so even this begrudging admission is remarkable.  Some of the weblinks on this page are rather outrageous in unscientific claim-making, rather like cheer-leaders for a football team, as if scientific conclusions needed cheer-leading to “win” — of course this is cheerleading for Billions in grant money, for “their side”.  Whatever happened to old-fashioned scientific investigation, and allowing the truth to fall where it may?

Here’s more, the British met office being a bit more reliable than the American NOAA or the cherry-picked “consensus” community of “scientists” whomever that is supposed to be.  The last time the IPCC made such surveys, they included all kinds of leftist political hacks and “activists” from neo-Marxist environmental groups. “Climate Deniers” were of course excluded from such surveys.

Global Warming stopped 16 years ago, Met Office.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2261577/Global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago-Met-Office-report-reveals-MoS-got-right-warming–deniers-now.html

16 years ago was what?  1997-1998  The worst El Nino on record, highest global temps from that, but not from CO2 emissions.

Even the die-hard Leftist BBC finally admits, sort of, that well, maybe, POSSIBLY, their theory on warming isn’t panning out as it should:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22567023

Yes, this is just weather! However, climate change starts with extended weather trends.

H/T to OBRL Blog

CERN’s Jasper Kirkby On The Newest Unpublished Results Of CLOUD: “The Results Are Very Interesting”

P Gosselin at the No Tricks Zone writes:

The Latest On The CLOUD Experiment at CERN
By Sebastian Lüning and Fritz Vahrenholt

On May 10, 2013, at the online Austrian ORF, there was a rare interview with the CLOUD Experiment director of the European European Organization for Nuclear Research, Jasper Kirkby. Within the scope of the CLOUD project, it is being investigated to what extent solar activity has on cloud formation via the mechanism of cosmic radiation and the impact this could have on the Earth’s climate (see Chapter 6 of our book “Die kalte Sonne“). Here’s an excerpt of the worthwhile interview:

ORF: What is the relationship between solar activity and cosmic radiation?

Kirkby: Cosmic radiation consists of high energy, charged particles. When they reach our solar system, they are deflected away by the magnetic field of the sun. Foremost by the magnetic field of the solar plasma. When the sun is active, less cosmic radiation reaches the Earth. The relationship to the solar cycle: When there are many sunspots, the Earth receives 10 – 30% less cosmic radiation.

Is this relationship sure?

Yes, it is solidly confirmed. We also know that cosmic radiation ionizes every cubic centimeter of the Earth’s atmosphere. Unsure so far is whether or not this also could have a climatic impact. Clouds are extremely important for the Earth’s climate. If I could magically eliminate all clouds from the atmosphere, then 30 watts of additional heat energy would reach every square meter of the Earth.

To put this number into context: The warming of the atmosphere through the impacts of man is currently pegged at 1.5 watts per square meter. Small variations in cloud cover could have large impacts.

What do your experiments show?

At this point in time we cannot say if cosmic radiation impacts the climate. So far up to now we have investigated the production of condensation nuclei for cloud droplets – particularly those that are formed from gas, i.e. gas-to-particle-conversion”. They represent about half of the condensation nuclei in the atmosphere. The remaining nuclei come from soot and dust.

What gases are involved in this process?

We have looked at sulfuric acid and ammonia. The results of the first trials: Cosmic radiation enhances the formation of condensation nuclei from gases by a factor of 10. But that alone is too little to have a significant impact on cloud formation. According to our latest experiments, there has to be another gas or vapor involved that enhances this process. We suspect organic substances.

Which ones?

The results are currently being reviewed by a journal. Unfortunately I can’t tell you more. Only this much: The results are very interesting. Over the course of the year there are going to be some publications on the subject.

Let’s assume that you are able to show that cosmic radiation indeed does contribute a lot to cloud formation. What would that mean?

I think that the experiments are important in two ways. Firstly, they would show that there is a natural source to climate change. And the other point is that it would change our understanding of anthropogenic climate change. We know quite a bit about greenhouse gases. What we know little about are aerosols. These are particles that come from industry floating in the atmosphere. They surely have a cooling effect. However, we have no idea just how great this effect is. It may be small, but it may be very big. Maybe it is even big enough to offset the additional CO2 in the atmosphere.. We don’t know.

My emphasis added.   Since temperatures are not following the climate models based on CO2 emissions there has to be other factors that are influencing climate change.  I think that cosmic rays interaction with aerosols are prime candidates.  Cooling has been associated with increased volcanic activity, a prime source aerosols in the atmosphere. A weak sun enables the increase in cosmic rays, thus the combination could bring on the next grand minimum. Once the papers are published, we will know more. Stay Tuned.

12,793 US Snow and Cold Records Broken in Less Than 2 Months

“From March 12 to April 22 (6 weeks) there were 9,664 snow and cold records broken.”

“From April 22 to May 5^th there were 3,129 snow and cold records broken.”

“That’s 12,793 Snow and Cold records broken in less than 2 months.”

http://wx.hamweather.com/images/maps/recordevents/640×480/2week/us.png?cat=mintemp,lowmax, snowfall

H/T from Ice Age Now for the links and graphics.

Yes, it is just weather, but interesting just the same, with all the clamor about global warming in the newspapers and on the TV news. No mention of these records. On the other hand, if they had been heat records, it would be all over the news, especially the warmers on NBC. We only get the news that fits the AGW narrative.

Sun produces four X-class flares in two days

I signed up for the Spaceweather.com Text Alert for X-Class Flares. Might give me time to put the vulnerable comm devices in the metal safe or my garbage can faraday cage vault.

Watts Up With That?

Above: note the four separate events in the last two days – from the WUWT Solar Page

(From NASA’s Spaceweather.com) When the week began, the sun hadn’t unleashed an X-flare all year long. In only two days, sunspot AR1748 has produced four. The latest X-flare from this active sunspot occured on May 15th at 0152 UT. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the extreme ultraviolet flash: 

View original post 97 more words

Two Review Papers Conclude — It is the SUN! Not CO2.

Review paper on cosmoclimatology finds the Sun controls climate change, not CO2

A new SPPI & CO2 Science review paper entitled Solar Influence on Climate: Cosmic Rays reviews the literature on Svensmark’s theory of cosmoclimatologyand concludes, “Clearly, in light of all the evidence presented above, the flux of galactic cosmic rays wields an important influence on Earth’s climate, and likely much more so than that exhibited by the modern increase in atmospheric CO2 , making fluctuations in the Sun the primary candidate for “prime determinant” of Earth’s climatic state.”

Full Paper is HERE:

Review paper finds European climate change due to the Sun, not CO2

A new SPPI & CO2 Science review paper entitled Solar Influence on European Temperatures finds extensive evidence that solar activity has dominated European climate change of the past 2 millennia  which “suggests that there is little reason to attribute 20th-century global warming to the concomitant increase in the air’s CO2 content. Natural variability appears quite capable of explaining it all. In conclusion, paleoclimatic studies from Europe provide more evidence for the global reality of solar-induced temperature oscillations pervading both glacial and interglacial periods, which oscillations are looking more and more likely as the primary forcing agent responsible for driving temperature change during the Current Warm Period. The concurrent historical increase in the air’s CO2 content, on the other hand, is likely little more than a bit player.”

Excerpt:

“In yet another refutation of the theory of CO2-induced global warming, Mangini et al. found “a high correlation between δ18O and δ14C, that reflects the amount of radiocarbon in the upper atmosphere,” and they note that this correlation “suggests that solar variability was a major driver of climate in Central Europe during the past 2 millennia.” In this regard, they report that “the maxima of δ18O coincide with solar minima (Dalton, Maunder, Sporer, Wolf, as well as with minima at around AD 700, 500 and 300),” and that “the coldest period between 1688 and 1698 coincided with the Maunder Minimum.” Also, in a linear-model analysis of the percent of variance of their full temperature reconstruction that is individually explained by solar and CO2 forcing, they found that the impact of the Sun was fully 279 times greater than that of the air’s CO2 concentration, noting that “the flat evolution of CO2 during the first 19 centuries yields almost vanishing correlation coefficients with the temperature reconstructions.”

The Full Paper is HERE.

H/T to the Hockey Schtick for the introduction and links to the review papers.

 

Bread Basket Planting Slowest Since 1995

The Machine Finder has the details:

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s weekly report released on Monday, U.S. farmers have planted just 12% of their intended corn acreages as a result of the weather. The Iowa field office of the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service stated, “Temperatures dropped low enough for snowfall to be seen across much of Iowa. Records for both May snowfall and coldest daily high temperature were set in some areas.” Iowa, Reuters reports, is the nation’s top producer of corn; while corn planting progress in Iowa was up 2% from last week, it was still the slowest since 1995.

The USDA’s weekly report also reveals soybean planting was just 2% complete as of last Sunday, “tied with 1983 and 1993 for the second-slowest pace by early May.” Winter wheat crops are also feeling the effects of the weather. Although the USDA rated 32% of winter wheat crops planted to-date in “good to excellent condition,” Reuters reports seedings of spring wheat, particularly in the Plains states, are continuing to lag due to cold and wet conditions.

Last week, the USDA’s Agricultural Weather Highlights indicated the Midwest would experience rain and heavy snow as a slow-moving storm moved across the region, delaying improvements in conditions needed before crop fieldwork and planting could be done. According to the Reuters report, cold weather continues to affect crops across the U.S.

Grand Minimum indicators are late spring planting, shortens the growing season when combined with early fall frost. Spring planting has slowed, now we have to be on alert for early forest this fall. Stay Tuned!

Solar cycle update – sun’s magnetic activity still in a slump

Are we about to see the start of the second peak, which may extend the length of the solar cycle?

Watts Up With That?

Despite some small upticks on sunspot and 10.7cm radio activity, the magentic activity of the sun is still bumping along the bottom.

A slight uptick was seen in sunspot count.

 A similar slight uptick occurred in radio flux.

View original post 197 more words

Chilly Temperatures Cause Wheat Prices to Rise

Ottumwa Courier has the story:

Unseasonably cold weather struck across the Great Plains this week, bringing snow and freezing temperatures to major wheat-producing regions. Although the extent of the damage is uncertain, some analysts expect significant yield loss in the wheat crop that is growing in the hard-hit states Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Colorado.

ooo

In the Midwest, cold temperatures and snowfall are delaying corn planting further, with areas of Iowa (America’s No. 1 corn-producing state) under as much as 2 feet of snow.

The gravest danger from the next grand minimum will be the loss of food production.  This is a one time event, but worry it could be come an multi-year event, then the real problem will become survival for millions.