agriculture – Page 17 – Desdemona Despair

Monthly mean atmospheric methane abundance, 1983-2021. The globally-averaged, monthly mean atmospheric methane abundance is determined from marine surface sites. Values for 2021 are preliminary. Graphic: NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory

April 14, 2022

Increase in atmospheric methane set another record during 2021 – Carbon dioxide levels also record a big jump – “The evidence is consistent, alarming, and undeniable”

7 April 2022 (NOAA) – For the second year in a row, NOAA scientists observed a record annual increase in atmospheric levels of methane, a powerful, heat-trapping greenhouse gas that’s the second biggest contributor to human-caused global warming after carbon dioxide. NOAA’s preliminary analysis showed the annual increase in atmospheric methane during 2021 was 17 […]

Anti-solar supporters pose for a portrait at the Johnson County BOCC public hearing on the solar amendments recommended by the Planning Commission in Olathe, Kansas, U.S., 4 April 2022. Photo: Arin Yoon / REUTERS

April 9, 2022

U.S. solar expansion stalled by rural land-use protests – “It’s pretty obvious that, if there’s a climate urgency, we’re not behaving that way”

By Nichola Groom 7 April 2022 (Reuters) – The Solar Star project in California is among the largest solar energy facilities in the world, boasting 1.7 million panels spread over 3,000 acres north of Los Angeles. Its gargantuan scale points to an uncomfortable fact for the industry: a natural gas power plant 100 miles south […]

FAO Food Price Index (left) and FAO Food Commodity Price Indices (right), January 2021 - March 2022. Graphic: FAO

April 8, 2022

The FAO Food Price Index makes a giant leap to another all-time high in March 2022

8 April 2022 (FAO) – The FAO Food Price Index (FFPI) averaged 159.3 points in March 2022, up 17.9 points (12.6 percent) from February, making a giant leap to a new highest level since its inception in 1990. The latest increase reflects new all-time highs for vegetable oils, cereals, and meat sub-indices, while those of […]

A houseboat rests in a cove at Lake Powell near Page, Arizona on 30 July 2021. In the summer of 2021, the water levels hit a historic low amid a climate change-fueled megadrought engulfing the U.S. West. Severe drought across the West drained reservoirs in 2021, slashing hydropower production and further stressing the region’s power grids. And as extreme weather becomes more common with climate change, grid operators are adapting to swings in hydropower generation. Photo: Rick Bowmer / AP Photo

April 6, 2022

Lake Powell hits historic low, raising hydropower concerns – “We clearly weren’t sufficiently prepared for the need to move this quickly”

By Sam Metz and Felicia Fonseca 16 March 2022 SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – A massive reservoir known as a boating mecca dipped below a critical threshold on Tuesday raising new concerns about a source of power that millions of people in the U.S. West rely on for electricity. Lake Powell’s fall to below 3,525 […]

Lake Mead end of month elevations, projections from the February and March 2022 24-month study inflow scenarios. Water year 2022 got off to a promising start in the Colorado River Basin with a wetter-than-normal October, but it was followed by the second-driest November on record and resulted in a loss of 1.5 million acre-feet of inflow for Lake Powell compared to the previous month’s projections. December projections showed the reservoir dropping below the target elevation of 3,525 feet as early as February 2022. As defined in the Drought Response Operations Agreement, the target elevation provides a sufficient buffer to allow for response actions to prevent Lake Powell from dropping below the minimum power pool elevation of 3,490 feet, the lowest elevation that Glen Canyon Dam can generate hydropower. Graphic: U.S. Bureau of Reclamation

April 4, 2022

Empty canals, dead cotton fields: Arizona farmers are getting slammed by 2022 water cuts in the U.S. West – “We’re not making one dime off this farm right now”

By Emma Newburger 3 April 2022 CASA GRANDE, Arizona (CNBC) – On the drought-stricken land where Pinal County farmers have irrigated crops for thousands of years, Nancy Caywood stopped her pickup truck along an empty canal and pointed to a field of dead alfalfa. “It’s heart wrenching,” said Caywood, a third-generation farmer who manages 247 […]

Afghan children play in the mud at an unofficial camp for internally displaced people in Herat, Afghanistan, May 2021. Photo: Charlie Faulkner

April 4, 2022

Devastated by worst drought in decades and economic turmoil, many in Afghanistan near starvation – “It is the speed, scale and source of the crisis that is so extreme”

By Holly Rosenkrantz 3 April 2022 (USA TODAY) – Afghanistan has faced grave hunger crises before. Two decades ago, people in the country were so hungry they resorted to eating wild grass. But the situation in the country now is unprecedented. Exacerbated by an unusually cold winter and the worst drought in decades, the economic […]

Futures prices of West Texas intermediate crude oil and lithium, May 2021-March 2022. Graphic: Bloomberg

March 29, 2022

A world that’s more expensive is starting to destroy demand – “A renewed spike in gas prices would see demand destruction become more widespread”

By David R Baker, Allison Smith, and Sheela Tobben 27 March 2022 (Bloomberg) – Prices for some of the world’s most pivotal products – foods, fuels, plastics, metals – are spiking beyond what many buyers can afford. That’s forcing consumers to cut back and, if the trend grows, may tip economies already buffeted by pandemic […]

Map showing projected global changes in the number of undernourished people under the severe scenario over the medium term, March 2022. Graphic: FAO

March 27, 2022

FAO alarmed by uncertainty over wheat harvest in Ukraine – “War could seriously escalate food insecurity globally, when international food and input prices are already high and volatile”

By Marta Rullan 26 March 2022 ROME (EFE) – The planting of the next wheat season in Ukraine, “which could significantly affect world food insecurity, is still extremely uncertain” because of the war, the director general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Qu Dongyu, told EFE, who was also very concerned about […]

$Changes in Amazon vegetation resilience since the 1990s and from 2003. (a) A map of the Kendall τ values of individual grid cells from 2003. (b) Histogram of the Kendall τ values for the Amazon rainforest, considering data from 2003 onwards. Of the grid cells, 76.2 percent have a positive Kendall τ value from 2003 onwards and 77.8 percent have this for the full time series. (c) Mean Vegetation Optical Depth (VOD) AR(1) time series (solid line) along with ±1 s.d. (dotted lines) created from grid cells that have BL fraction ≥80 percent in the Amazon basin and also contain no human land use (main text and Methods). The full AR(1) time series from 1991 (grey) has a Kendall τ value of 0.589 (P = 0.006) and from 2003 (black), a value of 0.913 (P$

March 20, 2022

The Amazon Rainforest is approaching a tipping point beyond which it would become savannah – “When it will be observable, it would likely be too late to stop it”

By Eric Shank 14 March 2022 (Salon) – A vast expanse of unique biological diversity hangs in the balance as the “lungs of the world” approach a tipping point from which there is no recovery. The Amazon Rainforest is losing its ability to regenerate, reported a peer-reviewed study, Monday, in Nature Climate Change. For 10% of all known species on […]

Aerial view of an area in the Amazon deforested for the expansion of livestock, in Lábrea, Amazonas state. The Amazon is still covered in smoke and torn by criminal and unrestrained destruction, according to overflights produced by the Amazon in Flames Alliance, organized by Amazon Watch, Greenpeace Brazil and the Brazilian Climate Observatory. The expedition took place between September 13th and 17th 2021, in the cities of Porto Velho (Rondônia state) and Lábrea (southern Amazonas state). Photo: Victor Moriyama / Amazônia em Chamas / Greenpeace

March 15, 2022

Brazil detects record Amazon deforestation in January and February 2022 – Forest destruction rate in 2021 was highest in ten years

By David Biller 11 March 2022 RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Detected deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon reached a record high for the month of February following a similar record the prior month. Satellite alerts of deforestation in February corresponded to 199 square kilometers (77 square miles), the highest indicator for that month in seven […]