"It looks like it may lead to a net increase in food production, but the distribution will be different. IF kansas and nebraska become dustbowls, but siberia more than compensates for it, is that an acceptable change for you?"
Who to say Kansas or any US state will become a dustbowl. A dustbowl is more than simply drought, a word was coined btw due to an event that occurred before a time any think human activity had much affect upon global temperatures.
"The Dust Bowl drought was a natural disaster that severely affected much of the United States during the 1930s. The drought came in three waves, 1934, 1936, and 1939-40, but some regions of the High Plains experienced drought conditions for as many as eight years. The "dust bowl" effect was caused by sustained drought conditions compounded by years of management practices that left topsoil susceptible to the forces of the wind."
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/drought/drght_history.html
"Many circumstances exacerbated the effects of the drought, among them the Great Depression and economic overexpansion before the drought, poor land management practices, and the areal extent and duration of the drought."
http://www.drought.unl.edu/whatis/dustbowl.htm
"A drought, pronounced drowt, is a period of abnormally dry weather when the average rainfall for a region drops far below the normal amount for a long time. Higher than normal temperatures usually occur during drought periods. The severity of the drought depends upon the degree of moisture deficiency, the duration and the size of the affected area."
Drought therefore is possible in areas in which there is normally a lot of rain. And of farming is quite possible in areas of low rainfall.
California Average Yearly Precipitation:
In some of the areas in which there is the lowest rainfall there is some of the most productive farming.
Since we can use irrigation and since we have already turned a desert like condition in California [Central Valley] into one of the most productive of farming regions, if Kansas and Nebraska get less annual rainfall [say as much as a 1/2 or 1/4 of what they get today] then they won't necessarily turn into dust bowls.
Kansas Average Yearly Precipitation
So, considering this, it's more than an acceptable change- if you mean by dust bowls, conditions of drought which we already have had, and no way can not to have in the future.
Space/Science » in reply to For temperature rise on the low side of the range...
re: For temperature rise on the low side of the range...
The whole thread (59 posts)
- Part 1: Global Warming and Sea Level Change READ TO THE END before responding
- Temperature rise
- How much new arable land becomes available due to a global warming cycle?
- For temperature rise on the low side of the range...
- The world will definitely be worse, much worse.
- re: Part 1: Global Warming and Sea Level Change READ TO THE END before responding
- Thermocline and temperature structure of the ocean
- Thermal expansion of ocean water.
- re: Global Warming and Sea Level Change
- re the antarctica data...
- Okay, are you sure you put the right link?
- I will go over the points in detail later today, but let me just say this now
- sea ice extent currently is BELOW the recent mean
- Ocean temperature update
- Arrrrgh, not sure how it became IIPC it should read IPCC (n/t)