Atlantic Ocean circulation nearing ‘devastating’ tipping point

I foresee paddy fields across swathes of the South West…

GrannyGravy13

I foresee paddy fields across swathes of the South West…

I was thinking that

Brown rice is a very healthy food...

You really are unhinged if you think like that, we have had wet spells and some floods but nothing that hasn’t happened over the past century. There have been localized crop losses but most have been harvested in good condition, wet weather in October did make planting crops difficult, most did get done. It’s many years since we have had a cold hard winter, mild winters do help farmers. We havn’t had a serious drought since 1976, in this area the highest flood was in 1998 at 2.7 metres above normal, this year highest was just .9 metres, some cars stranded and a few riverside properties flooded, yet it was international news.

The big issue with food production is low prices, nobody is making money out of farming, that is why protests are happening across Europe, farmers can cope with weather variations but not low prices.

Katie59

You really are unhinged if you think like that, we have had wet spells and some floods but nothing that hasn’t happened over the past century. There have been localized crop losses but most have been harvested in good condition, wet weather in October did make planting crops difficult, most did get done. It’s many years since we have had a cold hard winter, mild winters do help farmers. We havn’t had a serious drought since 1976, in this area the highest flood was in 1998 at 2.7 metres above normal, this year highest was just .9 metres, some cars stranded and a few riverside properties flooded, yet it was international news.

The big issue with food production is low prices, nobody is making money out of farming, that is why protests are happening across Europe, farmers can cope with weather variations but not low prices.

Regarding the floods, Katie59, I too remember the floods of 98 in our region. They were horrendous, leading to some deaths, and we haven't had anything nearly that bad since.

But that is almost certainly down to the changes to our rivers that were subsequently made to try to stop it from happening again
I am quite sure that without action, it would have happened again, possibly several times and possibly even worse, because we have certainly had equally heavy and sustained rainfall on quite a few occasions since, and it seems to be becoming more frequent.

There must be a lot of areas where the same is true - that the reason we are not yet seeing more and worse flooding is because of measures put in place to mitigate it. There will be limits though, both practical and financial, as to how long those measures will be enough and what else can be done, so we mustn't get complacent.

I don't think that I am the unhinged one, Katie59.

www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/press-office/news/weather-and-climate/2021/record-breaking-rainfall-more-likely-due-to-climate-change

With warmer, wetter weather come more pests and diseases so farmers will have even more to contend with.

MaizieD

I don't think that I am the unhinged one, Katie59.

www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/press-office/news/weather-and-climate/2021/record-breaking-rainfall-more-likely-due-to-climate-change

You are unhinged if you envisage rice growing in SW UK

I agree there may well be more rainfall in the future, having a monsoon climate to grow rice is not likely at this latitude.

Climate change is what this thread is about- hmm, could there be a change to monsoons, perhaps, even in SW? More heat, different rainfall patterns - since change means that things would not be as we are accustomed to experience them then it is possible!

Camargue is currently the most northern place that rice is commercially grown.

It is not a great leap of imagination to suggest that with climate change it could be possible to grow in the U.K.

Looks as though Scottish experiments are under way.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyaGhHQi5NY

And optimistic. Special fried rice with your haggis, anyone?

Whether or no we can grow rice will be the least of our worries. And you don't need a monsoon climate for rice. The north of Italy produces a huge amount. What may be catastrophic will be the changes in sea temperatures which will affect all life in the sea in ways we can't yet imagine. We are already seeing changes in migration patterns which may have a a serious effect on our future.

Katie59

MaizieD

I don't think that I am the unhinged one, Katie59.

www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/press-office/news/weather-and-climate/2021/record-breaking-rainfall-more-likely-due-to-climate-change

You are unhinged if you envisage rice growing in SW UK

I agree there may well be more rainfall in the future, having a monsoon climate to grow rice is not likely at this latitude.

OMG. You didn't think I was serious, did you?😂

OMG. You didn't think I was serious, did you?😂

Others on gransnet did, judging by other comments.

Oh, you were serious all right. You were arguing against rhe mere possibility of climate change seriously affecting anyone, and casting serious doubts on the sanity of anyone who thought it remotely possible that the effects could ever be so extreme as to allow rice to grow in the UK.

It was only when you were challenged on that, and it was shown that people had suceeded in getting rice to grow here (not exactly in quantities likely to feed a hungry population, but growing healthy plants that seemed to be producing a crop) that you changed your tune and claimed it was - what? - a joke? - a chance to poke fun at someone else's serious conclusions?

As Deedaa says, if the climate DOES change that much, whether we can or can't plant rice instead of potatoes will be the least of our worries, but dismissing that as "unhinged" is a pointer to your attitude to more serious research.

Is the Met Office serious is the real question? Not only have they published a paper as cited by MaizieD on climate change and flooding but there’s another one on global warming and drought. Take your pick. The Met Office should stick to forecasting weather over the next week or so which it does with varying degrees of accuracy.

ronib

Is the Met Office serious is the real question? Not only have they published a paper as cited by MaizieD on climate change and flooding but there’s another one on global warming and drought. Take your pick. The Met Office should stick to forecasting weather over the next week or so which it does with varying degrees of accuracy.

Both are true - you need to do a bit more reading.

Wwm2. My husband has read extensively on the subject of global warming and it’s quicker to ask him. Not credible source of information.

The Met Office that is🙄

While on the possible effects on agriculture of climate change, it is worth remembering that potatoes rot in the ground when it is too waterlogged. That is what happened in Ireland in the 1840s, when a few very wet years caused repeated failures of the potato crops. They failed across on the mainland too. That decade is known to historians as "the hungry forties" and contributed to the growth of the cities, when farmers had to sell their farms for almost nothing to pay their debts and destitute farm-workers moved away from the countryside to look for work.

That was only a few bad years of weather. We need to be prepared for surviving decades or centuries of a climate that doesn't suit our customary crops. It may not happen - but if it is going to, we need to have made the plans well in advance and found out just what will grow here under the worst scenario, and how best to cultivate it. Relying on importing food from other areas, where they could be having problems growing enough for themselves, may not be an option!

Elegran

Oh, you were serious all right. You were arguing against rhe mere possibility of climate change seriously affecting anyone, and casting serious doubts on the sanity of anyone who thought it remotely possible that the effects could ever be so extreme as to allow rice to grow in the UK.

It was only when you were challenged on that, and it was shown that people had suceeded in getting rice to grow here (not exactly in quantities likely to feed a hungry population, but growing healthy plants that seemed to be producing a crop) that you changed your tune and claimed it was - what? - a joke? - a chance to poke fun at someone else's serious conclusions?

As Deedaa says, if the climate DOES change that much, whether we can or can't plant rice instead of potatoes will be the least of our worries, but dismissing that as "unhinged" is a pointer to your attitude to more serious research.

Hang on, Elegran, if that was addressed to me, I'm not the baddie here. The line about paddy fields across the South West was GG13', not mine. Mine was just a light hearted response. Light hearted is still allowed, isn't it?

You seem to have failed to have noticed that the person who isn't taking climate change seriously is our resident farming expert, Katie59, who thinks that the excessive rainfall and flooding we've experienced over the past few years (all those supposed once in 50 or 100 year flooding events that are happening with depressing regularity) are just part of a normal climate cycle, and that the idea of rice cultivation in the UK is ' unhinged'.

I'm not the one with my head buried in the sand (which ostriches *don't do, before anyone points out the unscientific nature of the meme)

The problem is it’s worse case scenarios based on computer modelling so there is no absolute. Everything gets blamed on climate change even when it’s other factors. For example the flooding on the Somerset Levels was caused by non maintenance of the rynnes and pumping stations - in Holland the Polders were claimed from the sea and the Dutch make sure it stays that way, just as the monks at Glastonbury did. We seem to have a lot of climate alarmism. Lots of mights and ifs. Plain fact is there are too many of us.

It was aimed at Katie59, not you, Maizie. Perhaps I should have made that clearer. I was well aware that the first mentions of rice by you and GG13 were lighthearted, but Katie59 picked up on them to continue about the madness of taking climate change predictions seriously.

I and some others picked up on the same mention to have a look at the possibilities of growing rice - even without climate change, some farmers might find that a useful addition to their crops. I found the differences between different varieties of rice were interesting. I did wonder whether it was a good idea to have free-range ducks so close to the trial rice paddy, given that ducks are not house-trained.

It isn't just flooding, Avalon, it's about excessive rainfall and permanently waterlogged soil which has an effect on our food production.

I live in a fairly rural area. We haven't had any large scale'flooding', affecting towns and villages as it has in other areas, but just driving around I can see mini 'lakes' in fields which are constantly being replenished and which will be affecting farming practices.

I agree there well maybe more rainfall in the future, having monsoon to grow rice is not likely at this latitude

Sorry Katie59 the attached shows that rice is grown at latitudes further north than the U.K.

It’s not clever calling posters unhinged by the way.