Volume 22/Number 2/Summer 1998
Another beautiful grain crop. Across the country, crop yields have been steadily increasing over the last fifty years. Is it just luck -- or is there some information in the climate record that can help us to understand this phenomenon? Read on and enjoy some good news.
Optimists may imagine a world where the overall agriculture productivity of
important food crops just keeps going up and up. How close is this sort of
vision to reality? Current techniques in modeling crop yields in Virginia
reveal what effect weather factors have on agricultural productivity and
also give us some insight as to the non-climatic factors which have gone
into increasing crop yields over the latter half of this century. Maybe the
future isn't quite so bleak as many had predicted, after all.
The scientific literature is replete with research results
which is applying a continuous downward pressure on the reasonable estimates
of potential global climatic warming due to the "greenhouse effect." Here we
present eight remarkable findings which have emerged from the literature in
recent months.
Sometimes it seems like weather related death and
destruction are on the rise, with big news reports on such events reaching
nearly daily proportions. Is it really all that bad? Our Current
Wisdom section will help you put some of these reports into perspective.
Advisory Staff
Patrick J. Michaels, State Climatologist
Philip J. Stenger, Research Coordinator and Advisory Editor
Paul C. Knappenberger, Senior Analyst
Dustin Hux, Stephen Gawtry and Tracey Lewis, Research Assistants
The Virginia Climate Advisory is a service publication of the Virginia State Climatology Office, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia. The Advisory's purpose is to present information about our climate, its impact and related research findings. We reserve the right to do this in a humorous fashion. The Advisory is mailed to subscribers worldwide. We welcome your comments. Subscriptions are available by writing or calling this office (804-924-0548).