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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] hedging my bets on climate change

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  • From: "Kieran &/or Donna" <holycow@frontiernet.net>
  • To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] hedging my bets on climate change
  • Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 16:04:21 -0500

I figure that there were ice ages and ups and downs in temps before there was an industrial revolution. So whatever humans are doing now that might screw up the climate, there is some other factor at work and I suspect the sun is the prime player. In the last few solar cycles, we have had high highs and low lows. Some 12 years ago cycle 23 (was it?) was slow to get started, then it went on forever, they said "oh, it's peaked now, all downhill from here" and then 18 months of terrific sunspot activity later they said, "oh, it's a double peak, that's happened before." Five years ago we were so glad to go visit our son in the Seattle area where they were having a drought to get away from the endless endless rain here in TN. Now we've had 4 years of very dry to barely adequate rainfall, and we are waiting waiting waiting for cycle 24 to start. Let's have some sunspots here, because sunspots mean clouds, and maybe that will mean some rain. (We finally managed to get some decent rain at the end of March, maybe thanks to the Redoubt eruption, and the ground cracking is gone. Cracked ground in March, not a good sign.)
A year or two back some solar scientists were saying that the currents inside the sun were slower than they had ever seen them (not that anyone has seen such things for very many years anyway) and they thought that the sun's output would be much reduced over the next 10-20 years. Despite NASA's official prodiction that once this solar cycle gets going it's gonna be a doozy and may knock out the electric grid, it's awfully slow to get started. In fact, the sun has been blank for longer than it's been in a century. I don't know how long this article will be up, but on http://www.spaceweather.com/ you can look at "Deep solar minimum".
In short, I'm not planting bananas. What we really want, gardeners and farmers alike, is to have a steady climate. I remember one year that if only the Irish and the north African farmers had known what was coming, they could have swapped crops. The potatoes would have done well that year in rainy north Africa and the millet would have done well in hot dry Ireland. I want to grow fruit that's not too bothered by winter cold, late freezes and hot humid summers alive with bugs and disease. Wish me luck! Donna



  • Re: [NAFEX] hedging my bets on climate change, Kieran &/or Donna, 04/02/2009

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