North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Douglas Woodard <dwoodard@becon.org>]

If you remember, the map in the article referred to the period 2060 to 
2069, also that it showed SE Ohio as a less severely affected area. 
Within climate trends there are cycles, sometimes of about 30 years or 
so. As a Canadian I'm acquainted with the history of the Palliser 
Triangle on the Canadian prairies, and the controversy about whether 
it's really suitable for cultivation, the state of the controversy 
depending on whetehr we're in a wet or a dry spell. As someone 
interested in Russian history, I'm somewhat acquainted with the cycles 
of drought and famine versus rain and plenty, in especially the 
black-earth (ex-prairie) areas of Russia. Then, within cycles there is 
weather.

I notice too that among climate scientists the consensus of opinion 
about future soil moisture tends to vary from time to time. I remember 
some pessimistic opinions around 1988, then reduced pessimism, now a 
restoration of pessimism.

I understand that it is considered unwise in Arizona and New Mexico to 
camp in gullies and river bottoms no matter how dry they look. I've also 
read sad tales of confident foreign engineers who have built bridges 
across the narrow, shallow and generally inoffensive-looking Helmand 
River in Afghanistan in the dry season.

Climate has varied a lot in the past, and I expect it will vary a lot in 
the future, expecially with humans adding extra variables to an already 
complex system.

I wouldn't read too much into your mud this fall.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On 03/12/2010 5:41 PM, Deb S wrote:
> We're up to our ankles in mud here in SE Ohio, so maybe we're exempt
> from the drought? :)
>
> deb