Lessons From The Land In A Capricious Climate

There is nothing like gardening to get one in touch with the whims of nature. 2015, the fourth year of my no till garden began tremendously, the spring was warm and the last frost was early in March. Plants grew like crazy and I managed the earliest tomatoes since I've grown them from seed in South Carolina. Then came heat and drought, culminating in the 4th hottest and 9th driest July, and the third hottest summer on record for Columbia, a place that already advertises itself as famously hot. Despite the excellent looking dark soils and my best effort to keep up with water needs many of my plants withered from the heat. I perhaps picked the wrong year not to keep up my practice of applying a thick layer of leaves in the winter, in order to allow seedling lettuce not to get covered. Next came the flooding of October. I live in the hard hit Forest Acres section of Columbia and the devastation surrounded us. My rain gauge, a 14" tall bucket, overflowed in a single night. Fortunately our home sits on a hillside and so was not affected except for a few minor leaks, a 2 day power outage, and the citywide boil water advisory that lasted for almost 2 weeks. The thousand year, unprecedented rainfall broke records in much of the state. Due again to our slope, and perhaps the thick organic soils I've developed my garden survived, some of the plants I thought were lost to the heat and drought of summer came back and managed to survive almost until the end of the year due to a much warmer than normal November and December that had me fighting off mosquitoes when I worked in it on New Year's eve. Still, the wild fluctuations did not make for a productive crop this year.

 One of several dams in the Forest Acres area destroyed by the October flood.

A building in Columbia with the foundation washed out by the flood.

As bad a year as it was in my small garden it was much worse for many of the state's farmers. In traveling to study sites across the SC coastal plain I saw fields full of withered yellow and brown corn stalks. In October I saw on the news inundated farms and houses in these same areas, with water levels near the roofs of homes, and fields flooded for weeks. Many suffered complete loss. I heard an interview on the radio with a local farmer who worked the land his family held for generations. He said that until this year he'd never heard of a year in which all three staple crops: corn, cotton, and peanuts had failed.

 

A crop that did do well for me this long, hot South Carolina summer - pineapple!

Two studies I worked on clearly illustrated the schizophrenic nature of recent weather. In one study we measured river levels over the course of the last year on a branch of the PeeDee River in the coastal plain of South Carolina. While comparing our measurements to the nearest USGS gauge we discovered that the river levels went from among the lowest measured to among the highest measured within a couple of months. The second study was a continuation of a multiyear water quality study on Lake Wateree, a large managed reservoir between Columbia and Charlotte. Temperatures in the lake continued their recent warming trend this summer which is likely leading to an increase in the bluegreen algae (cyanobacteria) blooms occurring over the last few years.  The warm waters this summer helped fuel a rapid bloom which was finally disrupted by the heavy stream flows from the October rains.

Extreme weather events and fluctuations were hardly limited to South Carolina this year. California switched from extreme drought to flooding, as did the Pacific northwest, Lousiana, and the southern plains. All time rainfall records, including in some cases monthly totals, were smashed across the nation as were high temperature records. December broke the national record for both heat and precipitation and produced unheard of winter flooding on the Mississippi River. Across the globe drought, heat, and rainfall records were broken. Even our oceans tell us something is amiss, with the second ever hurricane to form in January in the Atlantic, the lowest latitude western hemisphere tropical cyclone, and the earliest hurricane on record in either the central or eastern north Pacific all occurring this winter. Some of this may be attributable to the large El Nino event this year but then one may ask why is it that the two largest recorded El Nino events have occurred within the last twenty years.

I wondered as I walked along the beach in Charleston, SC, on a balmy Christmas eve day whether perhaps we're too far removed from the land, from gardens and farms to see the patterns. Do we move too often to really know an area, are we so busy that we forget the January stroll through the park in our t-shirt with the daffodills blooming along the trail, are the news images of floods, droughts, and people seeking relief from heat now so commonplace that we no longer distinguish one event from another?

Just as I'm completing this post a news alert appeared in my email stating that NASA and NOAA have determined that 2015 was the warmest year on record by a large margin, and that 15 of the warmest 16 years have occurred since 2001:

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/20/463709775/a-scorcher-2015-shatters-record-as-warmest-year-nasa-and-noaa-say?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20160120&utm_campaign=alert&utm_term=breakingnews

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/2015-was-earth-s-warmest-year-record-noaa-says-n500406

http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2016/01/20/earths-warmest-year-record-global-warming/79051806/

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/

I think of some of my earliest posts, including one from years ago ("Does Anyone Still Need Evidence" Aug 7, 2007) in which I noticed what seemed to me then to be a more erratic climate pattern and nicknamed it "climate yoyo". These trends must be apparent to anyone who's lived in a place for many years and observed the world outside their front door.

As I drive around Columbia now, three months after the great flood, I see that most of the major repairs to roads and bridges have been completed. The casual observer may not realize that there was a disaster unless he happens across one of the broken dams, one of the buildings with a foundation washed out, or one of the scattered homes still undergoing repair, with drywall and lumber piled up in the street in front. If one looks closer, however, especially one who's been in the area awhile, he will see the fissures in the hillsides, the new scourings in the stream channels, the small but incessant seeps from the slopes and even from the roadways themselves, creating new sinks and potholes, and the small chunks of asphalt ceding to the scour at the corners of neighborhood bridges over now placated streams. I think that when we think of climate change impact we may picture the obvious, the big floods and streets inundated by rising seas, but we may miss this type of "death by a thousand cuts."

I've discussed in a recent post reasons people doubt climate change, but ignorance and denial seem less and less possible each year and with each new headline. I'd like to think that we are not a suicidal species, not so intransigent even in the face of increasingly clear science and the evidence outside our front doors, if we choose to see it, that we can't cast aside the campaign of obfuscation waged by a few duplicitous moneyed interests and act for our future, while there's still a chance.

Current extreme weather events:
 
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/global-warming-and-the-science-of-extreme-weather/
http://www.npr.org/2016/01/07/462265900/u-s-weather-wet-and-wild-in-2015-though-no-big-hurricanes
http://ecowatch.com/2016/01/02/extreme-weather-climate-chaos/
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/27/extreme-weather-already-on-increase-due-to-climate-change-study-finds
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/31/science/climate-chaos-across-the-map.html?_r=0
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-2015-had-such-crazy-weather-2015-12
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/17/2015-hottest-year-on-record-noaa
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/05/december-2015-was-wettest-month-ever-recorded-in-uk
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/weather/11548416/Only-a-third-of-average-rainfall-with-April-almost-over.html
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2015/10/05/south-carolina-flooding-climate-change/73385778/
http://www.weather.com/news/climate/news/wettest-month-on-record-united-states-may-2015
http://www.weather.com/forecast/regional/news/plains-rain-flood-threat-wettest-may-ranking
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2015/06/01/record-breaking-may-rainfall-in-texas-and-oklahoma-by-the-numbers/
http://www.wunderground.com/news/plains-rain-flood-threat-wettest-may-ranking
http://www.weather.com/news/news/june-records-heat-rain-2015
http://wxshift.com/news/blog/drought-to-deluge-last-weeks-gulf-coast-soaker-just-a-start
http://www.weather.com/forecast/national/news/christmas-week-forecast-warm-east
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/201512
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/el-ni-o-finally-here-mudslide-fears-raised-california-n490506
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/climate-change/special-issue/
https://www.pik-potsdam.de/news/press-releases/record-breaking-heavy-rainfall-events-increased-under-global-warming

El Nino strongest ever:

http://www.weather.com/news/climate/news/el-nino-ties-record-january-2016
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2016/01/14/noaa-latest-el-nino-is-now-tied-for-strongest-ever.html?intcmp=hphz06

El Nino history:

http://ggweather.com/enso/oni.htm

2015-2016 Winter Hurricanes:

http://www.weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/hurricane-alex-atlantic-ocean-azores
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/azores-threatened-out-season-hurricane-named-alex-n496451
http://www.weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/tropical-depression-one-c-pali-central-pacific?cm_ven=T_WX_L:_11116_6
http://www.weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/tropical-depression-one-c-pali-central-pacific

Columbia, SC 2015 weather:

http://www.weather.gov/cae/August2015ClimateSummary.html
http://www.weather.gov/cae/jul2015ClimateSummary.html
http://w2.weather.gov/climate/index.php?wfo=cae

SC weather 2015:

http://www.weather.com/news/news/south-carolina-historic-flood-rainfall-record-extreme
http://www.wmbfnews.com/story/30870137/2015-a-year-of-extremes

Effects of climate change:
http://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-before-and-after-pictures-of-earth-2015-2

South Carolina crop losses:
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/12/01/457974642/s-c-farmers-burdened-by-catastrophic-rainfall-crop-losses
http://www.wistv.com/story/30874528/weather-causes-crop-woes-in-newberry-county
http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/southeast/2015/11/22/389719.htm
http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/southeast/2015/10/12/384583.htm

Benefits far outweigh costs in fighting climate change:

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/13/benefits-far-outweigh-costs-tackling-climate-change-lse-study

A New Year's Resolution

I just have to vent my incredulity at what we continue to allow the oil and gas extraction industry to get away with. The evidence continues to amass and reports of industry officials attempting to hinder and obfuscate scientific findings become more blatant as they become increasingly alarming. Have we become so resigned to industry rhetoric that we accept the now constant small to medium strength earthquakes in a region that once had very few as the new norm, an acceptable price of doing business? Coming from California I know that you can grow complaisant with occasional smaller earthquakes but then I also well remember my first hand experience with the Loma Prieta quake.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-fracking-causing-oklahomas-earthquakes/ 

http://ecowatch.com/2015/11/16/oklahoma-most-earthquakes-fracking/

https://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/tag/earthquake/

http://www.ibtimes.com/oklahoma-earthquakes-2015-tremors-rise-oklahoma-officials-struggle-stem-fracking-2138124

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/08/us/earthquakes-in-oklahoma-raise-fears-of-a-big-one.html?_r=2

Do we just throw up our hands and say "Boys will be boys" when we find that as early as 1977 Exxon's (and likely all major oil company's) own researchers predicted severe global warming from continuation of the company's activities, and rather than committing to discovering solutions the company began a massive campaign of disinformation and denial?

http://insideclimatenews.org/content/Exxon-The-Road-Not-Taken

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/what-exxon-knew-about-climate-change

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/11/05/exxon-mobil-under-investigation-for-climate-change-denial

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/01/06/america-has-been-lied-to-about-climate-change/

http://insideclimatenews.org/news/23122015/2015-exxon-mobil-climate-change-science-research-exxonknew-investigation-petition

In another 40 years will we be asking the same questions of fracking companies that allow highly toxic and carcinogenic chemicals into our streams, rivers, irrigation and livestock water, and perhaps eventually drinking water supplies?

http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/fracking-wastewater-cancer-causing-new-study-confirms-1

http://ecowatch.com/2015/03/10/fracking-wastewater-chemicals-cancer/

http://www.mintpressnews.com/livestock-falling-ill-in-fracking-regions/211720/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fracking-fluid-health-study_568db472e4b0cad15e636b70

http://ecowatch.com/2014/09/08/fracking-wastewater-study/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3915249/

http://www.pennlive.com/news/2016/01/dep_announces_new_regulations.html

Are we too numbed for outrage that lack of oversight and maintenance of an aged but immense underground gas storage well with a history of problems has led to the biggest such leak in history, a now over 2 month long eruption of enough methane, a potent greenhouse gas, to become California's single largest point source emmission of greenhouse gas?

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/05/aliso-canyon-leak-california-climate-change

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-0104-gas-leak-20160104-story.html

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-company-behind-las-methane-disaster-knew-its-well-was-leaking-24-years-ago

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/why-we-cant-stop-the-enormous-methane-leak-flooding-la

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/34298-how-corporate-greed-caused-the-massive-california-methane-leak
 

http://ecowatch.com/2016/01/04/porter-ranch-methane-leak/

Has cheap gas and the perceived power of these large corporations really deadened our desire, made us impotent to fight for our planet? If so, we should stand shoulder to shoulder with oil and gas company executives in the not too distant future, explaining to our children and grandchildren our complicity in the dire state of the world we've bequeathed them. I, for one, will take a stand, make a resolution that I will not allow myself to be put in that unimaginably uncomfortable situation.