Is Diminishing Solar Activity Detrimental to Canadian Prairie Agriculture?

Ray Garnett¹*, Madhav Khandekar² and Rupinder Kaur³ 

¹ Agro-Climatic Consulting, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada 

2 Expert Reviewer IPCC 2007 Cycle AR4 Climate Change Documents Markham, Ontario, Canada

³Plant Scientist and research assistant to Agro Climatic Consulting (ACC) Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

*Correspondence Submitted:07 Aug 2020; Accepted: 15 Aug 2020; Published: 31 Aug 2020

https://www.opastonline.com/storage/2020/09/is-diminishing-solar-activity-detrimental-to-canadian-prairie-agriculture-eesrr-20-.pdf


Abstract 

During the grain growing months of May-July, the mean temperature on the Canadian prairies has cooled down by 2ºC in the last 30 years. The cooling appears to be most certainly linked to diminishing solar activity as the Sun approaches a Grand Solar Minimum in the next decade or so. This cooling has led to a reduction in Growing Degree Days (GDDs) and has also impacted the precipitation pattern. The GDDs in conjunction with mean temperature and precipitation are important parameters for the growth of various grains (wheat, barley, canola etc.) on the prairies. In this study, we investigate the impact of declining GDDs and associated temperature and precipitation patterns on Prairie grain yields and quality. Our analysis shows that there has been a loss of about 100 GDDs over the time frame of 1985-2019. The loss in GDDs is also linked to some of the large-scale Atmosphere-Ocean parameters like the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), North Pacific Index (NPI) and Arctic Oscillation (AO). Our analysis suggests grain yield and quality could be significantly impacted in the coming years as solar activity continues to diminish.

Introduction 

The Canadian prairies produce up to 75 million tonnes of grain annually (primarily wheat, barley, oats) and oilseeds (primarily canola) during the summer months of June-August. Canada is a major grain exporting country with the market value of the grains at about 30-40 billion US dollars. The Canadian Prairie agriculture provides livelihood for several thousand farming communities and is a valuable year-round business activity for the prairies. A good grain harvest in a given year depends critically on avoiding various summer weather & climate extremes which can adversely or favorably impact grain yield and quality (Garnett and Khandekar 2015, 2017). 

Wheaton describes how the droughts of 2001 and 2002 affected Canada’s national GNP, which fell $5.8 billion during 2001 and 2002 with the biggest loss occurring in 2002 at $3.6 billion. The most severe impact of extremely low temperatures affecting spring wheat came in 1992 and 1993 after the 1991 Pinatubo volcanic eruption. Summer temperatures were 2ºC below normal resulting in a record low prairie protein content of 12% and fusarium head blight in Manitoba in 1993. In those years 75% of the spring wheat crop fell into the bottom two grades of #3 Canada Western Spring wheat and Feed wheat (Garnett and Khandekar, 2015). 

Buyers of Canadian spring wheat pay a premium for high quality and protein wheat for making bread and other edible products (Garnett, 2002). The 1992- 1993 experience suggests that extremely low summer temperatures are more likely to affect quality than yield. 

In years in which record spring wheat yields were recorded, such as 2013, June-August temperatures averaged very close to the 35 years mean of 16.90 C. Solar activity and variability are most commonly depicted using a solar cycle diagram as shown in Figure 1. The diagram shows variations in the 11-year sunspot cycles for the period 1900-2018. The impact of solar variability on the earth’s climate has been extensively studied by a large number of scientists over the last 50 years. Among some of the important studies are those of Eddy (1976), Reid (1997), Plimer (2009) and Archibald (2014). These and many other studies have now helped improve our understanding of the sun/climate link. Many solar scientists are now of the opinion that the Sun is the primary driver of the earth’s climate.

 Figure 1. The 11-year sunspot cycle 1900-2018 Using a study from the 1970s Archibald (2014) warns that during 2014-2024 a 2 C cooling could keep the Canadian wheat crop from ripening before the first frost. His prediction is supported by the research of Christensen and Lasson (1991) who demonstrate that global temperature is better correlated with the length of the previous cycle than with the amplitude of the coincident cycle.

 Butler and Johnson (1996) confirm the theory with a two-hundred year temperature record at the Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland. 

Garnett et al. (2006) show that wettest May-Julys on the Canadian prairies occur with less than 70 sunspots/month while driest MayJulys are experienced with over 100 sunspots per month. This is in line with the findings of Svensmark and Friis-Christensen (1997) and Svensmark et al (2017) who describe a solar link to cosmic ray flux and global cloud coverage. 

Garnett and Khandekar (2015) find that wet (dry) summers are cool (hot) summers (r = -0.31 **). Data, Study Area and Research Methods The datasets used in this study are listed in Table 1. Agro-Climatic Consulting (ACC) refers to the first authors home based business. In this investigation, we treat the extremely cold June-August temperatures of 1992 and 1993 as outliers. Ranking, correlation, composite and trend analysis research methods were used. Mean monthly solar activity during 1985-2019 was 54.2 sunspots. One S.D. is 44. Maximum solar activity was in 1990 averaging 154 sunspots/month while the lowest was in 2009 averaging 2 sunspots/ month.

Much more of this paper at:  https://www.opastonline.com/storage/2020/09/is-diminishing-solar-activity-detrimental-to-canadian-prairie-agriculture-eesrr-20-.pdf

Recommend this post and follow The Life of Earth

https://disqus.com/home/forum/lifeofearth/

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/