The majority of Australia is experiencing a “conveyor belt of cold fronts”, coinciding with a rally in energy prices leaving Aussies hesitant to tum on the heater during uncommonly long stretches of cold weather, reports theaustralian.com.au.
It’s been an intense few weeks for energy prices across the Aussie continent with severe pressure on both gas and electricity prices leading to calls to reserve more supplies, stop exports and “manage” domestic coal prices.
The polar blast afflicting most of the country has heaped further pressures on inventories. And with the freeze forecast to persist, with all capital cities -excluding Perth- set to experience temperatures well-below seasonal averages over the next week, this entire situation is surely a million miles away from where those renewable-pushing climate cultists saw us by mid-2022 (which they would freely admit if introspection, self-awareness and logic were traits and processes they possessed).
GFS 2m Temperature Anomalies (C) June 6 – June 13 [tropicaltidbits.com].
“It’s been a pretty cold start to the winter in Victoria, South Australia, NSW and Tasmania,” said Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Jonathan How. “We’re expecting those cold conditions to continue … We’ll see the cold air spread up into northern NSW and even parts of southern and central Queensland through the week.”
The meteorologist added that the persistent nature of the cold was rare. Australia is onto its third consecutive major cold system. Back-to-back systems are rare. Three in a row is virtually unheard of.
“The most unusual aspect is how long it’s lasting … it’s definitely unusual to see such a long stretch of cold air. Canberra this week … had three days in a row below I0C, which hasn’t happened since 2009 [solar minimum of cycle 23]. Melbourne, too, has had quite an extended run.”
As well as bringing persistent, anomalous cold to much of Australia, the Antarctic fronts are also responsible for the continent’s best start to a ski season in 50+ years.
U.S. SUFFERS RECORD-BREAKING LATE-SEASON SNOWFALL
It’s been a spring to forget for U.S. and Canadian growers, and even now, through the first week of June, lingering lows and late-season snows are continuing across the central and northern mountains.
Looking at just a handful of examples, Blue Valley, CO recently amassed a record 16.1 inches (40.9cm) of snow; Silver Plume, CO received 9.1 inches (23.1cm); while parts of Yellowstone, WY have seen drifts of up to 6-feet, according to local media.
Evergreen, CO recently saw 5.8 inches of snow which, as confirmed by 9News meteorologist Chris Bianchi, is the city’s largest June snowfall since at least 1961 when record books began.
These late-season chills are hurting North America’s young, tender field crops, crops that were already well-delayed due to persistent cold and wet conditions.
ASIA TURNS TO EU WHEAT DUE TO SHORTAGES
Southeast Asia-based wheat importers have been told their go-to suppliers are unavailable, and so have been forced to turn to already stretched European wheat, most notably from French, Romanian and Bulgarian origins.
Exports from the Ukraine –which feed 400 million people– are still unavailable, and with Australia –Indonesia’s biggest wheat supplier– out of the market due to the country’s port capacity being fully booked, many Asian importers are struggling to source enough food to feed their people.
Importers are also looking to cover positions they had booked with Indian wheat, after authorities there banned exports: “There were at least five panamax-size vessels for shipment to Indonesia from India,” a Europe-based trader told Agricensus, with those volumes now facing an uncertain future.
Indonesia is one of the world’s largest wheat importers, buying around 11 million mt of wheat annually — usually from Australia (now offline), Ukraine (now offline), Canada (freezing its tits off) and Argentina (harvest-hindering polar cold is prevailing).
In a sign of the times, Asian buyers have expanded their search to France, Romania or Bulgaria for milling wheat, which is having the affect of pushing already record prices even higher.
In another sign of desperation, global grain importers are easing import requirements in order to secure supply — changing the quality specifications is one tactic being implemented.
Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Thailand and the Philippines are among the nations to have recently amended their import terms in this way — these are also some of the nations most-likely to suffer severe food shortages and famine first.
According to the UN, currently some 44 million people at already at emergency levels of hunger. Although that number is expected to rise exponentially if the global food/energy crisis isn’t resolved–a crisis UN secretary general Antonio Guterres blames mainly on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which he says has led to not only a shortage of the grain itself, but also of key farming inputs (such as seeds and fertilizers).
Rising wheat prices are shaking global markets, but staying in Asia, China –the world’s top consumer of the grain– is already seeing its consumers paying record prices for food staples like noodles and bread.
Wheat harvested in China in recent weeks is being sold at around 3,200 yuan ($477) per tonne, about 30% higher than a year ago and the highest level on record.
“Everything is so much more expensive now. With nitrogen alone, prices have jumped about 100 yuan per bag,” said a farmer based in Hebei province. The farmer estimated the cost for winter wheat was as high as 700 yuan per tonne due the seed going into the ground late last fall due to persistent cold and heavy rains — a scenario that rings true with both North and South America farmers, alike.
Recommend this post and follow
The Life of Earth
No comments:
Post a Comment