📍El Nino is not the only threat, there’s AMOC too

Grappling with El Niño, Super El Nino this year, we are au courant with factors that affect our climate and what climate change is doing to our weather, our resources and our well-being. There is another rather huge factor affecting our climate that we know considerably less about. That factor is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. That is quite a mouthful isn’t it? Let’s just work with AMOC, it’s easier.

AMOC is a broad swath of ocean currents in the Atlantic which is crucial to keep the waters of the world’s oceans circulating. Many parts of the global climate depend on this circulation and the ocean currents doing their thing properly. The AMOC swath carries warm water, salt and nutrients from the tropics to Europe and the Arctic and brings back cold water from deeper ocean layers back to the tropical region. When the cold water from the north enters the Indian and Pacific oceans, it directly impacts weather patterns in the Asia–Pacific region. One weather pattern that is impacted significantly is the Indian monsoon. 

The bad news is that the AMOC has been slowing down in recent years. Scientists are warning that this slowdown is now such that it could ultimately lead to the collapse of the AMOC itself. Slowdown is bad enough, a collapse would have dire consequences for every region of the world. A slowing or collapse of the AMOC would disrupt the redistribution of heat across the globe, leading to widespread turbulence in the climate. 

If the warm waters of the south were not to reach the north, Europe would see considerable cooling and the east coast of America would witness a rise in sea levels. According to climate models, in the Asia- Pacific region there would a southward shift in the rainfall belts and changes in the timing of when that rain comes. The monsoon systems could see massive disruption, with the Indian SW monsoon system being particularly vulnerable. 

With the unchecked rise in global warming the AMOC is likely to be weakened more rapidly. If this happens , the southward shift of the current rainfall belts will intensify and take away the rain from current monsoon regions. What that means is that the Indian monsoon could slip off the subcontinent. One need not spell out how dire that scenario is and how severe its implications will be. Judging by the global lack of commitment to do anything about arresting global warming, the only choice that India and the countries of the Asia-Pacific have, is to prepare adaptation plans. Plan aggressively for water conservation on a massive scale.

 📍Svalbard: The Gene Bank near the North Pole

One of the most precious structures located in the Arctic is the Svalbard Gene Bank built into a mountain on Spitsbergen Island, just outside the town of Longyearbyen in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago of Norway. This international Gene Bank is located roughly 120 meters deep inside the frozen permafrost, at a latitude of 78 degrees North, well inside the Arctic Circle, close to the North Pole.

The Gene Bank in Svalbard is often referred to as the Svalbard Global Seed Vault or the Doomsday Vault. This name embodies the intent of the Gene/ Seed collection in Svalbard, that if the Earth were to suffer catastrophic damage, if doomsday, so to speak, were to arrive, then seeds of the crops grown across the world would be found stored safely here. These seeds could be used to replant the ravaged Earth and help the remnants of the surviving humanity to stay alive and re-people the Earth again.

Svalbard is to be seen as a secure backup facility for seeds. It is like a safe deposit box where the seeds remain the property of the depositors. The bank holds over 1.4 million samples from countries across the globe. The vault physically holds backup seed samples from over 220 countries /territories which means practically the whole world. It preserves the genetic diversity of crop plants, especially food crops against climate change, wars, disasters, and other catastrophes that the human race could dream up.

India is among the leading contributors to the Svalbard Bank. The largest number of samples have come from the National Gene Banks of India, the United States, Germany, and Canada. These countries maintain some of the biggest volumes of backup crates inside the vault. 

I visited the Svalbard Seed Vault in 2009 at the invitation of the Norwegian Government. The invitation came because of Gene Campaign’s work on conserving crop genetic diversity and setting up community managed Zero Energy Gene–Seed Banks in villages in Jharkhand. Different kind of banks to the Arctic vault but same goals.

❗The Silent Pest Invasions Driven by Climate Change

One of the effects of global warming has been an increase in pest populations and the appearance of new pests and diseases in agriculture. This is because rising temperature can prompt insects to mature faster, reproduce earlier and cause population explosions. This makes a minor pest a major one. 

 

Pest populations also migrate to new areas where the earlier cooler conditions were not hospitable. The altered weather conditions become favourable to the pests and pathogens that were not adjusted to the earlier habitats. For example, pests that were historically found in the warmer tropical and subtropical regions are now moving north to cooler temperate areas because these have become more inviting thanks to a warming world.

 

The biting cold of our North Indian winters has acted to some extent as a natural regulator, killing off pests and limiting the size of the population and hence the scale of infestations. But now, as temperatures rise and winters become milder, more pests can survive the winter, extend their breeding seasons and expand into regions where colder temperatures previously restricted them. Warming climates are inviting new, often invasive pest species to migrate into agricultural zones where they were previously unknown. 

 

What is urgently needed is an early warning system that can sound the alert as soon as  anew pest is detected in a region. This will enable agencies to introduce measures to tackle the nascent population before it becomes a full blown infestation. The work of breeding new pest resistant varieties should start much earlier though, in anticipation of possible attacks from new pests.  FAO for instance, tracks the movement of the two significant fungal diseases Wheat Rust and Wheat Bunt and warns countries if they are found approaching their areas so that prophylactic measures can be put in place,

 

The scale of the threat from new pests is already alarming. According to the FAO, up to 40% of global crop production is lost to plant pests and diseases every year, costing the global economy more than US$220 billion annually. And the danger could grow significantly as the planet warms. The International Plant Protection Convention estimates that losses in major crops such as wheat, rice and maize due to insect pests could increase by 10–25% for every additional degree of global warming. Even a single unusually warm winter, an FAO-IPPC scientific review warns, can help an invasive pest establish itself in a new region.

 

An ICAR review states that 20–30% of India’s potential crop production is destroyed by insect pests, diseases, weeds and rodents. Another ICAR publication estimates that pests and pathogens alone account for 15–20% yield losses in major field and horticultural crops, while noting that the profile of key pests and pathogens is changing rapidly due to factors including climate change.

 

India has already seen how quickly a new pest can invade its agricultural landscape. Fall Armyworm, a pest native to the Americas, was first officially reported in India in 2018. By June 2019, it had spread to 20 states and affected more than 376,000 hectares.

I came across a startling report about birds on the war front in Ukraine using thin fibre optic cables to build their nests.

These cables are used to control attack drones and the birds have found a use for it. It's tragic that a war torn region has so destroyed and disrupted nature that birds are not able to live in peace, build their nests with natural materials like leaves, barks and grasses. They have to make do with what is available.

On the other hand, the adaptability of these birds to their changed environment is inspiring, as is their creativity.

Nature is resilient as these birds show us. But there is a limit to this resilence. If you disrupt and destroy nature beyond a point, the resilience is broken.

Our climate crisis is a living example of this.

📍THE BITTER IRONY OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Climate change alters rainfall patterns and temperature regimes. This in turn influences local water balance and disturbs the optimal cultivation period for particular crops, known as the Length of Growing Period or LGP. According to climate forecasts, land with good LGP will decrease by over 51 million hectare worldwide.

Adequate LGP is required to ensure that medium to long duration crops can successfully grow to maturity. Some crop varieties mature quickly and are ready for use in a shorter period (short duration varieties). Others, especially most cereals, require a longer duration to mature. When the LGP in an agro climatic zone is long, a variety of crops from short duration to long duration can be cultivated there throughout the growing season. This means higher food production. When on the other hand, the LGP contracts, the growing season is shortened, fewer crops can be cultivated thus reducing food production.

Most climate models predict large increases in the LGP of today’s temperate and arctic regions. This means that temperate regions that are currently one crop zones (growing just one crop per year) will become two crop zones (growing two crops per year), resulting in a doubling of food production there.

On the other hand, almost half the production potential of tropical countries like India could be lost. The biggest blow to food production is expected to come from the loss of multiple cropping zones. The worst hit areas are predicted to be those where favorable weather allows farmers to take two to three crops in a year. These areas are predicted to turn into single crop zones, where only one crop can be taken in a year because the LGP will have shrunk or shifted In a perverse irony, the develop/ temperate countries will experience an increase in agriculture production as temperate regions get warmer. 

The regions which because of their industrialization and huge emissions of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) are responsible for wrecking the climate will actually end up being its beneficiaries. On the other hand, today’s developing world in the tropics, which has not contributed to creating this climate hazard, will be its worst victim, and will suffer a loss in agriculture productivity, with serious consequences for food availability and hunger.