Storms Hit European Farms, Food Pressure Rising
June 7, 2022
Reposting my recent chat with Jeff Masters, in light of continued bad news for food prices.
I was not aware that France is the fourth largest wheat exporter.
PARIS/ROME, June 6 (Reuters) – Farms across France were hit by heavy hail and fierce storms over the weekend, the National Farmers’ Union Federation (FNSEA) said on Monday, while their counterparts in Italy warned of the impact of drought on crop yields.
Hail, strong winds and torrential rain caused damage in nearly 65 departments of France, affecting wheat as well as fruit crops and vineyards, the FNSEA said in a statement.
“The damage is very significant, with some farms seeing 100% of their crop affected,” the statement said.
The wheat harvest is approaching in France, the world’s fourth-largest wheat exporter.
Northern Italian regions such as Piedmont, Valle d’Aosta and Trentino Alto Adige have also been hit by storms but the main concern in Italy is drought, with another week of high temperatures forecast across much of the country.
Italy has received only half the usual rainfall levels so far in 2022, according to agricultural lobby Coldiretti, which estimates the cost of lost production at close to 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) and said the Po Valley was hardest hit.
Climate Denial Crock of the Week 
June 7, 2022 at 12:29 pm
August 2020 in southwest Louisiana rice farmers were hustling to get their crops in to the dryer where my brother worked before Cat4 Hurricane Laura hit. Most got it in, but it’s another reminder how many different things are now competing to destroy or reduce crops around the world.
Crop insurance has got to be going up, too, I’d expect.
June 7, 2022 at 2:44 pm
Cat 4 hurricanes have declined over the past 20 years.
June 7, 2022 at 4:28 pm
Wrong:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Category_4_Atlantic_hurricanes
June 7, 2022 at 4:32 pm
Oh you wanna play during links do you?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/extreme-weather-page/
June 7, 2022 at 4:36 pm
Noice!
June 7, 2022 at 7:54 pm
WUWT is clickbait. Vary your sources of information and consider their agenda and authority.
June 7, 2022 at 8:01 pm
I consume a very wide variety of news sources, including the MOST VIEWED WEBSITE ON CLIMATE CHANGE. The BBC is not the most viewed website on climate change; nor is the UN website. If they don’t mention the drought of 1540, it is you who should consider your sources. How much taxpayer funds pay the jet-setting hypocrites that make the news you consume?
June 8, 2022 at 7:33 am
Old graphs and you do know there is a difference between US hurricanes and North Atlantic basin hurricanes?
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24268-5
June 9, 2022 at 12:13 am
That page isn’t coherently formatted. I couldn’t read it.
The meteorologists whose life’s work is to study hurricanes note that there are more stronger tropical cyclones because Ocean Heat Content (OHC) is going up. In the Atlantic basin, hurricanes are more prevalent in La Niña years.
Indian Ocean
June 9, 2022 at 5:46 am
If you can work up the patience to look at the WUWT references pages, you’ll find data on hurricanes and tropical cyclones. You might find some comfort and perspective. Outside of the data are accounts of violent storms throughout history.
June 7, 2022 at 2:43 pm
Deaths from weather-related events have declined dramatically in the past century. The fear mongering is criminal.
June 7, 2022 at 4:36 pm
Irrelevant, despite a five-fold increase in weather events in the last 50 years, deaths are down because we have better technology now – increased early warning by weather tracking, better communication with cell phones and internet, and sturdier structures than existed in the 19th and 20th centuries:
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58396975.amp
June 7, 2022 at 4:41 pm
The only five-fold increase had been the hysteria. Tornadoes are flat. Droughts and fires and unimpressive. Heat waves were much higher in the 1930s.
If you want to play dueling links, this will get very tedious.
If deaths are irrelevant then Gretta and every other alarmists can stop telling us that “people are dying”.
Fossil fuels also help people survive disasters and everyday life.
June 7, 2022 at 4:48 pm
You were saying the total number of deaths were down in the last century – largely accurate. But it is irrelevant as a reason to deny the effects of climate change for the reasons I listed above. Greta with one T is also right by saying people are dying – they are. Burying your head in the sand doesn’t change that.
No duh on your last sentence. That isn’t a reason not to seek cleaner alternatives with fewer economic externalities like changing the climate over the entire globe.
June 7, 2022 at 5:02 pm
When I believed in Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change, I rode a bicycle year-round. Far from burrying my head in the sand, I was, and still am a much better environmentalists than Grottta or any high-profile alarmist. Those people don’t do a bike tour because they don’t really believe their lies. They are jet-setting hypocrites. Every famous alarmist is a champagne socialist.
June 7, 2022 at 5:08 pm
Good for you!
This negates over a century of climate science how?
June 7, 2022 at 5:01 pm
I agree dueling links will get tedious. You won’t care whatever I post, you’ll post BS like WUWT, then you’ll hop from denial talking point to point ad nauseum.
There is a recent UN post about drought frequency:
https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/05/1118142
But what do they know, the commie globalist b-tards.
June 7, 2022 at 5:14 pm
WUWT is vastly superior to the BBC or the Gaurdian. The UN?! Jet-setting hypocrites. Come on. WUWT has data without spin. The IPCC is pure spin.
June 7, 2022 at 7:32 pm
I just snorted my LaCroix out my nose.
June 7, 2022 at 8:02 pm
The BBC employed Jimmy Savile.
June 7, 2022 at 7:25 pm
I dare you to read through that U.N. report and see if anything like the drought of 1540 is mentioned.
June 8, 2022 at 1:37 am
The decade of European droughts and high temperatures back in the 16th Century is certainly very interesting indeed, and shows the power of variability.
But what about the modern comprehensive temperature statistic collections from such establishments as JMA, NOAA, NASA and Copernicus. Is not the relentless multi decade upward curve of temperatures, for both the Earth hemispheres not far more to the point than that one decade in Europe in the mid 16th century. ?
Even David Rose of the Daily Mail has given up on making a fuss of short term trends, plateaus and bumps.
June 8, 2022 at 4:22 am
Drought comes and goes in the Horn of Africa, but this is one like no other.
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-covid-health-africa-84b52bd508b9aa7a01a7976423d67a27
June 8, 2022 at 2:45 am
“CO2 pollution is generated by burning fossil fuels for transportation and electrical generation, by cement manufacturing, deforestation, agriculture and many other practices. Along with other greenhouse gases, CO2 traps heat radiating from the planet’s surface that would otherwise escape into space, causing the planet’s atmosphere to warm steadily, which unleashes a cascade of weather impacts, including episodes of extreme heat, drought and wildfire activity, as well as heavier precipitation, flooding and tropical storm activity.”
https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/carbon-dioxide-now-more-than-50-higher-than-pre-industrial-levels
June 8, 2022 at 6:17 am
During the drought of 1540, many of the great rivers of Europe dried up. If that happened today, you would blame nontoxic carbon dioxide “pollution” because bureaucracies like NOAA and science/entertainment superstars told you to. Governments and their wars reduce food production. Greenhouse operators add carbon dioxide into the facilities to increase production. Have you heard of global greening?
June 8, 2022 at 7:51 am
Dude, you think we’re the ones that are brainwashed, and that’s fine. But I’m betting you fairly recently came upon sites like WUWT, and you’ve become a convert to them. You may think that you were once brainwashed by climate change concerns, now you are not one thanks to the good folk on those sites, and like a new acolyte, you’re fighting the good fight with us idiots here.
Just know, most of us commenting on this site have been dealing with carbon copies of you for decades. We’ve heard all the talking points, including “global greening”, a particularly ironic fallback point (first the person argues climate change doesn’t exist because things like tornadoes haven’t increased, then they say so what if CO2 increases).
All the talking points are inevitably irrelevant distractions. Perhaps in time you will realize this, or maybe not, but that’s up to you. I’m signing out on this post.
June 8, 2022 at 8:51 am
Guessing that I just recently became skeptical of the jet-setting hypocrites who want us to eat bugs is ironic. Alarmism is based on assumptions and guesses that often produce failed predictions (like those of an Ice-free Arctic. I have been skeptical for well over 15 years and have been exposed to alternative perspectives for much longer. I used to peddle a bicycle through the bitter, freezing cold and under the hot, blazing sun. I still do. In May, I biked over 300km. Instead of encouraging kids to ride bikes, David Suzuki made a website explaining that Santa Claus’ workshop would sink into the Arctic unless we replace every automobile and piece of power generation equipment in their world. Climate hysteria has been around for about 3 decades. During that time, no jet-setting hypocrite has made an aggressive push to promote the most efficient form of transportation. The past 30 years have shown us that most people care less about carbon dioxide emissions than I did 20 years ago. BTW…brainwashing is partly why I did so much cycling. Try and look on the bright side.
June 8, 2022 at 8:54 am
I never said that climate change doesn’t exist. If you can’t be more accurate, while should I trust your opinion about science, which relies heavily on precision?
June 8, 2022 at 9:29 am
“I never said that climate change doesn’t exist.” Do you believe that Anthropogenic Climate Change exists due to the release of greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4) from the burning and extraction of fossil fuels?
June 9, 2022 at 12:16 am
Weather forecasting, improved building construction and improved trauma care help reduce deaths from individual weather-related events in modern times in rich countries.
Deaths from heat are going up, but they’re not reported on like a wind or flood events.
June 9, 2022 at 5:39 am
Deaths from cold are also going up…FOSSIL FUELS also save people and increase the standard of living around the world. I see lots of reporting on heat deaths. Basically none on cold deaths. Either way, Greta and her ilk can quit saying “people are dying” until that trend reverses.
The formatting throws you off? Is it all the reference pages with well organized data? Formatting is an interesting excuse. At least you’re not attacking my intelligence at the same time the way many alarmists do.
June 9, 2022 at 7:16 am
cameronmelin: “I never said that climate change doesn’t exist.”
Do you believe that Anthropogenic Climate Change exists due to the release of greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4) from the burning and extraction of fossil fuels?
June 9, 2022 at 7:22 am
Maybe, but there are obviously other factors at play like the sun. Even a militant alarmist insisted that land-use is a factor. I see the standard of living better than at any time in history and therefore doubt the hysteria. Predictions of hunger and refugees from climate alarmists have failed. It is governments that cause those unfortunate conditions, including the mandatory use of ethanol in fuel.
Do you believe that carbon dioxide is causing global greening?
June 9, 2022 at 6:15 pm
Do I believe that carbon dioxide is causing global greening?
Maybe, but there are other factors at play like the sun, agricultural practices, new varieties for large scale agriculture. The improved synthesis of sugars from increased CO2, is not not the only effect that CO2 has on agriculture. There are also negatives. Read up on Free-Air Carbon dioxide Enrichment experiments and results:
Click to access facereport2020HR.pdf
If the extra release of CO2 from fossil fuel burning and extraction had no climate change effect (like pumping extra CO2 into a grow chamber) then, all good. But that is not what is happening to the world now or in the future.