RICHARD BLACK INVENTS RICE DECLINE SCARE STORY

STOP PRESS RICHARD BLACK ENVIRONMENT CORRESPONDENT MISQUOTES RESEARCH FINDING IN TYPICAL BBC POLICY OF EXAGGERATING PURPORTED CLIMATE CHANGE EFFECTS. IT'S PADDYGATE!

Richard says "Global warming is cutting rice yields in many parts of Asia, according to research, with more declines to come. Yields have fallen by 10-20% over the last 25 years in some locations.” this was the original article that I captured here

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BBC News - Science and Environment 9th August 2010

Rice yields falling under global warming

By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News

Dark clouds hang over future farming under climate change, the study suggests

Global warming is cutting rice yields in many parts of Asia, according to research, with more declines to come.
Yields have fallen by 10-20% over the last 25 years in some locations.
The group of mainly US-based scientists studied records from 227 farms in six important rice-producing countries such as Thailand, Vietnam, India and China.
This is the latest in a line of studies to suggest that climate change will make it harder to feed the world's growing population by cutting yields.
We haven't seen a scenario where daytime temperatures cross over a threshold where they'd stop benefiting yields and start reducing them”
In 2004, other researchers found that rice yields in the Philippines were dropping by 10% for every 1C increase in night-time temperature.
That finding, like others, came from experiments on a research station.
The latest data, by contrast, comes from working, fully-irrigated farms that grow "green revolution" crops, and span the rice-growing lands of Asia from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu to the outskirts of Shanghai.
Describing the findings, which are published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), lead researcher Jarrod Welch said"We found that as the daily minimum temperature increases, or as nights get hotter, rice yields drop."
The mechanism involved is not clear but may involve rice plants having to respire more during warm nights, so expending more energy, without being able to photosynthesise.
By contrast, higher temperatures during the day were related to higher yields; but the effect was less than the yield-reducing impact of warmer nights.
However, if temperatures continue to rise as computer models of climate project, Mr Welch says hotter days will eventually begin to bring yields down.
Warmer climates will bring changes to rainfall, potentially causing drought
"We see a benefit of [higher] daytime temperatures principally becausewe haven't seen a scenario where daytime temperatures cross over a threshold where they'd stop benefiting yields and start reducing them," he told BBC News.
"There have been some recent studies on US crops, in particular corn, that showed the drop-off after that threshold is substantial," said the University of California at San Diego researcher.
The 2007 assessment of climate impacts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that although a modest temperature rise could increase crop yields in some regions, for "temperature increases more than 3C, average impacts are stressful to all crops assessed and to all regions".
A study published at the begining of last year concluded that half of the world's population could face a climate-induced food crisis by 210 0, with the most extreme summers of the last century becoming routine towards the end of this century.

Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

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Whereas the press release says ”Rising temperatures during the past 25 years have already cut the yield growth rate by 10-20 percent in several locations. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-08/uoc--htt080610.php

Meanwhile, in the real world away from state sponsored (BBC) environmentalist blogs, rice production is STILL rising!

Do you need any more proof that the BBC is a scare-monger, NOT the squeaky-clean, be-all and end-all of climate reporting? I got the correct press release link from WUWT. Read this and the comments for the REAL picture about rice production.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/10/rice-yields-co2-and-temperature-you-write-the-article/

Even the original research quoted was only for 6 years data on 227 farms in 6 countries. Where do they get their “25 years” from? How do they know temperature is the only or even main explanatory variable for purported differences observed?

Total CARP! Just typical scare-mongering from so-called "climate researchers” to keep the research funding flowing and themselves in a job.

000000000

BBC to issue correction on rice yields story

Posted on August 12, 2010 by Anthony Watts
wattsupwiththat.com/


From: Richard Black
Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2010 7:01 AM
To: Anthony Watts
Subject: RE: Your article on rice yields

Dear Anthony,

Thanks for your email. You are correct – I am mistaken – a correction will be made to the news story shortly.

Best regards,
Richard Black

But I sent Richard an email first! Where's MY reply?
Yippee! Vindication!

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The title of Black’s Article has been altered from
“Rice yields falling under global warming”
to
“Rice yields 'to fall' under global warming”

The opening sentence has changed from
"Global warming is cutting rice yields in many parts of Asia, according to research, with more declines to come. Yields have fallen by 10-20% over the last 25 years in some locations."
to
"Global warming is set to cut rice yields in Asia, research suggests. Scientists found that over the last 25 years, the growth in yields has fallen by 10-20% in some locations, as night-time temperatures have risen."

Later this sentence
“This is the latest in a line of studies to suggest that climate change will make it harder to feed the world's growing population by cutting yields.”
is replaced by this
“This is the latest study to suggest that climate change will make it harder to feed the world's growing population."

This new sentence is inserted
"Although yields have risen as farming methods improved, the rate of growth has slowed as nights have grown warmer."


That’s about it in terms of a "correction". Overall it's the same "future scenario" scare-mongering as before, in fact.

The role of population growth in making rice production "problematic" is hinted at but this does not stop Richard going overboard with another “global warming" scare story instead of a "global population growth" scare story.

At least he's not calling it "anthropogenic global warming" but he doesn't need to because his followers insert this word automatically for themselves. Trained like Pavlov's dogs.

Here's the new version

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10918591

“Rice yields 'to fall' under global warming”

A question mark after the title would indicate that Richard Black has at least one brain cell alive to the possibility that the "predicted scenario" may not come to pass.

And why does he place "to fall" in quotes? Are we supposed to think he is being ironic?