New climate report shows higher temps, ag impacts where we live - WWNY
New climate report shows higher temps, ag impacts where we live
WATERTOWN, New York (WWNY) - A newly released report on climate change in New York State shows temperatures on the rise and an increase in drastic weather events.
The report concludes - among many other things - climate change is affecting and will continue to affect agriculture.
The public can now read the New York State Climate Impacts Assessment, done by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.
The report finds average temperatures have risen more than 2 and a half degrees since 1901 and even with lower-emission policies enforced, greenhouses gases emitted into the air have already produced lasting effects.
The report is the work of more than 250 climate science experts across the state.
“It’s encompassing all aspects or all sectors of the New York state economy,” said Deborah Aller, from Cornell University’s School of Integrative Plant Science and one of the report’s authors.
Aller helped author the agriculture chapter in the assessment.
In its key findings, the report highlights that the most severe problems are associated with weather like extreme precipitation and short-term drought.
“From dairy to perennial food systems to mixed vegetables and all of agriculture is experiencing it,” Aller said.
Aller says farmers won’t be able to deal with climate change on their own. She explains they need to continue to work with agricultural leaders and policy makers to make sure their needs are being met.
She also notes that farmers will need to be able to adapt their farming practices to these environmental changes.
Jefferson County Agricultural Coordinator Jay Matteson says it’s something the local agricultural community has been doing for years.
“Let’s put it this way; if a farm business isn’t adapting to change then they are not going to be in business very long and that have always been the case,” Matteson said.
Find the entire report here.
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Related Knowledge Center: Climate science
What began as a theory in the 1890s — that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide could increase global temperatures — had progressed to a scientific fact a century later. Scientists across a range of disciplines are studying the impact of the still-growing concentration of carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere as they call for industrial and governmental policies to slow, then halt, the warming of the planet.