5 ms·

Which of our major food-crops can handle Pliocene and Eocene climates?

by i_feel_great 8y ago

throwaway5752 8y ago
None. Obviously this is suggesting mass human die-off or total extinction.
- i_feel_great 8y ago
  Famine -> law and order breakdown -> mass migrations -> wars and military conflicts -> population reductions. Hmmm. I have read this in human history before.
Reelin 8y ago
Complicated question - it's called climate change for a reason. Unfortunately I found it difficult to turn up easy to read climate maps for different historical periods, but I did manage to find a couple. First our baseline - check out this very detailed present day biome map.[1] For an idea of what things probably looked like during the Pliocene, check out this biome map.[2] Note that a portion of the central US (our bread basket, so to speak) was desert. But then, also notice that a large swath of Texas was actually grassland and that temperate forest extended down to approximately LA. As for the Eocene, things actually look pretty good in the US crop wise. From figure 6 of this paper [3], it looks like the west coast was warm temperate forest while almost the entire rest of the US was tropical forest. That being said, don't get the wrong idea. Just because you can still grow crops doesn't mean you can grow the same crops, or in the same places; things will probably not be going so well. In a best case scenario climate change still presumably causes massive disruptions to our societies as well as large scale economic damage simply by rapidly changing things. [1] https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/soils/use/worldsoils/?cid=nrcs142p2_054002 https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/soils/use/w... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliocene_climate#/media/File:Pliocene_megabiome.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliocene_climate#/media/File:P... [3] https://www.geosci-model-dev.net/7/2077/2014/gmd-7-2077-2014.pdf https://www.geosci-model-dev.net/7/2077/2014/gmd-7-2077-2014...

Which of our major food-crops can handle Pliocene and Eocene climates?

throwaway5752 8y ago

None. Obviously this is suggesting mass human die-off or total extinction.

i_feel_great 8y ago
Famine -> law and order breakdown -> mass migrations -> wars and military conflicts -> population reductions. Hmmm. I have read this in human history before.

Reelin 8y ago

Complicated question - it's called climate change for a reason. Unfortunately I found it difficult to turn up easy to read climate maps for different historical periods, but I did manage to find a couple. First our baseline - check out this very detailed present day biome map.[1] For an idea of what things probably looked like during the Pliocene, check out this biome map.[2] Note that a portion of the central US (our bread basket, so to speak) was desert. But then, also notice that a large swath of Texas was actually grassland and that temperate forest extended down to approximately LA. As for the Eocene, things actually look pretty good in the US crop wise. From figure 6 of this paper [3], it looks like the west coast was warm temperate forest while almost the entire rest of the US was tropical forest. That being said, don't get the wrong idea. Just because you can still grow crops doesn't mean you can grow the same crops, or in the same places; things will probably not be going so well. In a best case scenario climate change still presumably causes massive disruptions to our societies as well as large scale economic damage simply by rapidly changing things. [1] https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/soils/use/worldsoils/?cid=nrcs142p2_054002 https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/soils/use/w... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliocene_climate#/media/File:Pliocene_megabiome.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliocene_climate#/media/File:P... [3] https://www.geosci-model-dev.net/7/2077/2014/gmd-7-2077-2014.pdf https://www.geosci-model-dev.net/7/2077/2014/gmd-7-2077-2014...