4 ms·
I wonder how much of the land is going to become farmable now
by missedthecue 5y ago
I wonder how much of the land is going to become farmable now
- lkxijlewlf 5y agoToo much?
- masklinn 5y agoMore like not much: the soil is non-existent, and because the latitude and weather remains dreadful the growing seasons are short. Furthermore Siberia will not be exempt from climactic instability, meaning unpredictable weather events (limited seasonal regularity) making YoY farming planning extremely difficult. Not only that, but the thawing creates extremely unstable ground, leading to very irregular subsidence.
- lovecg 5y agoI read somewhere that the soil is the problem, not just the local climate. And soil takes a long time to accumulate the good stuff. So in short, places with good soil will become less farmable and places with now better climate won’t have good soil. We’re all kinda screwed then.
- bpodgursky 5y agoMmm. Modern fertilizer has done a lot to neutralize the importance of good soil. You can't farm rocks, but the US west has done a lot with sand + fertilizer. As long as you have money, water, sun, heat, and something better than bedrock, I wouldn't call it unrealistic.
- tazjin 5y agoPlus Belarus is a massive producer of said fertilizer, and Russia and Belarus have good trade relations. We'll see what happens ...
- lb0 5y agoShort term - long term we realize now it is eroding and "destryoing" it - like tech debt it is creating soil debt :)
- bpodgursky 5y agoThere's been a bad loss of topsoil in "good" farming areas but I don't think aggressive farming of marginal soil or subsoil in arid areas does much extra damage on top of natural erosion.
- mym1990 5y agoSoil is not an essential piece to growing crops. Even now hydroponics is taking off in many places.
- masklinn 5y agoThe siberian thaw has literally no relevance if you don’t plant things in the ground.
- mym1990 5y agoWhat are trying to find relevance to? I was just responding to the comment saying we are screwed if we can't plant things in the ground... On a longer time scale, the thaw absolutely has impacts on many things. Over time the soil WILL develop fertility, if we are around or not at that point idk.
- trhway 5y agoNot just farmable. Much better farmable like these days in my old town back in Russia. Though in exchange children have seen practically no snow there in the last 20 years.
- marcus_holmes 5y agoI wonder how many more trees are going to grow on the defrosted land. Siberia is basically one enormous birch forest already [0]. I assume that as the land warms that treeline is going to advance north. [0] I rode the Trans-Siberian railway from Moscow to Ulan Bator, and it was days of the exact same scenery: birch trees lining the railway, with the occasional breathtaking scene that was just often enough to keep me staring at trees most of the trip.
- burntoutfire 5y agoFurther north, it's mostly spruce.
- marcus_holmes 5y agoIs that going to shift further north as it warms? I'm curious about how this is going to work.