Aug 28, 2018

California warns of global warming effects on fruit growers

The State of California recently released a Climate Change Assessment detailing forecasted impacts of climate change by the year 2100.

“These findings are profoundly serious and will continue to guide us as we confront the apocalyptic threat of irreversible climate change,” Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. said in a released statement.

For agriculture, the report notes that many of California’s important crops, including fruit and nut trees, are particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts like changing temperature regimes and water-induced stress. Adaptive decision-making and technological advancement may maintain the viability of California agriculture. However, studies show that the viability of the sector overall may be at the expense of agricultural jobs and the dairy sector, and this report points out that additional research is needed on potential yield changes of crops under changing climate conditions, to provide growers the crops varieties that can thrive under warmer and drier conditions, and tools they can use to identify and implement adaptation options. Sustainably managing groundwater resources remains a crucial priority.

California has completed three prior Climate Change Assessments. Since the release of California’s Third Climate Change Assessment in 2012, the state has experienced several of the most extreme natural events in its recorded history, including a severe five-year drought, an unprecedented tree mortality crisis, damaging floods driven by atmospheric rivers, and increasingly large and destructive wildfires.