The Complexity of Measuring the Impact of Possible Climatic Change on Agriculture

• Main Author: Neild, R. E.
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln 1978
• Subjects: Life Sciences; Greenland; Pickett; glacier
• Online Access: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/tnas/340; https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/context/tnas/article/1339/viewcontent/Neild_TNAS_1978_Complexity.pdf

Much geological and paleontological evidence exists of major changes in climate over widespread areas of the world including Nebraska. What is now Nebraska was once warm enough to support flora and fauna found now only in tropical areas. During the last Ice Age the climate of what is now Lincoln was similar to Igvitut at the base of the large glacier covering most of Greenland. Recent weather fluctuations and consequent variations in essential food (Newman and Pickett, 1974), fuel, and water supplies have prompted speculation that climate is changing toward some former extreme. Massive purchases of grain by the Soviet Union, fuel shortages in the eastern United States during the cold winter of 1976-77, water shortages in the western United States, record heat in northern Europe in the summer of 1976, and drought and famine in the African Sahel (Wade, 1974) are among the adverse effects of weather causing concern.