More Droughts in 2009

Argentina’s 2009 crop production was 40-70 lower than in 2008, depending on the crop

Drought in Argentina

NASA Earth Observatory Image: acquired February 23, 2009

NASA Earth Observatory Image: acquired February 22, 2008

USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) reported a severe drought in southern South America, which had severely affected corn, cotton, and soybean crops in Argentina. Total rainfall since December was far below normal in most areas, and the rain that did fall often did not coincide with key points in crops’ growing cycles. Dust storms occurred in January and again in February, despite some late-to-arrive rains.

[NOTE: Dust storms destroy topsoil and accelerate land erosion. According to estimates made by our colleagues at EDRO, by 2012 critically low levels of top soil will have been reached at which point significant crop failures would occur worldwide.]

This pair of natural-color (photo-like) images from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite contrasts 2009 conditions (top) in southern Buenos Aires province with the conditions in 2008 (bottom), a more normal year. The province is one of the country’s major corn-growing areas. The difference in overall greenness is dramatic. In 2008, the area was a checkerboard of lush green, a sign that crops were healthy. In the 2009 image, the landscape was pale green and tan, reflecting the struggle that natural and cultivated vegetation was having with the hot, dry summer.

FAS analyst Denise McWilliams said 2009 crop production was 30-60 percent of what it was in 2008, depending on the crop. Drought stress made the corn crop susceptible to insect pests, and in some fields, farmers simply baled the stunted corn crop for use as livestock forage. Likewise, extreme heat and drought struck the season’s first soybean crop during its flowering and seed pod development phase. Meanwhile, the drought and heat caused wide differences in the height and maturity level of cotton crops, even within the same field, which was expected to complicate the harvest.

References:

• USDA Foreign Agricultural Service Office of Global Analysis. (2009, February). World Agricultural Production. (pdf) Accessed February 23, 2009.

NASA images by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption by Rebecca Lindsey [with minor editions made by FEWW], with input provided Denise McWilliams, USDA Foreign Agricultural Service.

Instrument:  Terra – MODIS

Related Links:

• Index of Human Impact on Nature
• Topsoil
• Drying Aquifers, Sinking Cities

• Food Crisis
• Drought and Deluge
• The First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities

Alp-sized mountain range encased in Antarctic ice

A Mountain Range Like the Alps Under the East Antarctic Ice Sheet

A view of the remaining part of the Larsen B ice shelf that extends into the northwest part of the Weddell Sea is seen in this handout photo taken on March 4, 2008. Image: Pedro Skvarca/IAA-DNA/Handout via REUTERS/

Radar and gravity sensors have revealed  details of Gamburtsev subglacial mountains, which was originally detected by Russian scientists 50 years ago at the heart of the East Antarctic ice sheet, Reuters reported.

Image Credit: Zina Deretsky / NSF

“The surprising thing was that not only is this mountain range the size of the Alps, but it looks quite similar to the (European) Alps, with high peaks and valleys,” said Fausto Ferraccioli, a geophysicist at the British Antarctic Survey.

Related Links:

• NSF Press Release: U.S.-led, International Research Team Confirms Alps-like Mountain Range Exists under East Antarctic Ice Sheet
• Antarctica’s Gamburtsev Province Project (AGAP)
• An animation showing how the Gamburtsevs may have caused the ice sheet to grow