Earth Equity News

Global Warming Reduces Grain Output. Bloomberg, April 19, 2010. "Rising temperatures and inadequate rainfall are causing grain output to stagnate in India, threatening food security in the world's second-most populous nation, according to a weather scientist. In the past decade, average temperatures have increased by 0.25 degree Celsius when the monsoon crops are sown in June, and by 0.6 degree Celsius when winter crops are planted in October, said Krishna Kumar, a senior scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, a state-owned researcher…'Warmer nights affect rice output while day temperatures hurt wheat production,' Kumar said in an interview on April 16 in the western city of Pune. 'Night temperatures are increasing more rapidly than day temperatures since the late 1980s' due to rising human greenhouse-gas emissions, he said… India's population and the largest water-limited tropics croplands, makes it a [leading example of the observed declines in food grain production]."