Adapting agriculture for todays climate challenges
{Earth and Leaf Editorial – Adapting agriculture for todays climate challenges}
{extract below}
Credit: Dominic Swire / NFU
Adapting agriculture for todays climate challenges
There has been wide consideration of the important role agriculture has in mitigating climate change. By reducing emissions, maintaining and sequestering additional carbon and moving towards net zero, farmers will become ever more important in the quest to prevent dangerous levels of climate change.
But what about the impacts of climate change we’re already committed to, both now and in the future? Adapting agriculture to climate change isn’t something to be left for another day; making the agriculture sector resilient to the impacts of climate change is an important action for now.
Agriculture has had its fair share of scrutiny when it comes to climate change, with most eyes on how it has an important role to play in reducing emissions, absorbing carbon dioxide and ultimately helping prevent the very worst levels of climate change.
But climate change is already happening and impacting on our industry.
What changes to our climate are we already seeing?
The earth’s atmosphere has already warmed by around 1.1°C and although global temperature increases such as 1.5°C or even 2°C may sound small, it’s not just the relatively small global temperature rises that impact us on the earth’s surface.
Generally, in the UK, we’re seeing warmer, wetter winters and hotter, drier summers, as explained in the Met Office’s page Climate change in the UK. This theme is likely to continue in a warming planet. With a warmer climate there are increased levels of evaporation as a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture.
Today’s link to our other pages, posts and sites of interest. . . Growing Number of Earths Vital Signs Endangered by Climate Change
Iain Dunn
Founder of Earth and Leaf Community Interest Company. Lifelong career as a livestock farming expert backed by an education in agricultural sciences and economics. Now a conservationist, researcher and sustainability campaigner.