Crop technology helps limit corn losses in drought  By DAVID PITT | Associated Press – 3 hrs ago DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — For months, Illinois farmer David Kellerman held out hope for rain, even as the worst drought in nearly 25 years spread across the country.He finally gave up when the temperature hit 108 three days in a row. Corn won’t develop kernels if it gets too warm during pollination, and Kellerman knew the empty cobs in the fields where he works would never fill out. Just after the Fourth of July, he and the neighbor he farms with took an extraordinary step: They cut down the entire crop and baled the withered plants to use as hay for their cattle.Almost a third of the nation’s corn crop has been damaged by heat and drought, and a number of farmers in the hardest hit areas of the Midwest have cut down their crops just midway through the growing season. But the nation could still see one of the largest harvests in U.S. history, thanks to new plant varieties developed to produce more corn per acre and better resist drought.Kellerman said he was surprised his corn fared as well as it did, growing to a decent height even though there had been less than an inch of rain since mid-April. The dirt in the area where he farms near Du Bois, Ill., has the consistency of dust, but it wasn’t until the extreme heat „fried” the plants, that he lost hope.”Genetics are much better,” he said. „Corn five years ago would never have lasted this long.”Corn production has been improving steadily for decades, the result of scientific advances going back to the introduction of the first commercial hybrid in 1923. Genetic engineering accelerated the process in recent years and allowed the development of some strains that borrow DNA from other species for pest resistance.Corn farmers expected this to be a record year when they planted, sowing 96.4 million acres, the most since 1937. The U.S. Department of Agriculture predicted they would get 166 bushels per acre.But after months with little or no rain and extreme heat in large portions of the Corn Belt, the USDA on Wednesday revised that estimate, saying it now expects farmers to average just 146 bushels per acre this year.That would still be an improvement from a decade ago, when the average was about 129 bushels.Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack still expects the nation to produce the third-largest corn crop in American history, even as he announced disaster-relief measures for farmers, like Kellerman, who have lost everything.”It is important to point out that improved seed technology and improved efficiencies on the farm have made it a little bit easier for some producers to get through a very, very difficult weather stretch,” Vilsack said. „Our hope is rains come to the central part of the United States soon to be able to salvage what can be salvaged.”The drought stretches from parts of Ohio to California. The historic drought that gripped Texas and other parts of the Southwest last year was more severe, but this year’s dry spell is notable for the sheer size of the affected land.”To see something on this continental scale, where we’re seeing such a large portion of the country in drought, you have to go back to 1988,” said Brad Rippey, a USDA agricultural meteorologist.That year, farmers saw corn yields, or the amount produced per acre, drop by nearly a third.This year’s loss, so far, is expected to be half that — one reason why people like Bill Gates believe better crop technology will be the key to feeding the world as the population grows and climate changes.Jeff Schussler, a senior research manager for DuPont Pioneer, said the company’s studies show corn hybrids today can produce 50 percent more bushels of corn per inch of water than those of 50 years ago. Working with genes that affect root and leaf development and plant reproduction, scientists also have created much more stable corn plants that can withstand a wider variety of climate conditions, he said.”All these hybrids that have been produced in the last few years are built for drought tolerance so we have a little more hope that they will be able to withstand some of this heat, more so than they would have say 10 years ago,” said Garry Niemeyer, who grows corn and soybeans in Auburn, Ill., and is president of the National Corn Growers Association.He said plants have been developed with a larger root mass, which allows them to reach deeper for water and hold more in reserve. Certain varieties also are capable of rolling up their leaves to slow moisture loss.”There’s a lot of technology that goes into our corn crop,” Niemeyer said.Still, it’s hard to say how the year will turn out with about half of the growing season to go.Corn plants today withstand drought better than they did in 1988, but no variety exists that can produce significant yields without rain for six weeks and sustained temperatures above 100 degrees, said Tony Vyn, an agronomy professor at Purdue University.”You get to the point where the water shortage is so severe that technology is not going to guarantee yield, even when you might have that expectation,” he said. „My experience thus far is that drought-tolerant hybrids are no silver bullet.”

Freight train derails, catches fire in Columbus, Ohio  By Jo Ingles | Reuters – 10 hrs ago

Columbus, OHIO (Reuters) – A Norfolk Southern freight train derailed and burst into flames in Columbus, Ohio, early on Wednesday, forcing nearby residents to evacuate, authorities said.The 98-car southbound train, with two locomotives, was carrying ethanol, and fire officials were letting the biofuel burn itself out, said Columbus Assistant Fire Chief Dave Whiting. He said 10 cars derailed and about three ruptured.”It’s contained, it’s not spreading,” Whiting said. „It’s doing exactly what we want it to do. We haven’t had to put anybody in harm’s way.”About a hundred people were told to leave their homes within a one-mile radius of the derailment that took place near the state fairgrounds and Ohio State University, fire officials said.The train, bound for North Carolina from Chicago, derailed at about 2 a.m. EDT, said Norfolk Southern spokesman Dave Pidgeon.He said between 11 and 13 cars derailed but the exact number was undetermined. He also said two cars carrying ethanol were still burning hours after the derailment.The cause was unknown and under investigation, Pidgeon said. TheNational Transportation Safety Board joined the investigation, he said.Two people were injured and drove themselves to nearby hospitals, local media reported. Their conditions were unknown.Johnnie Rouse, who lives down the street from the accident, said she was awakened by a loud boom.”The sky was lit up like the sun had fallen or something,” Rouse said.”My daughter said ‘Mama, Mama, get up, get up, get up, a train’s exploding … you’ve got to get out,'” she said.Residents were likely to be able to return home later in the day after the fire burned out, which was expected to take a few hours, officials said.Evacuee Kaila Thomas said there was a strong chemical smell in the air after the fire broke out. „We went to different places, and it smelled different each time,” she said.Other Norfolk Southern trains that were being held due to the derailment were expected to be moving soon through an alternate route, Pidgeon said.(Additional reporting and writing by Ellen Wulfhorst; Editing by Vicki Allen)

Texas drought, British heat linked to climate change  By Deborah Zabarenko | Reuters – 23 hours ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Climate change increased the odds for the kind of extreme weather that prevailed in 2011, a year that saw severe drought in Texas, unusual heat in England and was one of the 15 warmest years on record, scientists reported on Tuesday.Overall, 2011 was a year of extreme events – from historic droughts in East Africa, northern Mexico and the southern United States to an above-average cyclone season in the North Atlantic and the end of Australia’s wettest two-year period ever, scientists from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the United Kingdom’s Met Office said.In the 22nd annual „State of the Climate” report, experts also found the Arctic was warming about twice as fast as the rest of the planet, on average, with Arctic sea ice shrinking to its second-smallest recorded size.Heat-trapping greenhouse gas concentrations – carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide among others – continued to rise last year, and the global average atmospheric concentration for carbon dioxide went over 390 parts per million for the first time, an increase of 2.1 ppm in 2010.”Every weather event that happens now takes place in the context of a changing global environment,” Deputy NOAA Administrator Kathryn Sullivan said in a statement. „This annual report provides scientists and citizens alike with an analysis of what has happened so we can all prepare for what is to come.”Beyond measuring what happened in 2011, the international team of scientists aimed to start answering a question weather-watchers have been asking for years: can climate change be shown to be responsible for specific weather events?RAISING THE ODDS-The climate experts acknowledged that event attribution science, as it is called, is in its early stages.”Currently, attribution of single extreme events to anthropogenic climate change remains challenging,” Peterson, Stott and other scientists wrote in a study published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.Attribution is possible, they said, as long as it is framed in terms of probability, rather than certainty. So instead of saying climate change caused a heat wave, researchers could gauge how much more or less likely the heat wave was in a world where the climate is changing.For example, both Texas and England felt the warming effects of the La Nina weather-making pattern but climate change pushed these influences to extremes, Stott said.La Nina, a recurring patch of cool water in the equatorial Pacific that alternates with the warm-water phenomenon El Nino, would typically bring heat to Texas, the researchers said in an online briefing.Adding climate change to La Nina makes a Texas heat wave 20 times more likely than it would have been 50 years ago, said Peter Stott of the Met Office. By some measures, 2011 was the warmest, driest growing season in the Texas record, Stott said.In Britain, November 2011 was the second-warmest in the central England temperature record dating back to 1659, and climate change made that extreme high temperature average 60 times more likely than it would have been in 1960, the researchers found.By contrast, deadly floods in Thailand last year cannot be blamed on climate change, the scientific team said.Tuesday’s report came one day after NOAA announced statistics for the continental United States, showing that the past 12 months were the hottest such period on record and the first six month of 2012 were the hottest such period on record, with more than 170 all-time heat records matched or broken.The full report is available online at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/bams-state-of-the-climate/2011.phpHighlights are at http://www.climatewatch.noaa.gov/article/2012/state-of-the-climate-in-2011-highlights/2(Reporting By Deborah Zabarenko; Editing by Bill Trott)

England flood risk to rise fourfold by 2035-report By Nina Chestney | Reuters – 16 hrs ago LONDON (Reuters) – The risk of flooding for many English homes and businesses could increase fourfold by 2035 if more action to deal with the impact of climate change is not taken, government advisers said on Wednesday.As severe floods continue to batter parts of Britain after the wettest June since records began, around one in seven homes and businesses face some kind of flood risk, the climate advisers said.Around 160,000 properties would be at risk by 2035 if better planning and more investment was made in flood defences, compared with 610,000 at risk if no action was taken, they said.The cost of protecting more than half a million homes at risk of flooding will double to 1 billion pounds a year by 2035, according to estimates by the UK’s Environment Agency in 2010.The devastating floods of 2007 caused damage to homes and businesses, infrastructure and services, and resulted in lost work and school days, which cost the UK economy 3.2 billion pounds.”We must take adaptation more seriously if we are to manage the growing risks of floods and droughts,” said John Krebs, the chairman of the climate change advisory panel.”This can be done by investing more in flood defences, faster rollout of water meters and giving serious consideration to where and how we build our housing and infrastructure,” he said in a statement.”Without action by households and businesses to prepare for these inevitable weather extremes the country faces rising costs, unnecessary damage and future disruption.”Scientists believe extreme weather like heatwaves, floods and droughts are linked to climate change and likely to become more frequent in the future.Flooding will be the biggest climate risk to Britain this century with damage set to cost as much as 12 billion pounds ($18.63 billion) a year by the 2080s if nothing is done to adapt to extreme weather, a government-funded study said in January.Since the start of May this year, over 3,000 properties have been flooded, 55,000 have received flood warnings and 31,000 were protected by flood defences, according to the UK’s Environment Agency.FUNDING-The government’s advisers said in a report that property development in flood plains – or areas along streams or rivers that are likely to experience repeated flooding – has increased by 12 percent over the past 10 years compared with a 7 percent rise in other parts of England.Public and private funding for flood defences is falling and is 12 percent lower for the current government spending period compared with the previous one, after inflation.However, the UK’s Environment Agency estimates that funding needs to increase by 20 million pounds a year on top of inflation to keep pace with climate change.”We are spending more than 2.17 billion pounds over four years to protect people from flooding and our successful partnership funding model will draw in around an additional 72 million pounds,” said a spokesman from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in response to the report.”The money for flood defences is being spent more effectively than ever before and we now expect to exceed our target to better protect another 145,000 homes by 2015.”Apart from increased flooding risks, water scarcity is also likely to become more common in parts of the country due to climate change and population growth, the panel said.Water scarcity is likely to be made worse by household consumption levels which are among the highest in north-west Europe.Encouraging households to save water could cut total consumption by 700 million litres a day, which is two thirds more than is currently saved under initiatives by water companies, according to the report.The government should take further steps to increase water efficiency through water metering and pricing, it added. ($1 = 0.6442 British pounds)(Editing by David Cowell and Alison Birrane)