Weather and Climate Extremes on the Canadian Prairies: An Assessment with a Focus on Grain Production

Autor: E. Ray Garnett, Madhav L. Khandekar
Rok vydání: 2017
Předmět:
Zdroj: Environment and Ecology Research. 5:255-268
ISSN: 2331-6268
2331-625X
DOI: 10.13189/eer.2017.050402
Popis: The Canadian prairies are Canada's granaries, producing up to 75 million tons of grain (primarily wheat, barley, and oats) and oilseeds (primarily canola) during the summer months of June to August. Canada is a major grain exporting country; exports have a market value of about 30-40 billion US dollars. The Canadian prairie agricultural industry is a major socio-economic activity for western Canada, employing thousands in farming communities and in other industries such as transportation on a year-round basis. A good grain harvest in a given year depends critically on various summer weather and climate extremes which can adversely or favorably impact grain yield and quality. Typical among such extremes that can impact crop yield and quality are: extended drought accompanied by heat; wet and cool summers; and frosts during sowing period (late May to early June) and during ripening (August) and the harvest period (late August to mid-October). This paper presents a number of examples of how extreme weather is implicated in grain production and quality estimates and annual exports. The paper analyzes some of the weather and climate extremes and their linkages to large-scale atmosphere-ocean circulation patterns. Among some of the important large-scale parameters that impact prairie summer weather are: the ENSO (El Nino-Southern Oscillation) phase in the equatorial Pacific, the MJO (Madden-Julian Oscillation in the eastern tropical latitude) and the PNA (Pacific North American) atmospheric flow pattern. Also detected is the impact of solar variability as identified by a geomagnetic index called the AP index (averaged planetary index). Please see Glossary of Terms in the Appendix.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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