Contrary to the headline what follows isn't a 'prediction'. Rather, this is a simulation which posited drought as the pre-condition to initialize the parameters they used to game out the scenario.
The actual risk is the Pacific Decadal Oscillation going firmly into its negative phase and depending on ENSO phase (La Niña-El Niño) and the North Atlantic Oscillation phase lining up, creating very wet conditions in Ukraine and western Russia. This type of weather pattern has led to some of the most widespread crop failures in history. As noted in our intro to 2009's "Corn Prices May Enter Decade-Long Slump, Agency Says"
Watch that Pacific Decadal Oscillation. A New York Times archive search for the term "crop failure" returns 1950 hits, with a preponderance of stories written during the cool phase of the PDO. With the interconnectedness of the world's grain markets, a failure anywhere would raise prices everywhere....See PDO monthly values below the jump.
From VICE's Motherboard, June 26, 2016:
The US national security industry is planning for the impact of an unprecedented global food crisis lasting as long as a decade, according to reports by a government contractor.
The studies published by CNA Corporation in December 2015, unreported until now, describe a detailed simulation of a protracted global food crisis from 2020 to 2030.
The simulation, titled ‘Food Chain Reaction’, was a desktop gaming exercise involving the participation of 65 officials from the US, Europe, Africa, India, Brazil, and key multilateral and intergovernmental institutions.
The scenario for the ‘Food Chain Reaction’ simulation was created by experts brought in from the State Department, the World Bank, and agribusiness giant Cargill, along with independent specialists. CNA Corp’s Institute for Public Research, which ran the simulation, primarily provides scientific research services for the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Held from November 9-10 in 2015, the “game” attempted to simulate a plausible global food crisis triggered by “food price and supply swings amidst burgeoning population growth, rapid urbanization, severe weather events, and social unrest.”
By 2024, the scenario saw global food prices spike by as much as 395 percent due to prolonged crop failures in key food basket regions, driven largely by climate change, oil price spikes, and confused responses from the international community.
“Disruptions affected developed and developing countries alike, creating political and economic instability, and contributing to social unrest in certain areas,” the project’s technical report states.
The report notes that at the end of the simulation, the teams highlighted the important role of “extreme weather events” and “food insecurity” in exacerbating “instances of significant internal and external migration and social unrest.” These, in turn, greatly “contribute to conflict.”
National security
Although the scenario was not produced as a forecast, it was designed to provide a plausible framework to test the resilience of the national security system from the perspective of the US government, private industry, and civil society.
CNA Corporation is a government contractor established in 1942 to provide scientific research for the US Navy and Marine Corps. Its CEO, Dr. Katherine A. W. McGrady, is a scientific analyst to the US military’s Chief of Naval Operations and the Vice Chief of Naval Operations.
Four different organisations commissioned CNA Corp to conduct the exercise: the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the Center for American Progress, giant food corporation Cargill, which controls a quarter of US grain exports, and Mars Inc., the global sweet manufacturer.
One outcome was a panel hosted on Tuesday by the Center for American Progress on ‘The National Security implications of Climate Change and Food Security’, featuring Nancy Stetson, the US State Department’s Special Representative for Global Food Security.
From crop failure to system failure
The game begins in 2020 with a reasonably healthy global economy and oil prices that have now rebounded to $75 a barrel. Food prices climb steadily due to “weather-related disruptions to agricultural production,” affecting South and Southeast Asia, Australia, and North America. Global crop production falls 1 percent short of expectations leading to decreases in stock and further modest price increases.
Things get really rough after 2023 due to serious droughts and heatwaves in China, India, Russia, and Ukraine, coinciding with oil prices that rapidly increase to above $100 a barrel.
By 2024, heat and drought hit the European Union, Russia, and Ukraine, while subsiding elsewhere, triggering a food price spike “reaching 395 percent of long-term averages,” and a global economic slowdown.
By 2027, these conditions begin to calm only because an economic slump has diminished demand, while high prices stimulate food production. A respite from weather-related disruptions allows food stocks to be re-built, and prices then come down gradually.
The game closes with an optimistic scenario of food prices dropping from 395 to 141 percent of long-term averages and a recovering global economy.The PDO is a quasi-periodic ~30 year cycle of warm/cold water off the coast of the western U.S. with teleconnections to weather around the world, interacting with a dozen or so other ocean-atmosphere phenomena.
Part of that optimistic scenario involves fortuitously massive Band Aid-style worldwide donations to the UN’s World Food Programme, which thankfully “leave the world well prepared to handle the catastrophe in areas humanitarian groups can reach.” ...MORE
The PDO has head-faked that it was going into its cool phase a couple times in the last 15 years but never quite made it. In fact with the (now dispersed) "warm blob" off the coast of Washington state, in December 2015 the index reached its highest December reading ever and its highest reading for any month since August 1997. So it definitely hasn't gone negative yet. Here are the monthly values for the 2000's with the entire record here:
2000 -2.00 -0.83 0.29 0.35 -0.05 -0.44 -0.66 -1.19 -1.24 -1.30 -0.53 0.52 2001 .60 .29 0.45 -0.31 -0.30 -0.47 -1.31 -0.77 -1.37 -1.37 -1.26 -0.93 2002** 0.27 -0.64 -0.43 -0.32 -0.63 -0.35 -0.31 0.60 0.43 0.42 1.51 2.10
2003** 2.09 1.75 1.51 1.18 0.89 0.68 0.96 0.88 0.01 0.83 0.52 0.33 2004** 0.43 0.48 0.61 0.57 0.88 0.04 0.44 0.85 0.75 -0.11 -0.63 -0.17 2005** 0.44 0.81 1.36 1.03 1.86 1.17 0.66 0.25 -0.46 -1.32 -1.50 0.20 2006** 1.03 0.66 0.05 0.40 0.48 1.04 0.35 -0.65 -0.94 -0.05 -0.22 0.14 2007** 0.01 0.04 -0.36 0.16 -0.10 0.09 0.78 0.50 -0.36 -1.45 -1.08 -0.58 2008** -1.00 -0.77 -0.71 -1.52 -1.37 -1.34 -1.67 -1.70 -1.55 -1.76 -1.25 -0.87 2009** -1.40 -1.55 -1.59 -1.65 -0.88 -0.31 -0.53 0.09 0.52 0.27 -0.40 0.08 2010** 0.83 0.82 0.44 0.78 0.62 -0.22 -1.05 -1.27 -1.61 -1.06 -0.82 -1.21 2011** -0.92 -0.83 -0.69 -0.42 -0.37 -0.69 -1.86 -1.74 -1.79 -1.34 -2.33 -1.79 2012** -1.38 -0.85 -1.05 -0.27 -1.26 -0.87 -1.52 -1.93 -2.21 -0.79 -0.59 -0.48 2013** -0.13 -0.43 -0.63 -0.16 0.08 -0.78 -1.25 -1.04 -0.48 -0.87 -0.11 -0.41 2014** 0.30 0.38 0.97 1.13 1.80 0.82 0.70 0.67 1.08 1.49 1.72 2.51 2015** 2.45 2.30 2.00 1.44 1.20 1.54 1.84 1.56 1.94 1.47 0.86 1.01 2016** 1.53 1.75 2.40 2.62 2.35
We have a few dozen posts on the PDO and AMO, use the 'search blog' box if interested.
