Cardamom: Climate variability, not climate change responsible for higher yields

Time of publishing:20 June 2011 at 12:35 IST
KOCHI (Commodity Online): Cardamom Hill Reserve (CHR) in Kerala has been experiencing a burst in cardamom yield, which a research study in an international journal attributed to climate change.

However, ‘climate variability’ rather than climate change may be behind the yield increases, according to Prasada Rao, Ph.D, Special Officer; Academy of Climate Change Education and Research (ACCER), a venture of Kerala Agriculture University.

What is climate variability?

“Climate variability is short-term while climate change is long term. Climate change is referred to as any significant change in climatic parameters like temperature and rain fall in any given period with reference to long period averages: the thirty years between 1961 and 1990.”; said Prasada Rao.

“Climate variability is a short-term change; may be seasonal, may be annual... “. Short-term climatic changes that do not exceed 30 year average are referred to as climate variability.

Recently, The New Indian Express (June 17,2011) report cited a study as saying “climate change is helping to increase the yield of cardamom crops at Cardamom Hills in Idukki.”

“It is a catchy title...” Prasad Rao said referring to the story headline.

“When it comes to impact side, there are so many sectors impacted by the climate change. This is where the terminology is loosely employed...” Prasada Rao said.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) considers the base period for climate change studies as spanning between 1961 and 1990: a thirty year term.

“Any deviation from this is considered to be climate change...” he clarified.

But for the change to be measured, the base year should be comparable to another period, which again should be thirty years, he said.

If that be the case, to measure the climate change, one has to take the period extending from 1991 to 2020. That means we are almost a decade away from measuring climate change.

(Climate change effect on crops can also be measured by effectively comparing two slices of 30-year-periods, which Prasad Rao carried out in case of coconuts.)

The media report on cardamom yields and climate change cited the research study by a group of scientists. It was carried out by analysing data that falls between 1990 and 2007. Since the research study in the report was carried out by analysing 17 year data, it actually speaks of climate variability and not climate change.

As published in: http://www.commodityonline.com/news/Cardamom-Climate-variability-not-climate-change-responsible-for-higher-yields-40085-3-1.html