Europe Braces for Serious Crop Losses and Blackouts

Record dry spring could drive up wheat prices, and lack of water may force nuclear reactors to shut down

Scientific American
By Jeremy Lovell and ClimateWire | June 13, 2011

LONDON -- One of the driest spring seasons on record in northern Europe has sucked soils dry and sharply reduced river levels to the point that governments are starting to fear crop losses and France, in particular, is bracing for blackouts as its river-cooled nuclear power plants may be forced to shut down.

French Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire warned this week that the warmest and driest spring in half a century could slash wheat yields and might even push up world prices despite the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization's predicting a bumper global crop due to greater plantings.

France has pledged hundreds of millions of euros in aid to its drought-stricken livestock farmers, who have watched feed supplies dwindle and prices rise. Water restrictions are in place in more than half of the country's administrative regions or departments.

"The situation is serious for French farmers. We wanted to act swiftly and on a large scale," Le Maire told reporters last week.

And the French government has set up a committee to keep an eye on the country's electricity supply situation and monitor river levels, as 44 of the 58 nuclear reactors that supply 80 percent of France's electricity are cooled by river water.

The problem appears to be not that the reactors might overheat because of the lack of water but that the depleted rivers might overheat, creating ecological havoc, when the water returns to them after cooling the reactors.

The abnormally low rainfall and high temperatures -- similar in northern Europe to the major drought of 1976, but actually worse in France -- have also hit hydroelectric power availability and output in France.

Rainfall down 40-80%
The Geneva-based World Meteorological Organization said last week that between February and May of this year, rainfall over Europe as a whole ranged from 40 to 80 percent of the long-term average from 1951 to 2000, and in many parts of western and central Europe it was even below 40 percent.

Between March and May, the outcome was even lower, with France, Germany and southeastern England the worst hit.

The preceding winter 2010-2011 was very dry in western Europe, causing very low soil moisture in March and April. This, coupled with the warmer-than-average temperatures, put major water stress on plants, and in particular, agricultural crops.Up to now, 2011 has been one of the 10 driest years in Switzerland since 1864, while in France, January to April was the driest period since 1975. In Germany, April this year was one of the 10 driest Aprils since 1881, WMO said. Springtime in Germany, it added, was the driest March-to-May period since 1893.

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