During the recent cold snap we've had in Western NY caused by a "polar vortex", I remembered a guy by the name of the Ice Age Famer I ran across 3 or 4 years ago.
I wanted to share this in case anybody else has not run across this information.
He discussed solar activity as relates to climate on the Earth. During periods of weaker solar activity, there are more galactic cosmic rays that impact the earth. This leads to, among other things, a weakened jet stream, allowing cold air or warm air dive down (or up, as the case may be!) and more pronounced droughts and precipitation.
Now, the current solar cycle we are in (Solar Cycle 25) is more active than predicted, but not as active as cycles in the past hundred years or so. The last time the solar cycle looked like it did now was around the early 1900's. You know, dustbowl times.
Now, what to do about this? Resilience in our food systems is the key in my opinion. Here are 3 practical things we are doing:
1.) Plan for cold (and warm) snaps by planting resilient plants that can survive outside your zone. My grandfather said you should plant trees that can survive 2 USDA zones colder than you are in.
2.) Build soil organic matter and soil life with biochar, cover crops, and application of soil biology through composts. These allow the rain we do get, to penetrate the soil and can hold water and release it slow. @Jack Spirko just had a discussion of this on the Survival Podcast.
3.) Remineralize your soil (and composts) with rock dusts and ocean minerals to in turn build the nutrition content of your crops and animals.
I have not been able to find anything recently from the Ice Age Famer, but am leaving his video here for others should they find it interesting. The fascinating part of this was the Ice Age Farmer also tracked these solar cycles back to civilization failures and famine because of food shortages.
#grownostr #gardening #biochar #compost #permaculture
