Skeptical Climate Scientists Coming In From the Cold

[pbrower2a]

A seasonally-open Arctic Ocean implies huge changes in weather patterns -- and hence climate -- well beyond Arctic  regions. Winters will become less severe in inland mid-latitude regions, with the blizzards that supply and protect groundwater from winter evaporation practically disappearing in the Midwest.  Crop yields will plummet in the Midwest as prime farmland with dense populations is inundated.   

[pbrower2a]

So you're saying my winters will be less cold and snowy?

Yes -- but you will get more rain and less snow.

The snow that you will miss will be more useful to crops than rain that flows away quickly, A snow cover protects topsoil moisture that plants need in the spring for germination. Open soil in winter is easily dried and eroded.

Your crops need the snow, and that is the difference between the rich farmlands of eastern Nebraska and the dry short-grass prairies  of western Nebraska. Yes, there is less overall precipitation in western Nebraska, but even that is the difference between winter snows in the east and their near absence in the west.

I live in Michigan... and the one really-mild winter that we had (2012) was followed by poor crop yields in the summer. By July, stream levels were low and the grass was about as yellow as I would expect in the Central Valley of California.

If you live in the Midwest, the quality of your life depends to no small extent upon crop yields... unpleasant as the blizzards are, they prove necessary for the economic health of your community.