Dear Financial Times, Maple Syrup Production is Doing Fine
By Linnea Lueken -March 15, 20230
A recent article in Financial Times repeats the often made late-winter/early spring claim that maple syrup production is being threatened by global warming. Available data shows that this claim is as false now as it has always been in the past. Maple syrup production has increased over time, setting records frequently. While some regions or farms may have a bad year from time to time, this does not reflect the overall maple syrup production trend.
The paywalled and alarmingly titled article, “Maple-pocalypse? Syrup looks like the latest victim of climate change,” written by Patti Waldmeir, insists that maple syrup production in the U.S. is threatened by the modest warming of the past century. Waldmeir writes that the tapping season “is already starting earlier, and within years or decades, sap will be less sugary, each tap will yield less and some parts of the U.S. will stop producing the iconic pancake topping altogether, maple experts say.”
In support of this assertion, Waldmeir interviews “climate change ecologist” Toni Lyn Morelli, Ph.D., who said that “by 2100, the sap collection season midpoint will be earlier by a month, sugar content will fall and the region of peak sap flow will move 400km north, into Canada. She says some areas — maples are tapped as far south as Virginia — will stop producing.” (Emphasis mine)
https://climaterealism.com/2023/03/dear-financial-times-maple-syrup-production-is-doing-fine/
