Temperature increase reduces global yields of major crops in four independent estimates

By Chuang Zhao, Bing Liu, Shilong Piao, Xuhui Wang, David B. Lobell, Yao Huang, Mengtian Huang, Yitong Yao, Simona Bassu, Philippe Ciais and 19 more. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2017

2,617 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Significance Agricultural production is vulnerable to climate change. Understanding climate change, especially the temperature impacts, is critical if policymakers, agriculturalists, and crop breeders are to ensure global food security. Our study, by compiling extensive published results from four analytical methods, shows that independent methods consistently estimated negative temperature impacts on yields of four major crops at the global scale, generally underpinned by similar impacts at country and site scales. Multimethod analyses improved the confidence in assessments of future climate impacts on global major crops, with important implications for developing crop- and region-specific adaptation strategies to ensure future food supply of an increasing world population. Wheat, rice, maize, and soybean provide two-thirds of human caloric intake. Assessing the impact of global temperature increase on production of these crops is therefore critical to maintaining global food supply, but different studies have yielded different results. Here, we investigated the impacts of temperature on yields of the four crops by compiling extensive published results from four analytical methods: global grid-based and local point-based models, statistical regressions, and field-warming experiments. Results from the different methods consistently showed negative temperature impacts on crop yield at the global scale, generally underpinned by similar impacts at country and site scales. Without CO2 fertilization, effective adaptation, and genetic improvement, each degree-Celsius increase in global mean temperature would, on average, reduce global yields of wheat by 6.0%, rice by 3.2%, maize by 7.4%, and soybean by 3.1%. Results are highly heterogeneous across crops and geographical areas, with some positive impact estimates. Multimethod analyses improved the confidence in assessments of future climate impacts on global major crops and suggest crop- and region-specific adaptation strategies to ensure food security for an increasing world population.

Subfields: Ecology, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/95d3e166ce9d57f72fe5eedf5df76d23e1484a70

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Citations in the corpus

Impacts of land use, population, and climate change on global food security (2020, background): “However, the vast majority of results are homogeneous across major food crops and geographical areas, with decreases in yield projected for each climate scenario (Wiebe et al., 2015; Zhao et al., 2017).”
Control of crop diseases through Integrated Crop Management to deliver climate-smart farming systems for low- and high-input crop production (2021, background): “Among the food crops, wheat, rice, maize, and soybean combined contribute two thirds of total human calorie intake (Zhao et al., 2017).”
The Global Food‐Energy‐Water Nexus (2018, background): “It has been estimated that, without accounting for the effect of CO2 fertilization, each degree Celsius of mean global temperature increase is expected to induce a 6.0% drop in the global yield of wheat, 3.2% of rice, 7.4% of maize, and 3.1% of soybean (Zhao et al., 2017).”
Unraveling Field Crops Sensitivity to Heat Stress：Mechanisms, Approaches, and Future Prospects (2018, background): “It has been reported that HS leads to yield losses in various crops [45] (Table 1).”
Impact of Climate Change on Crops Adaptation and Strategies to Tackle Its Outcome: A Review (2019, background): “4% in wheat, rice, soybean, and maize respectively [46].”
Climate change has likely already affected global food production (2019, result): “Similar multi-method analyses provide conflicting results across regions and crops [38] though recent analysis in wheat that compared point and grid based crop model simulations, with statistical regression approach, were consistent [11].”
Heat and Drought Stresses in Crops and Approaches for Their Mitigation (2018, background): “These adverse conditions are contributing to development of drought-prone areas and consequently on the plant growth and crop productivity of major crops (Zhao et al., 2017).”