Impacts of 1.5 versus 2.0 °C on cereal yields in the West African Sudan Savanna

Faye, Babacar; Webber, Heidi; Naab, Jesse B.; MacCarthy, Dilys S.; Adam, Myriam; Ewert, Frank; Lamers, John P. A.; Schleussner, Carl-Friedrich; Ruane, Alex; Gessner, Ursula; Hoogenboom, Gerrit; Boote, Ken; Shelia, Vakhtang; Saeed, Fahad; Wisser, Dominik; Hadir, Sofia; Laux, Patrick; Gaiser, Thomas

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aaab40

Impacts of 1.5 versus 2.0 °C on cereal yields in the West African Sudan Savanna

Journal Article · Thu Feb 22 00:00:00 EST 2018 · Environmental Research Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aaab40· OSTI ID:1523640

Faye, Babacar ^[1]; ^[2]; Naab, Jesse B. ^[3]; MacCarthy, Dilys S. ^[4]; Adam, Myriam ^[5]; Ewert, Frank ^[2]; Lamers, John P. A. ^[6]; ^[7]; ^[8]; Gessner, Ursula ^[9]; Hoogenboom, Gerrit ^[10]; Boote, Ken ^[10]; Shelia, Vakhtang ^[10]; ^[11]; Wisser, Dominik ^[12]; Hadir, Sofia ^[1]; Laux, Patrick ^[13]; Gaiser, Thomas ^[1]

Univ. of Bonn (Germany). Inst. of Crop Science and Resource Conservation
Univ. of Bonn (Germany). Inst. of Crop Science and Resource Conservation; Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Muncheburg (Germany). Inst. of Landscape Systems Analysis
West African Science Service Center on CLimate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL), Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso)
Univ. of Ghana, Kpong (Ghana). College of Basic and Applied Sciences, Soil and Irrigation Research Centre
Centre de Coop. International pour la Recherche Agronomique pour le Developpement (CIRAD), Montpellier (France); ICRISAT International Crops Research Inst. for the Semi-arid Tropics, Bamako (Mali); Inst. National de l'Environnement et de Recherches Agricoles (INERA), Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso)
Center for Development Research (ZEF), Bonn (Germany)
Climate Analytics, Berlin (Germany); Potsdam inst. for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam (Germany)
NASA Goddard Inst. for Space Studies (GISS), Broadway, NY (United States)
German Aerospace Center (DLR), Wessling (Germany). German Remote Sensing Data Center (DFD)
Univ. of Florida, Gainesville, FL (United States). Inst. for Sustainable Food Systems, Dept. of Agricultural and Biological Engineering
Climate Analytics, Berlin (Germany); King Abdulaziz Univ., Jeddah (Saudi Arabia). Centre of Excellence for Climate Change Research
UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), Rome (Italy)
Karlsruhe Inst. of Technology (KIT) Garmisch-Partenkirchen (Germany). IMK-IFU, Inst. of Meteorology and Climate Research

To reduce the risks of climate change, governments agreed in the Paris Agreement to limit global temperature rise to less than 2.0 °C above pre-industrial levels, with the ambition to keep warming to 1.5 °C. Charting appropriate mitigation responses requires information on the costs of mitigating versus associated damages for the two levels of warming. In this assessment, a critical consideration is the impact on crop yields and yield variability in regions currently challenged by food insecurity. The current study assessed impacts of 1.5 °C versus 2.0 °C on yields of maize, pearl millet and sorghum in the West African Sudan Savanna using two crop models that were calibrated with common varieties from experiments in the region with management reflecting a range of typical sowing windows. As sustainable intensification is promoted in the region for improving food security, simulations were conducted for both current fertilizer use and for an intensification case (fertility not limiting). With current fertilizer use, results indicated 2% units higher losses for maize and sorghum with 2.0 °C compared to 1.5 °C warming, with no change in millet yields for either scenario. In the intensification case, yield losses due to climate change were larger than with current fertilizer levels. However, despite the larger losses, yields were always two to three times higher with intensification, irrespective of the warming scenario. Though yield variability increased with intensification, there was no interaction with warming scenario. Risk and market analysis are needed to extend these results to understand implications for food security.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA); USDOE Office of Science (SC)

OSTI ID:: 1523640

Journal Information:: Environmental Research Letters, Journal Name: Environmental Research Letters Journal Issue: 3 Vol. 13; ISSN 1748-9326

Publisher:: IOP PublishingCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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