Crop productivity changes in 1.5 °C and 2 °C worlds under climate sensitivity uncertainty
Abstract
Following the adoption of the Paris Agreement, there has been an increasing interest in quantifying impacts at discrete levels of global mean temperature (GMT) increase such as 1.5 °C and 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. Consequences of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions on agricultural productivity have direct and immediate relevance for human societies. Future crop yields will be affected by anthropogenic climate change as well as direct effects of emissions such as CO2 fertilization. At the same time, the climate sensitivity to future emissions is uncertain. Here we investigate the sensitivity of future crop yield projections with a set of global gridded crop models for four major staple crops at 1.5 °C and 2 °C warming above pre-industrial levels, as well as at different CO2 levels determined by similar probabilities to lead to 1.5 °C and 2 °C, using climate forcing data from the Half a degree Additional warming, Prognosis and Projected Impacts project. For the same CO2 forcing, we find consistent negative effects of half a degree warming on productivity in most world regions. Increasing CO2 concentrations consistent with these warming levels have potentially stronger but highly uncertain effects than 0.5 °C warming increments. Half a degree warming will alsomore »
- Authors:
-
[1];
[2];
[3];
[5];
[6];
[7];
[9];
[10];
[12]
- Climate Analytics, Berlin (Germany); Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam (Germany)
- Climate Analytics, Berlin (Germany); Columbia University Center for Climate Systems Research, New York, NY (United States)
- Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam (Germany)
- Univ. of Chicago and ANL Computation Inst., Chicago, IL (United States)
- Climate Analytics, Berlin (Germany); King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah (Saudi Arabia)
- International Inst. for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg (Austria)
- Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Duebendorf (Switzerland)
- Lab des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, Gif-sur-Yvette (France); Peking Univ., Beijing (People's Republic of China)
- Earth & Environmental Sciences and Birmingham Institute of Forest Research, Birmingham (United Kingdom); Karlsruhe Inst. of Technology, Garmisch-Partenkirchen (Germany)
- ETH Zurich, Zurich (Switzerland); Vrije Univ. Brussel, Brussels (Belgium)
- ETH Zurich, Zurich (Switzerland)
- International Inst. for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg (Austria); ETH Zurich, Zurich (Switzerland); Univ. of Oxford, Oxford (United Kingdom)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC); Univ. of California, Oakland, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1543951
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-05CH11231
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Environmental Research Letters
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 13; Journal Issue: 6; Journal ID: ISSN 1748-9326
- Publisher:
- IOP Publishing
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; Environmental Sciences & Ecology; Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences; 1.5 °C; GGCMI; HAPPI
Citation Formats
Schleussner, Carl -Friedrich, Deryng, Delphine, Müller, Christoph, Elliott, Joshua, Saeed, Fahad, Folberth, Christian, Liu, Wenfeng, Wang, Xuhui, Pugh, Thomas A. M., Thiery, Wim, Seneviratne, Sonia I., and Rogelj, Joeri. Crop productivity changes in 1.5 °C and 2 °C worlds under climate sensitivity uncertainty. United States: N. p., 2018.
Web. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aab63b.
Schleussner, Carl -Friedrich, Deryng, Delphine, Müller, Christoph, Elliott, Joshua, Saeed, Fahad, Folberth, Christian, Liu, Wenfeng, Wang, Xuhui, Pugh, Thomas A. M., Thiery, Wim, Seneviratne, Sonia I., & Rogelj, Joeri. Crop productivity changes in 1.5 °C and 2 °C worlds under climate sensitivity uncertainty. United States. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aab63b
Schleussner, Carl -Friedrich, Deryng, Delphine, Müller, Christoph, Elliott, Joshua, Saeed, Fahad, Folberth, Christian, Liu, Wenfeng, Wang, Xuhui, Pugh, Thomas A. M., Thiery, Wim, Seneviratne, Sonia I., and Rogelj, Joeri. Wed .
"Crop productivity changes in 1.5 °C and 2 °C worlds under climate sensitivity uncertainty". United States. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aab63b. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1543951.
@article{osti_1543951,
title = {Crop productivity changes in 1.5 °C and 2 °C worlds under climate sensitivity uncertainty},
author = {Schleussner, Carl -Friedrich and Deryng, Delphine and Müller, Christoph and Elliott, Joshua and Saeed, Fahad and Folberth, Christian and Liu, Wenfeng and Wang, Xuhui and Pugh, Thomas A. M. and Thiery, Wim and Seneviratne, Sonia I. and Rogelj, Joeri},
abstractNote = {Following the adoption of the Paris Agreement, there has been an increasing interest in quantifying impacts at discrete levels of global mean temperature (GMT) increase such as 1.5 °C and 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. Consequences of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions on agricultural productivity have direct and immediate relevance for human societies. Future crop yields will be affected by anthropogenic climate change as well as direct effects of emissions such as CO2 fertilization. At the same time, the climate sensitivity to future emissions is uncertain. Here we investigate the sensitivity of future crop yield projections with a set of global gridded crop models for four major staple crops at 1.5 °C and 2 °C warming above pre-industrial levels, as well as at different CO2 levels determined by similar probabilities to lead to 1.5 °C and 2 °C, using climate forcing data from the Half a degree Additional warming, Prognosis and Projected Impacts project. For the same CO2 forcing, we find consistent negative effects of half a degree warming on productivity in most world regions. Increasing CO2 concentrations consistent with these warming levels have potentially stronger but highly uncertain effects than 0.5 °C warming increments. Half a degree warming will also lead to more extreme low yields, in particular over tropical regions. Our results indicate that GMT change alone is insufficient to determine future impacts on crop productivity.},
doi = {10.1088/1748-9326/aab63b},
journal = {Environmental Research Letters},
number = 6,
volume = 13,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed May 23 00:00:00 EDT 2018},
month = {Wed May 23 00:00:00 EDT 2018}
}
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Figures / Tables:
Figure 1: Changes in global crop productivity under 1.5 °C warming (upper panel) and 2 °C (lower panel) for four major staple crops (wheat, maize, soybean and rice from left to right, note that y-axis scaling is different). Projections for 7 crop models from the global gridded crop model intercomparisonmore »
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