Crop productivity changes in 1.5 °C and 2 °C worlds under climate sensitivity uncertainty

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

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aab63b

Title: Crop productivity changes in 1.5 °C and 2 °C worlds under climate sensitivity uncertainty

Journal Article · 23 May 2018 · Environmental Research Letters

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aab63b · OSTI ID:1543951

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^[3]; Elliott, Joshua ^[4];

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^[7]; Wang, Xuhui ^[8];

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^[10]; Seneviratne, Sonia I. ^[11];

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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)

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.

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Research Organization:: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC); Univ. of California, Oakland, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-05CH11231

OSTI ID:: 1543951

Journal Information:: Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 13, Issue 6; ISSN 1748-9326

Publisher:: IOP PublishingCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Citation Metrics:

Cited by: 68 works

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