Physical Sciences Division
Published January 19, 2017 | Version v1
Journal article Open

Consistent negative response of US crops to high temperatures in observations and crop models

Creators

  • 1. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
  • 2. Iowa State University
  • 3. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
  • 4. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
  • 5. Institute Pierre-Simon Laplace
  • 6. University of Chicago
  • 7. University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences
  • 8. Columbia University
  • 9. Postdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

Description

High temperatures are detrimental to crop yields and could lead to global warming-driven reductions in agricultural productivity. To assess future threats, the majority of studies used process-based crop models, but their ability to represent effects of high temperature has been questioned. Here we show that an ensemble of nine crop models reproduces the observed average temperature responses of US maize, soybean and wheat yields. Each day >30 °C diminishes maize and soybean yields by up to 6% under rainfed conditions. Declines observed in irrigated areas, or simulated assuming full irrigation, are weak. This supports the hypothesis that water stress induced by high temperatures causes the decline. For wheat a negative response to high temperature is neither observed nor simulated under historical conditions, since critical temperatures are rarely exceeded during the growing season. In the future, yields are modelled to decline for all three crops at temperatures >30 °C. Elevated CO2 can only weakly reduce these yield losses, in contrast to irrigation.

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Additional details

Identifiers

DOI
10.1038/ncomms13931
Other
oai:uchicago.tind.io:14711

Funding

German National Academic Foundation
Leibniz Competition
SAW-2013-PIK-5
European Union
FP7-603864-2
European Union
603542
German Federal Ministry of Education and Research
01LS1201A1

UChicago Information

Division(s)
Physical Sciences Division
Department(s)
Geophysical Sciences