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

Schauberger, Bernhard ; Archontoulis, Sotirios ; Arneth, Almut LU ; Balkovic, Juraj ; Ciais, Philippe ; Deryng, Delphine ; Elliott, Joshua ; Folberth, Christian ; Khabarov, Nikolay and Müller, Christoph LU , et al. (2017) In Nature Communications 8.
Abstract

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... (More)

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 CO 2 can only weakly reduce these yield losses, in contrast to irrigation.

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publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Nature Communications
volume
8
article number
13931
publisher
Nature Publishing Group
external identifiers
  • pmid:28102202
  • scopus:85010424118
ISSN
2041-1723
DOI
10.1038/ncomms13931
language
English
LU publication?
no
id
1a6ebe6e-cd39-4f43-a4de-047ae1c92b6e
date added to LUP
2020-11-19 23:12:39
date last changed
2024-12-27 22:44:03
@article{1a6ebe6e-cd39-4f43-a4de-047ae1c92b6e,
  abstract     = {{<p>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 &gt;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 &gt;30 °C. Elevated CO 2 can only weakly reduce these yield losses, in contrast to irrigation.</p>}},
  author       = {{Schauberger, Bernhard and Archontoulis, Sotirios and Arneth, Almut and Balkovic, Juraj and Ciais, Philippe and Deryng, Delphine and Elliott, Joshua and Folberth, Christian and Khabarov, Nikolay and Müller, Christoph and Pugh, Thomas A.M. and Rolinski, Susanne and Schaphoff, Sibyll and Schmid, Erwin and Wang, Xuhui and Schlenker, Wolfram and Frieler, Katja}},
  issn         = {{2041-1723}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{01}},
  publisher    = {{Nature Publishing Group}},
  series       = {{Nature Communications}},
  title        = {{Consistent negative response of US crops to high temperatures in observations and crop models}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13931}},
  doi          = {{10.1038/ncomms13931}},
  volume       = {{8}},
  year         = {{2017}},
}