Journal Article

Rising temperatures reduce global wheat production

CSIRO, Jabloun, M., Ewert, F., White, J. W., Nendel, C., Cammarano, D., Reynolds, M. P., Wall, G. W., Doltra, J., Aggarwal, P. K., Shcherbak, I., Biological Systems Engineering, Fereres, E., Génétique Diversité et Ecophysiologie des Céréales (GDEC), Wang, E., Lobell, D. B., Basso, B., Prasad, P. V. V., Supit, I., The School of Plant Sciences, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Thorburn, P. J., Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, KULUNDA, Biernath, C., Olesen, J.E., Priesack, E., Computational and Systems Biology, Rezaei, E. Eyshi, Gayler, S., Wolf, I., Waha, K., Zhu, Y., Ruane, A. C., Hunt, L. A., Koehl, A-K., AGroécologie, Innovations, teRritoires (AGIR), de Sanctis, Giacomo, Alderman, P. D., Anothai, J., Agroclim (AGROCLIM), German Science Foundation, Wallach, Daniel, D., Stratonovitch, P., Semenov, M. A., Palosuo, T., Rotter, R. P., Asseng, S., Stoöckle, C., Tao, F., Kumar, S. Naresh, O'Leary, G., Jones, C. D., Plant Production Systems and Earth System Science, Kimball, B. A., Garcia-Vila, M., Agriculture Flagship, Ottman, M. J., WESS-Water and Earth System Science Competen

2015

Overview

Crop models are essential tools for assessing the threat of climate change to local and global food production(1). Present models used to predict wheat grain yield are highly uncertain when simulating how crops respond to temperature(2). Here we systematically tested 30 different wheat crop models of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project against field experiments in which growing season mean temperatures ranged from 15 degrees C to 32 degrees C, including experiments with artificial heating. Many models simulated yields well, but were less accurate at higher temperatures. The model ensemble median was consistently more accurate in simulating the crop temperature response than any single model, regardless of the input information used. Extrapolating the model ensemble temperature response indicates that warming is already slowing yield gains at a majority of wheat-growing locations. Global wheat production is estimated to fall by 6% for each degrees C of further temperature increase and become more variable over space and time.

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group,CCSD,Nature Publishing Group UK
• Subject: 704/106/694/2739 / Agricultural production / Cereal crops / Climate Change / Climate Change/Climate Change Impacts / Crop production / Crop yield / Crops / Cultivars / Environment / Environmental Law/Policy/Ecojustice / Environmental Sciences / Experiments / Field tests / Food production / Growing season / Heat / High temperature / Humanities and Social Sciences / Intercomparison / letter / Life Sciences / Mean temperatures / Meteorology And Climatology / Phenology / Seasons / Simulation / Temperature / Temperature rise / Triticum aestivum / Vegetal Biology / Wheat
• ISBN: 0003503277000