Global crop yield response to extreme heat stress under multiple climate change futures

Extreme heat stress during the crop reproductive period can be critical for crop productivity. Projected changes in the frequency and severity of extreme climatic events are expected to negatively impact crop yields and global food production. This study applies the global crop model PEGASUS to quantify, for the first time at the global scale, impacts of extreme heat stress on maize, spring wheat and soybean yields resulting from 72 climate change scenarios for the 21st century. Our results project maize to face progressively worse impacts under a range of RCPs but spring wheat and soybean to improve globally through to the 2080s due to CO 2 fertilization effects, even though parts of the tropic and sub-tropic…

• SR
  Sight Research UK

  Award: NE/F016107/1
• EC
  European Commission

  Award: FP7-ENV-2010
• NS
  Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
• EA
  Economic and Social Research Council

  Award: ES/K006576/1
• NE
  Natural Environment Research Council

  Award: NE/F016107/1