EGU22-3011
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-3011
EGU General Assembly 2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Climate change signal in global agriculture emerges earlier in new generation of climate and crop models

Jonas Jägermeyr1,2,3, Christoph Müller3, and the GGCMI Team*
Jonas Jägermeyr and Christoph Müller and the GGCMI Team
  • 1Columbia University, New York, United States of America (jonas.jaegermeyr@columbia.edu)
  • 2NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
  • 3Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, Germany
  • *A full list of authors appears at the end of the abstract

Potential climate-related impacts on future crop yield are a major societal concern first surveyed in a harmonized multi-model effort in 2014. We report here on new 21st-century projections using ensembles of latest-generation crop and climate models. Results suggest markedly more pessimistic yield responses for maize, soybean, and rice compared to the original ensemble. Mean end-of-century maize productivity is shifted from +5 to -6% (SSP126) and +1 to -24% (SSP585) — explained by warmer climate projections and improved crop model sensitivities. In contrast, wheat shows stronger gains (+9 shifted to +18%, SSP585), linked to higher CO2 concentrations and expanded high-latitude gains. The ‘emergence’ of climate impacts — when the change signal emerges from the noise — consistently occurs earlier in the new projections for several main producing regions before 2040. While future yield estimates remain uncertain, these results suggest that major breadbasket regions will face distinct anthropogenic climatic risks sooner than previously anticipated.

GGCMI Team:

Jonas Jägermeyr, Christoph Müller, Alex C. Ruane, Joshua Elliott, Juraj Balkovic, Oscar Castillo, Babacar Faye, Ian Foster, Christian Folberth, James A. Franke, Kathrin Fuchs, Jose Guarin, Jens Heinke, Gerrit Hoogenboom, Toshichika Iizumi, Atul Jain, David Kelly, Nikolay Khabarov, Stefan Lange, Tzu-Shun Lin, Wenfeng Liu, Oleksandr Mialyk, Sara Minoli, Elisabeth J. Moyer, Masashi Okada, Meridel Phillips, Cheryl Porter, Sam Rabin, Clemens Scheer, Julia M. Schneider, Joep F. Schyns, Rastislav Skalsky, Andrew Smerald, Tommaso Stella, Haynes Stephens, Heidi Webber, Florian Zabel, Cynthia Rosenzweig

How to cite: Jägermeyr, J. and Müller, C. and the GGCMI Team: Climate change signal in global agriculture emerges earlier in new generation of climate and crop models, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-3011, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-3011, 2022.