Limit global warming to 1.5 oC will alleviate the synchronous failure of maize yield in China

Extreme weather and climate events (EWCEs) have jeopardized crop yields globally. The evidenced increasing trends of EWCEs would amplify their impacts if they co-occurred. This would bring additional shocks to global food markets, and result in severe risks to food security. A systemical analysis of the risk of crop yield failure under EWCEs and their changes in a warming future is essential to guide adaptations adequately and ensure food security. In this study, we compared the relations between maize yield anomalies and 14 climatic indices over the growing season in the breadbasket (10 provinces) in China during 1981-2018 to identify the main EWCEs determining maize yield anomalies. We then compared the probabilities of crop yield failure under current climatic conditions and its projected changes under 1.5 and 2.0 ^oC global warming using 28 climate models from CMIP6. The result shows that the maize yield anomalies can be mainly explained by extreme temperate-related indices, despite the various indices for individual provinces. The probability of synchronous yield failure in 1981-2018 was below 7.5% when we randomly summed up seven maize provinces among ten. The probability may reach 2.45% and 7.73% on average under 1.5 and 2.0 ^oC global warming conditions for all ten provinces, respectively. The transferred risk of crop yield failure revealed that more current maize land would be outstripping its climate-safe space under warmer conditions. Our results highlighted the benefits of limiting global temperature rise within 1.5 ^oC. Furthermore, enhancing crop resistance to adverse climate situations through appropriate adaptations would be a promising solution to stabilize crop productivity.