Impacts of extreme heat stress on global pesticide application

Pesticides are critical agricultural inputs for ensuring food security and may be shaped by climatic changes. Yet, the sensitivity of pesticide use to climate warming at the global scale remains unclear. By integrating country-level pesticide use and high-resolution climate reanalysis data into a fixed-effect panel regression model, we thoroughly investigated how extreme heat affected pesticide use and the heterogeneity of these effects across different levels of economic development. We further projected spatiotemporal trends of global pesticide use under an ensemble of future warming scenarios in a forward-looking manner. Our results can help quantify the impact of climate change on agricultural chemical inputs and provide an essential scientific basis for developing climate-resilient agricultural management strategies.