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Breadbasket failures
The impact of climate change on agriculture constitutes another dimension of the energy-food-environment linkages.
The global food system becomes vulnerable to production shocks because the global mean temperature increases and the climate extremes become more frequent. Scientists know little about the breadbasket failures caused by extreme weather events.
The research work has quantified the risks to agriculture in a 1.5°C and 2°C warmer world. Three major crops have been considered, namely wheat, soybean, and maize.
The differences in yield at 1.52°C versus 2°C of temperature increase are significant, but they are not as large as the difference between 1.5°C and the historical baseline of 0.85°C above pre-industrial global mean temperature. The risks of simultaneous crop failure, however, do increase disproportionately between 1.5 and 2°C. Hence, a temperature above the 1.5°C threshold will represent a threat to global food security.
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Gaupp, Franziska, James Hall, Dann Mitchell, Simon Dadson (submitted). “Increasing risks of multiple breadbasket failures under 1.5 and 2°C global warming.” Environmental Research Letters.