Chhetri authors paper on crop yield and climate change

Feeding a growing global population in a changing climate presents a significant challenge to society.  Results from a new study co-authored by Netra Chhetri – a faculty member of the School of Geographical Sciences & Urban Planning -- show global warming of only 2°C will be detrimental to world’s three important food crops. And beginning in the 2030s, yields from those crops will start to decline significantly.

“This study has been able to quantify the likely impacts of differing degrees of climate change on yields, by crop and by region,” said Chhetri.

This research was recently published in the journal Nature Climate Change, and will form a part of the Working Group IIreport of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report, which is due to be published at the end of March 2014.

Read more about this research:

• New research shows climate change will reduce crop yields sooner than expected, ASU News, March 25, 2014
• A. J. Challinor, J. Watson, D. B. Lobell, S. M. Howden, D. R. Smith & N. Chhetri, A meta-analysis of crop yield under climate change and adaptation, Nature Climate Change, published online March 16, 2014

Selected additional news media coverage of this research:

• Climate change and food supplies: bit of a drag or major upheaval?, Agriculture-Climate Letters, a Science-Policy Bulletin, April 3, 2014
• Climate change to leave no one on planet 'untouched,' IPCC chief, Christian Science Monitor, March 31, 2014
• CCAFS-backed Study Reassesses Climate Change Impacts on Agriculture, Climate Change Policy and Practice, March 18, 2014
• Climate change will reduce crop yields sooner than thought, Science Daily, March 16, 2014
• Climate change will reduce crop yields sooner than thought, Phys.org, March 16, 2014