nuclear-news

Harvests in US to suffer from climate change
Some of the most important crops risk substantial damage from rising temperatures.

To better assess how climate change caused by human greenhouse gas emissions will likely impact wheat, maize and soybean, an international team of scientists now ran an unprecedentedly comprehensive set of computer simulations of US crop yields.

The simulations were shown to reproduce the observed strong reduction in past crop yields induced by high temperatures, thereby confirming that they capture one main mechanism for future projections.

Importantly, the scientists find that increased irrigation can help to reduce the negative effects of global warming on crops — but this is possible only in regions where sufficient water is available.

Eventually limiting global warming is needed to keep crop losses in check.
“We know from observations that high temperatures can harm crops, but now we have a much better understanding of the…