Abstract
Under future CMIP5 climate change scenarios for 2050, an increase in wheat yield of about 10% is predicted in Great Britain (GB) as a result of the combined effect of CO2 fertilization and a shift in phenology. Compared to the present day, crops escape increases in the climate impacts of drought and heat stresses on grain yield by developing before these stresses can occur. In the future, yield losses from water stress over a growing season will remain about the same across Great Britain with losses reaching around 20% of potential yield, while losses from drought around flowering will decrease and account for about 9% of water limited yield. Yield losses from heat stress around flowering will remain negligible in the future. These conclusions are drawn from a modelling study based on the response of the Sirius wheat simulation model to local-scale 2050-climate scenarios derived from 19 Global Climate Models from the CMIP5 ensemble at 25 locations representing current or potential wheat-growing areas in GB. However, depending on susceptibility to water stress, substantial interannual yield variation between locations is predicted, in some cases suggesting low wheat yield stability. For this reason, local-scale studies should be performed to evaluate uncertainties in yield prediction related to future weather patterns.
Highlights
Wheat production in the 2050s is likely to face conflicting pressures
Because of an increase in the wealthy fraction of this population who expect to have meat in their diet 2 [1,2,3,4,5]. This will need to be achieved at the same time as meeting greenhouse gas (GHG) emission targets such as limiting global warming to 2°C or carbon neutrality as set by the Paris Agreement to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (2015) [6] as well as hitting other social and environmental targets set out in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations [7]
We focus on the simulations performed for the winter wheat cultivar, Mercia HD, that is sensitive to heat and drought around flowering
Summary
Wheat production in the 2050s is likely to face conflicting pressures. Firstly, up to 70% more food will be needed to feed the world compared with 2010 because of the expected overall increase in human population by two to three billion people royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rsos R. Because of an increase in the wealthy fraction of this population who expect to have meat in their diet 2 [1,2,3,4,5] This will need to be achieved at the same time as meeting greenhouse gas (GHG) emission targets such as limiting global warming to 2°C or carbon neutrality as set by the Paris Agreement to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (2015) [6] as well as hitting other social and environmental targets set out in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations [7]. It is difficult to design effective mitigation and adaptation strategies for policy makers who need to know what the general climate will be like as a whole and for farmers who need to manage the year-to-year risk that arises from the annual variation in the weather in the particular location that they farm
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