Optical flow of temperature reveals climate change patterns for agriculture and forestry

Abstract

The study of climate change's impact on terrestrial ecosystems is crucial for achieving societal and economic sustainability and human well-being. Domains like agriculture and forestry respond to climate change similarly to other terrestrial natural biomes, experiencing reductions in productivity, migration, and loss of biodiversity. However, there is a research gap in understanding climate velocity for different land cover and land use types, which could reveal vulnerability patterns in agriculture and forestry. To address this gap, we present the first study of climate velocity for major land cover and land use classes with a focus on major crop growing regions and functional forest types at the continental level. To enable this analysis, we introduce a new approach for estimating climate velocity based on optical flow. This approach allows us to conduct a global study, improve ecosystem interconnection representation, and reduce the model's sensitivity to noisy data and parametrization. Our study highlights the significant vulnerability to climate change of agriculture as a land cover type with a climate velocity 15% higher than of other vegetation land cover classes. Furthermore, the analysis of climate velocity for functional tree types reveals the highest expected impact on deciduous and evergreen needleleaf trees primarily concentrated in regions with the highest climate velocity, especially in sub-polar and temperate climates. Conversely, tropical forests dominated by evergreen broadleaf tree types exhibits marked variations in climate velocity with the highest rates in South America and Africa and three times lower in Asia. Additionally, our analysis of climate velocity for agriculture shows that North American croplands experience the highest climate velocity exceeding the global average by 32%. This trend is consistent for major crop types such as soybean that have higher climate velocity than globally for 49%, rapeseed and sunflower for 39%, cotton for 35%, maize for 32%, and wheat for 30%. Notably, areas dedicated to cereals, sugar beet, and sunflowers are located in zones with climate velocities higher than the global average by 15%, 12%, and 9%, respectively. These patterns indicate potential shifts in the agriculture and forestry structures in the near future that coherent with recent climate change studies and will have significant impact on the socio-economic dimension of humanity sustainability.