Quantifying likelihoods of extreme occurrences causing maize yield reduction at the global scale

Abstract

A variety of weather and climate extremes (e.g., droughts, heatwaves) can lead to negative impacts on crop yields and food security. It is thus important to understand likelihoods of extreme occurrences causing crop yield reduction for enhanced resilience of the food system. Here, we investigate the likelihood of occurrences of dry, hot, and compound dry-hot conditions causing crop yield reduction for ten maize-producing countries based on climate observations and country-level maize yields for the period 1961–2016. The likelihood of occurrences of different extremes causing maize yield reduction is quantified using a multivariate statistical model. Results show that the multivariate model performs well in quantifying the likelihood of extreme occurrences (i.e., dry, hot and compound dry-hot conditions) causing maize yield reduction. Overall, the likelihood of occurrences of the above three conditions leading to yield reduction varies among ten maize-producing countries and that of compound dry-hot condition is the highest for most countries, which is shown to be closely related to the precipitation-temperature dependence of each country. Moreover, the likelihood of compound dry-hot occurrences becomes higher as the severity of crop yield reduction increases. These findings highlight significant impacts of compound dry-hot conditions on maize yield reduction and provide valuable information for formulating effective agricultural measures under global warming.