Droughts or heat waves have consequences that spread beyond farmers anxiously watching their fields; these fluctuations in crop yields can send shockwaves through local and global food supplies and prices.
Droughts or heat waves have consequences that spread beyond farmers anxiously watching their fields; these fluctuations in crop yields can send shockwaves through local and global food supplies and prices.
In a new study, researchers with NASA, the University of Chicago and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research added data on when each specific region plants and harvests its crops—and found it was the single most effective way to improve the simulations.
Published Nov. 21 in Science Advances, the innovative adaptation could improve the information available for policymakers and markets to brace for the impacts of crop loss.
Current models struggle to predict yields, not only in view of long-term climate change, but simply for the following year’s crops. “Today’s models really can’t explain variability from one year to the next. Even if we just try to recreate what happened in the past, they just aren’t up to par,” said Jägermeyr, a postdoctoral researcher with the UChicago Department of Computer Science, Potsdam and NASA, and the corresponding author on the study. “It turns out that short-term yield variability is extremely important for policymakers and the food market—naturally for price levels, but also for supply shocks, trade embargoes and reserves.”
Read more at University of Chicago
Image: Researchers found that by adding data on when each specific region plants and harvests its crops, they could much more accurately predict crop yields globally. Above: A farmer plants crops in Puerto Rico, 1942. (Credit: Library of Congress)
