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ARS Home » Plains Area » Las Cruces, New Mexico » Range Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #388020
Research Project: Science and Technologies for the Sustainable Management of Western Rangeland Systems

Location: Range Management Research

Title: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group II Sixth Assessment Report Chapter 14: North America Food and Fibre

Author
item HICKE, JEFFREY - University Of Idaho
item LUCATELLO, SIMONE - Instituto De Investigaciones Agrarias Finca La Orden-Valdesequera
item MORTSCH, LINDA - University Of Waterloo
item HOLSMAN, KIRSTIN - National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
item CONDE, CECILIA - The National Autonomous University Of Mexico
item FROEHLICH, HALLEY - University Of California
item Elias, Emile
item DUKES, JEFF - Purdue University

Submitted to: Global Climate Change Conference Proceedings
Publication Type: Government Publication
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/1/2022
Publication Date: 3/1/2022
Citation: Hicke, J.A., Lucatello, S., Mortsch, L.D., Holsman, K., Conde, C., Froehlich, H., Elias, E.H., Dukes, J. 2022. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group II Sixth Assessment Report Chapter 14: North America Food and Fibre. Journal of Climate Change. Chapter 14:1929–2042.

Interpretive Summary: This document is a summary of recent advances in our understanding of how climate change has impacted and will continue to impact North American food, fibre and ecosystems.

Technical Abstract: Climate change has affected crops across North America through changes in growing seasons and regions, extreme heat, precipitation, water stress, and soil quality (high confidence) (Mann and Gleick, 2015; Galloza et al., 2017; Otkin et al., 2018). These changes directly influence crop productivity, quality and market price (high confidence) (Kistner et al., 2018; Reyes and Elias, 2019). Effects of historical climate change on maize, soybean, barley and wheat crop yields vary from strong increases to strong decreases (e.g. >-0.5 to >+0.5 t ha-1yr-1 for maize) within North America’s agroecological regions, even for the same crop (Ray et al., 2019). Across North America, climate change has generally reduced agricultural productivity by 12.5% since 1961, with progressively greater losses moving south from Canada to Mexico (Ortiz-Bobea et al., 2021), yet responses are highly differential across regions and crops. Some crop loss events are partially attributed to climate change (high confidence) such as the 2012 Midwest and Great Plains drought, which cost agriculture USD$30 billion (Smith and Matthews, 2015; Rupp et al., 2017).  Aridity is extending northward, altering crop suitability ranges (Fig 14.4); up to 50% of distributional shifts in growing regions for US crops between 1970-2010 may be related to climate change (Lant et al., 2016; Cho and McCarl, 2017). Irrigation is expanding to areas formerly largely dependent on rainfall (Wang et al., 2018)