Though initial research indicated that crop yields in temperate regions like North America and Europe would withstand several degrees of warming, results from a new study co-authored by Netra Chhetri, a senior sustainability scientist at ASU's Global Institute of Sustainability, indicate otherwise. The study not only shows that yields in temperate regions will be affected along with those in tropical regions, but that this will occur much sooner than originally anticipated. Beginning in the 2030s, yields from the essential food crops maize, wheat and rice will start to decline significantly.

After creating a new dataset by compiling results from 1,700 published simulations, Chhetri and his team evaluated the impacts of climate change on crop yields with and without adaptations for rice, maize and wheat. Due to increased interest in the impacts of climate change on global food security, the researchers were able to amass the largest dataset to date on crop responses. Their paper, "A meta-analysis of crop yield under climate change and adaptation," published March 16 by the journal Nature Climate Change, feeds directly into the Working Group II report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report.