title: Plausible rice yield losses under future climate warming.
abstract: Rice is the staple food for more than 50% of the world's population1-3. Reliable prediction of changes in rice yield is thus central for maintaining global food security. This is an extraordinary challenge. Here, we compare the sensitivity of rice yield to temperature increase derived from field warming experiments and three modelling approaches: statistical models, local crop models and global gridded crop models. Field warming experiments produce a substantial rice yield loss under warming, with an average temperature sensitivity of -5.2 ± 1.4% K-1. Local crop models give a similar sensitivity (-6.3 ± 0.4% K-1), but statistical and global gridded crop models both suggest less negative impacts of warming on yields (-0.8 ± 0.3% and -2.4 ± 3.7% K-1, respectively). Using data from field warming experiments, we further propose a conditional probability approach to constrain the large range of global gridded crop model results for the future yield changes in response to warming by the end of the century (from -1.3% to -9.3% K-1). The constraint implies a more negative response to warming (-8.3 ± 1.4% K-1) and reduces the spread of the model ensemble by 33%. This yield reduction exceeds that estimated by the International Food Policy Research Institute assessment (-4.2 to -6.4% K-1) (ref. 4). Our study suggests that without CO2fertilization, effective adaptation and genetic improvement, severe rice yield losses are plausible under intensive climate warming scenarios.
authors.affiliation: Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
authors.forename: Chuang
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.|Key Laboratory of Alpine Ecology and Biodiversity, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China.|Center for Excellence in Tibetan Earth Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China.
authors.forename: Shilong
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Piao
authors.affiliation: Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
authors.forename: Xuhui
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, China.
authors.forename: Yao
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, Gif-sur-Yvette 91191, France.
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ciais
authors.affiliation: University of Chicago Computation Institute, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.
authors.forename: Joshua
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Elliott
authors.affiliation: Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
authors.forename: Mengtian
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, Universiteitsplein 1, 2610 Wilrijk, Belgium.
authors.forename: Ivan A
authors.initials: IA
authors.lastname: Janssens
authors.affiliation: International Rice Research Institute, Los Baños, 4031 Laguna, Philippines.
authors.forename: Tao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
authors.forename: Xu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Lian
authors.affiliation: Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
authors.forename: Yongwen
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, 14473 Potsdam, Germany.
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Müller
authors.affiliation: Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
authors.forename: Shushi
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5098-726X
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Peng
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Alpine Ecology and Biodiversity, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China.|Center for Excellence in Tibetan Earth Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China.
authors.forename: Tao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
authors.forename: Zhenzhong
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zeng
authors.affiliation: CREAF, Cerdanyola del Valles, Barcelona 08193, Catalonia, Spain.|CSIC, Global Ecology Unit CREAF-CEAB-CSIC-UAB, Cerdanyola del Valles, Barcelona 08193, Catalonia, Spain.
authors.forename: Josep
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Peñuelas