New Study: Climate Change Threatens World's Wheat Crop

[xchrom]

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/01/29-2

A study released Sunday afternoon finds that wheat crop yields could plunge due, in part, to climate change.

The study, published in Nature Climate Change, researchers warn that current projections underestimate the extent to which hotter weather in the future will accelerate this process. Extreme heat causes wheat crops to age faster and reduce yields, the Stanford University-led study shows, underscoring the challenge of feeding a rapidly growing population as the world continues to warm.

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New Scientist magazine reported Sunday:

It could be much more difficult than we thought to feed everyone in a warmer world. Satellite images of northern India have revealed that extreme temperatures are cutting wheat yields. What's more, models used to predict the effects of global warming on food supply may have underestimated the problem by a third.

Two-thirds of wheat in poor countries, and 23 per cent in rich countries – nearly half the world's total crop – is at risk from warming.In India's breadbasket, the Ganges plain, winter wheat is planted in November and harvested as temperatures rise in spring. David Lobell of Stanford University in California used nine years of images from the MODIS Earth-observation satellite to track when wheat in this region turned from green to brown, a sign that the grain is no longer growing.

He found that the wheat turned brown earlier when average temperatures were higher, with spells over 34 ºC having a particularly strong effect. [...]

Lobell's work suggests losses could be sooner and greater. "This is an early indication that a situation that was already bad could be even worse," says Andy Challinor of the University of Leeds, UK.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Let me guess: Monsanto GM wheat . . . . .