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Shifts in national land use and food production in Great Britain after a climate tipping point

Abstract

Climate change is expected to impact agricultural land use. Steadily accumulating changes in temperature and water availability can alter the relative profitability of different farming activities and promote land-use changes. There is also potential for high-impact ‘climate tipping points’, where abrupt, nonlinear change in climate occurs, such as the potential collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Here, using data from Great Britain, we develop a methodology to analyse the impacts of a climate tipping point on land use and economic outcomes for agriculture. We show that economic and land-use impacts of such a tipping point are likely to include widespread cessation of arable farming with losses of agricultural output that are an order of magnitude larger than the impacts of climate change without an AMOC collapse. The agricultural effects of AMOC collapse could be ameliorated by technological adaptations such as widespread irrigation, but the amount of water required and the costs appear to be prohibitive in this instance.

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Fig. 1: Temperature and rainfall for the growing season (April to September) in 2020 and 2080.
Fig. 2: Impact of smooth and abrupt climate and economic change on the share of arable farmland in 2020 and 2080.
Fig. 3: Limiting factors from an AMOC collapse on the share of arable land.
Fig. 4: British water balance in 2080 during the growing season, with irrigation available, under the climate scenarios for which the AMOC is either maintained or collapsed.

Data availability

The modelled output data that support the findings of this study are openly available from Smith and Ritchie66.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the NERC Valuing Nature programme (NE/P007880/1). We are grateful for comments from T. Benton.

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Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

I.J.B. and T.M.L. designed and directed the research. P.D.L.R. and G.S.S. helped to shape the research. P.D.L.R., G.S.S., K.J.D., I.J.B. and T.M.L. wrote the manuscript. C.F., C.A.B., A.B.H., A.V.G.-S., J.V.M., S.H.-V. and S.A.S. provided support and revisions. P.D.L.R., G.S.S. and K.J.D. planned and conducted simulations for all analyses. C.F. designed and ran the original agriculture land-use model with support from A.R.B., B.H.D. and I.J.B. C.F. and S.H.-V. further developed the agricultural land-use model from a global analysis of agricultural land use designed by A.B.H. and A.V.G.-S. The climate data were sourced and corrected for modelled bias by P.D.L.R. J.V.M. designed and ran the AMOC climate simulations.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Timothy M. Lenton or Ian J. Bateman.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Changes in farm profitability between 2020 and 2060 and between 2020 and 2080.

Changes in farm profitability between 2020 and 2060 and between 2020 and 2080

Extended Data Fig. 2 Predicted farm allocation to arable land for individual years between 2020 and 2080 per 2 km grid cell.

Predicted farm allocation to arable land for individual years between 2020 and 2080 per 2 km grid cell

Extended Data Fig. 3 Time series of mean temperature, total rainfall for the growing season and arable share for the four scenarios considered.

a) Temperature and rainfall in Great Britain with AMOC maintained and collapsed over 2020 to 2080. b) Mean arable fraction of agricultural land in Great Britain with AMOC maintained or collapsed and irrigation on or off, over the period 2020 to 2080

Extended Data Fig. 4 Mean temperature and total rainfall for spring and summer (March-August) in steady state runs of the AMOC maintained and collapsed.

a) - c) Mean temperature and d) – f) mean total rainfall for a), d) a maintained AMOC and b), e) collapsed AMOC13,20. c), f) Plots the difference between the means of the AMOC maintained and collapsed; a positive (negative) value represents an increase (decrease) for an AMOC collapse compared to the AMOC maintained

Extended Data Fig. 5 Impact of an AMOC collapse on temperature and rainfall across various climate model freshwater hosing experiments. First row, model used in this study.

Impact of an AMOC collapse on temperature and rainfall across various climate model freshwater hosing experiments. First row, model used in this study

Extended Data Fig. 6 Surface observations of the mean temperature and total rainfall for the growing season for 1960-1989.

a) Mean temperature and b) mean total rainfall for the growing season (April-September) from surface observations for the period 1960-1989

Extended Data Fig. 7 Model estimates of land-use (arable land share).

Model estimates of land-use (arable land share)

Extended Data Fig. 8 Estimated impact of temperature and rainfall on arable land share in Great Britain from the agricultural model.

Estimated fraction of arable share in Great Britain based on a) temperature and b) rainfall. For b) only: arable shares based on land cover data from Northern Eurasia (Eurasia), United Kingdom (UK), and the US Great Plains (USGP)

Extended Data Fig. 9 Impact sensitivity analysis of climate variables has on arable land share for 2020.

a) GB map of arable farmland for using the lower quartile temperature and rainfall. b) GB map of arable farmland for using the upper quartile temperature and lower quartile rainfall. c) GB map of arable farmland for using the mean temperature and rainfall. d) GB map of arable farmland for using the lower quartile temperature and upper quartile rainfall. e) GB map of arable farmland for using the upper quartile temperature and rainfall

Extended Data Fig. 10 Net impact range on GB agriculture of smooth versus tipping point climate change, with and without ameliorative measures.

Net impact range on GB agriculture of smooth versus tipping point (AMOC collapse) climate change, with and without ameliorative measures (technological response) using lower and upper quartile of temperature and rainfall for previous 30-year growing seasons (April-September)

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Ritchie, P.D.L., Smith, G.S., Davis, K.J. et al. Shifts in national land use and food production in Great Britain after a climate tipping point. Nat Food 1, 76–83 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-019-0011-3

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