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AGRICULTURE

Running AMOC in the farming economy

Nature Food volume 1, pages 22–23 (2020)Cite this article

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Climate tipping points, such as the collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), could drive significant structural changes in agriculture, with profound consequences for global food security.

Climate change can be broadly characterised into three types of change. First, there is the change in climate — the expectation of weather based on several decades of data. The average temperature and precipitation throughout a year determine, among other things, the performance of crops and livestock, and thus farm economics. Second, there is the changing variability of weather, particularly the incidence of extreme events. For farming, whether it is wetter or drier than normal affects yields, and heat and drought — or extreme rainfall — can affect livelihoods catastrophically. Thirdly, the climate arises from a dynamic, non-linear system which, under continuous, incremental forcing, has the potential to rapidly change to new states1. Such tipping points can radically reshape global and local conditions, as Paul Ritchie and colleagues2 show in this issue of Nature Food.

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  1. Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, UK

    Tim G. Benton

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  1. Tim G. Benton
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Correspondence to Tim G. Benton.

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Benton, T.G. Running AMOC in the farming economy. Nat Food 1, 22–23 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-019-0017-x

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