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  • Review Article
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Compound heat and moisture extreme impacts on global crop yields under climate change

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment volume 3, pages 872–889 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Extreme heat, drought and moisture excess are increasingly co-occurring within a single growing season, impacting crop yields in global breadbasket regions. In this Review, we synthesize understanding of compound heat and moisture extremes, their impacts on global crop yields and implications for adaptation. Heat and moisture extremes and their impacts become compounded through crop-physiological interactions, heat–moisture couplings in the climate system and crop–atmosphere interactions. Since around 2000, these compound extremes, and hot droughts in particular, have been linked to especially poor harvests (up to 30% yield losses) in regions such as India, Ethiopia, the USA, Europe and Russia. However, in some cases, combinations of crop stresses might generate compensating effects. Compound extremes are projected to increase in frequency and amplitude in the future, but, owing to the biophysical interdependence among temperature, water and crop physiology, the net yield effects of such future compound extremes remain uncertain. Accordingly, compound extremes will necessitate comprehensive agricultural adaptation strategies geared towards multi-stress resilience, as adaptations that work for single climate stresses could be maladaptive under combined stresses. An integrated understanding of heat and water in soil–plant–atmosphere dynamics is urgently needed to understand risks and suitably adapt cropping systems to compounding climate impacts.

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Fig. 1: Compounding climate influence on crop yields.
Fig. 2: Historical and projected future heat–moisture interactions and compound heat and drought.
Fig. 3: Soybean yield responses to soil moisture and temperature variation.
Fig. 4: Crop impacts of major compound heat and moisture extremes.
Fig. 5: Changing compound extremes and modes of compounding under climate warming.

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Acknowledgements

O.C. respectfully acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land on which he works and lives, the country of the Anaiwan people. He pays respect to their Elders past, present and emerging and recognizes that their sovereignty was never ceded. C.L. received funding from the US Department of Interior Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center, Dartmouth Neukom Institute for Computational Science and the Fonds de recherche du Québec — Nature et technologies award #319165. K.F.D. was supported in part by the University of Delaware General University Research fund. W.A. was supported by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) PAPA AID-FFP-T-17-00001. J.J. was supported by the NASA GISS Climate Impacts Group and the Open Philanthropy Project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, NY, USA

    Corey Lesk

  2. Neukom Institute for Computational Science, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA

    Corey Lesk

  3. Department of Geography, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA

    Corey Lesk

  4. Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Weston Anderson

  5. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA

    Weston Anderson

  6. Department of Earth System Science, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA

    Angela Rigden

  7. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Angela Rigden

  8. School of Environmental and Rural Science, University of New England, Armidale, NSW, Australia

    Onoriode Coast

  9. NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, NY, USA

    Jonas Jägermeyr & Sonali McDermid

  10. Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Jonas Jägermeyr

  11. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts Research (PIK), Member of the Leibniz Association, Potsdam, Germany

    Jonas Jägermeyr

  12. Department of Environmental Studies, New York University, New York, NY, USA

    Sonali McDermid

  13. Department of Geography and Spatial Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA

    Kyle F. Davis

  14. Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA

    Kyle F. Davis

  15. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Megan Konar

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All authors contributed to discussions, writing and reviewing of the manuscript. C.L. coordinated the writing and led the figure contributions. C.L. and W.A. conceived the main structure of the manuscript.

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Glossary

Clausius–Clapeyron relation

How the water-holding capacity (saturation vapour pressure) of air increases quasi-exponentially with temperature, with implications for both precipitation (water supplied to clouds) and drought (water removed from land).

Convection

The rising motion of buoyant warm and/or humid air, leading to cooling of the air, condensation of water vapour and eventually precipitation. A common cause of extreme rainfall.

Crop physiology

The biological processes governing the growth, development and reproduction of crop plants, many of which are connected to climate.

Crop yields

Crop productivity on an area basis (mass of harvested crop per unit harvested area).

Drought

Extended periods of high vapour pressure deficit, or deficient precipitation, soil moisture or surface water. Diverse definitions exist across disciplines, sectors and systems.

Evapotranspiration

The vaporization of water into the atmosphere from the land surface (evaporation) and plants (transpiration) combined. As an endothermic reaction, evapotranspiration also transfers latent heat between land and atmosphere.

Land–atmosphere interactions

The modulation of boundary layer climate by feedbacks with the land surface involving diverse processes, linking the energy and water cycles.

Latent heating

The flux of heat from the land surface to the atmosphere due to evapotranspiration, transferring potential energy to overlying air in the form of water vapour without changing the air temperature.

Sensible heating

The flux of heat from the land surface to the atmosphere leading to a change in air temperature.

Stomata

Closable leaf pores that regulate the uptake of carbon dioxide and coincident loss of water (transpiration), exerting an important influence on energy, water and carbon exchanges between land and atmosphere.

Transitional zones

Regions with intermediate average soil moisture (neither arid nor humid), typically featuring strong land–atmosphere interactions.

Univariate extremes

Climate events with extremes of a single climate variable (such as temperature).

Vapour pressure deficit

(VPD). The difference in water vapour content of air between actual and saturated conditions, acting as a force drawing water from within plants, where air is saturated, towards the typically drier atmosphere.

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Lesk, C., Anderson, W., Rigden, A. et al. Compound heat and moisture extreme impacts on global crop yields under climate change. Nat Rev Earth Environ 3, 872–889 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-022-00368-8

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