The severity of crop losses driven by heat waves and drought have tripled in the last fifty years in Europe, according to a study that highlights the vulnerability of food systems to climate change.
Research published recently in the journal Environmental Research Letters, looked at agricultural production in 28 European countries — the current European Union and United Kingdom — from 1961 to 2018.
They compared this to data on extreme weather events — droughts, heat waves, floods and cold snaps — and found evidence suggesting "climate change is already driving increasing crop losses in observational records".
While all four became significantly more frequent over the 50-year time period, "the severity of heatwave and drought impacts on crop production roughly tripled", from losses of 2.2 percent between 1964 and 1990 to 7.3 percent from 1991 to 2015.
The study found that droughts in particular, which are becoming more frequent, are also becoming more and more intense: "the most severe events become disproportionately more severe".
Overall, European crop yields still increased in the period, by almost 150 percent between 1964-1990 and 1991-2015, said lead author Teresa Bras, from the Nova School of Science and Technology in Lisbon.
But losses connected to extreme weather were different depending on the crop.
"Cereals, a staple that occupies nearly 65 percent of the EU's cultivated area and is mainly used for animal feed, is the crop most severely affected," said Bras.
These showed "consistently larger losses" linked to droughts and heat spells than other crops, the report said, intensifying by more than 3 percent for every drought year.
Researchers said this could be explained by the more widespread irrigation of other crops like vegetables, grape vines and fruit.
Climate change is expected to multiply weather extremes, including heat waves and droughts and the study warned of "ripple effects" from impacts on Europe across the global food system and on food prices.
The study said the punishing heat wave and drought of 2018 in Europe caused a decrease in grain production of 8 percent compared to the average of the previous five years, "which caused fodder shortages for livestock and triggered sharp commodity price increases".
Since the 2015 Paris climate deal, the world has experienced its five hottest years on record.
The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization has warned that food production is "extremely sensitive" to climate change.
Earlier this month a study published in the journal Nature Geoscience found that recent summer droughts in Europe were the most severe the region has seen in 2,110 years and noted a sudden intensification since 2015.
In 2019, a report in Nature Climate Change warned that changes in the jet stream sharply increased the risk of heatwaves in regions responsible for up to a quarter of global food production — Western North America, Western Europe, Western Russia and Ukraine.
Study: Farming 21% less productive since 1960s because of climate change
Washington DC (UPI) Apr 1, 2021 –
Farming productivity has increased significantly over the last half-century. New research suggests those productivity boosts would have been even greater if it wasn't for climate change.
According to the new study, published Thursday in the journal Nature Climate Change, global warming has cut farming productivity 21% since 1960s.
"We find that climate change has basically wiped out about seven years of improvements in agricultural productivity over the past 60 years," lead author Ariel Ortiz-Bobea said in a press release.
"It is equivalent to pressing the pause button on productivity growth back in 2013 and experiencing no improvements since then. Anthropogenic climate change is already slowing us down," said Ortiz-Bobea, an associate professor of applied economics at Cornell University.
While many studies have developed models to predict the impacts of climate change on future crop yields, few have looked at the impacts of climate change on past productivity.
For the study, scientists developed an econometric model to simulate the impacts of year-to-year weather changes on agricultural outputs.
The model considered more than 200 systematic variations and the impacts on crop yields. Researchers then ran the model under several different climate scenarios.
The simulations showed the "total factor productivity" of the agricultural sector has been significantly hampered by human-caused climate change over the last 60 years.
Climate change-related slowdowns in agricultural productivity were most pronounced in Africa, Latin America and Asia, especially in warmer, semi-tropical regions.
Numerous studies have focused on the effects of climate change on coastal populations and human migration and displacement, as well as economic productivity.
But the latest findings are a reminder that climate change could have a significant — and harmful — effect on global food systems and the ability of the agricultural sector to feed the planet's growing populace, researchers said.
"Most people perceive climate change as a distant problem," Ortiz-Bobea said. "But this is something that is already having an effect. We have to address climate change now so that we can avoid further damage for future generations."
