Historical warnings of future food insecurity with unprecedented seasonal heat

Science

Volumn 323, Issue 5911, 2009, Pages 240-244

  Battisti, David S ^a   Naylor, Rosamond L ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON   (United States)

^b STANFORD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION; CLIMATE MODELING; FOOD AVAILABILITY; GLOBAL CLIMATE; GROWING SEASON; HISTORY; SEASONAL VARIATION; TEMPERATE ENVIRONMENT; TEMPERATURE EFFECT; TWENTY FIRST CENTURY;

AGRICULTURE; ARTICLE; CLIMATE; ENVIRONMENTAL TEMPERATURE; FOOD SAFETY; HISTORY; INCOME; OBSERVATIONAL STUDY; PRIORITY JOURNAL; PROBABILITY; SEASON; TROPICS;

AFRICA SOUTH OF THE SAHARA; AGRICULTURE; ANIMALS; ANIMALS, DOMESTIC; CLIMATE; COMMERCE; CROPS, AGRICULTURAL; DROUGHTS; EXTREME HEAT; FOOD; FOOD SUPPLY; FORECASTING; FRANCE; GREENHOUSE EFFECT; HOT TEMPERATURE; HUMANS; SEASONS; TROPICAL CLIMATE; UKRAINE;

EID: 58149396190     PISSN: 00368075     EISSN: 10959203     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1126/science.1164363     Document Type: Article

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21. To calculate the projected climate for 2090, we first added the observed temperature departures (in blue) to the change in the summer temperature, taken to be the mean summer temperature for 2080-2100 minus that for 1980-2000, simulated by each of the 23 climate models from the IPCC AR4 forced by the "middle of the road" emission scenario, A1B. We then combined the 23 x 107 projections to create the probability distribution function for summer temperature in 2090 (see SOM).
22. The probability distribution of future summer temperature is calculated as described in (21). Here, summer is defined north of the equator as the average temperature from June through August and south of the equator as December through February. In the immediate vicinity of the equator, values in Fig. 3 are qualitatively insensitive to the choice of months that define the season.
23. This work was made possible by grants from the NSF (grant SES 0433679) and the Tamaki Foundation. We thank M. Baker, M. Burke, W. Falcon, D. Kennedy, S.-H. Kim, D. Lobell, R. Nicholas, K. Niemer Johnson, K. Rennert, and D. Vimont for comments and/or assistance on the draft.