Optimal climate intervention scenarios for crop production vary by nation

Stratospheric aerosol intervention (SAI) is a proposed strategy to reduce the effects of anthropogenic climate change. There are many temperature targets that could be chosen for a SAI implementation, which would regionally modify climatically relevant variables such as surface temperature, precipitation, humidity, total solar radiation and diffuse radiation. In this work, we analyse impacts on national maize, rice, soybean and wheat production by looking at output from 11 different SAI scenarios carried out with a fully coupled Earth system model coupled to a crop model. Higher-latitude nations tend to produce the most calories under unabated climate change, while midlatitude nations maximize calories under moderate SAI implementation and equatorial nations produce the most calories from crops under high levels of SAI. Our results highlight the challenges in defining 'globally optimal' SAI strategies, even if such definitions are based on just one metric. Stratospheric aerosol interventions, or the injection of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, may be a promising strategy to fight the effects of global warming. This study looks at the output from 11 different stratospheric aerosol intervention scenarios based on an Earth system model coupled to a crop model to analyse impacts on maize, rice, soybean and wheat production.

Automated summary

This study analyzes the impacts of 11 different stratospheric aerosol intervention scenarios on maize, rice, soybean, and wheat production. The results show that higher-latitude nations produce the most calories under unabated climate change, while midlatitude nations maximize calories under moderate stratospheric aerosol intervention and equatorial nations produce the most calories from crops under high levels of intervention.