Potential negative consequences of geoengineering on crop production: a study of Indian groundnut

Yang, Huiyi; Dobbie, Steven; Ramirez-Villegas, Julian; Feng, Kuishuang; Challinor, Andrew J.; Chen, Bing; Gao, Yao; Lee, Lindsay; Yin, Yan; Sun, Laixiang; Watson, James; Koehler, Ann-Kristin; Fan, Tingting; Ghosh, Sat

Abstract

Geoengineering has been proposed to stabilise global temperature, but its impacts on crop production and stability are not fully understood. A few case studies suggest that certain crops are likely to benefit from solar dimming geoengineering, yet we show geoengineering is projected to have detrimental effects for groundnut. Using an ensemble of crop-climate model simulations, we illustrate that groundnut yields in India undergo a statistically significant decrease of up to 20 % as a result of solar dimming geoengineering relative to RCP4.5. It is somewhat reassuring, however, to find that after a sustained period of 50 years of geoengineering crop yields return to the non-geoengineered values within a few years once the intervention is ceased.

Citation

Yang, H., Dobbie, S., Ramirez-Villegas, J., Feng, K., Challinor, A. J., Chen, B., Gao, Y., Lee, L., Yin, Y., Sun, L., Watson, J., Koehler, A.-K., Fan, T., & Ghosh, S. (2016). Potential negative consequences of geoengineering on crop production: a study of Indian groundnut. Geophysical Research Letters, 43, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL071209

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Oct 26, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Nov 19, 2016
• Publication Date: Nov 19, 2016
• Deposit Date: Dec 29, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 29, 2016
• Journal: Geophysical Research Letters
• Print ISSN: 0094-8276
• Electronic ISSN: 1944-8007
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 43
• Pages: 1-10
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL071209
• Keywords: climate change, colar dimming geoengineered climate, impact assessment, groundnut, India
• Publisher URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016GL071209/abstract
• Related Public URLs: http://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/hub/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1944-8007/