Climate change to increase crop failure in U.S.

Abstract

The literature has documented that climate change is likely to reduce crop yields of harvested acres in the United States. This study uses panel data methods to document that climate change could also reduce harvested area. We find that ‘crop failures’ are sensitive to spring and fall temperature conditions. Using perturbations of temperature and precipitation conditions, we show that a uniform 1 ∘C increase in temperature across the U.S. with no adaptation is expected to cause about 3.2 million additional failed acres in the United States, which is equal to a 0.9% decline in acreage. These harmful impacts are predicted to be stronger in the southern than northern United States. For illustrative purposes, we also examine a uniform 3 ∘C warming scenario with no adaptation, and project that damage increases to 11 million lost acres, about a 3% decrease in crop acreage. Projected increases in local precipitation have little effect. The effect of crop failure must be added to previously measured reductions in crop yields from harvested acres, implying climate change is likely to be more harmful to American crop production than previously thought.