Potential negative consequences of geoengineering on crop production: A study of Indian groundnut. Issue 22 (19th November 2016) - Yang, Huiyi
Abstract: Geoengineering has been proposed to stabilize 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 that 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 nongeoengineered values within a few years once the intervention is ceased. Key Points: We simulated a negative impact on groundnut yields under geoengineered climate compared to a future global warming climate Crop yields are sensitive to water stress across whole Indian subcontinent, more sensitive to temperature stress across western part A sustained 50 year geoengineering intervention is shown to have no lasting effects on groundnut yields once the intervention is ceased