Researchers find climate change threatens global food supply

KITTA MacPHERSON / RUTGERS TODAY – Climate change is putting the global food system at risk, even as farmers try to adapt, according to a study conducted by a Rutgers-New Brunswick professor and other researchers in a national collaboration.

Publishing their findings in Nature, the researchers found that every 1-degree Celsius increase in global mean surface temperature (about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) could reduce the world’s ability to produce food by 120 calories a person per day, which is about 4.4% of what people eat daily.

“Through hotter temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns, climate change reduces crop yields,” said Robert Kopp, a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in the School of Arts and Sciences and an author of the study. “Farmers adapt, for instance, by changing the varietals of crops they plant, but on its own that may not be enough to avoid the damages wrought by a warming climate” …