Not all from google searches…these are examples of some of the emerging research.
I have a good friend researching in the field and it is often something we discuss. The constraints and opportunities (advantages and disadvantageous) of climate change and natural disasters (his research locale also includes things like post eruption, post flood, post tectonic movement agriculture adaptation).
He carries out climate adaption research (and lectures) in developing countries (Africa and Asia) and is on top of current modelling outcomes and research of climate change impacts. He needs to in order to provide outcomes for local agribusiness.
He is of the view that in general, an increase in CO2 will increase food production assuming that area available for planting (due to weather, inputs etc) remain similar.
It is also worth noting, and he also recognises, that there are a number of major non-climate change challenges with long term food production, such as ‘peak phosphorus’, which could have a greater impact on long term production levels.
Something we have also discussed which has been interesting is adaption (to changing agriculture). He uses the definition that adaptation is exploiting what is available as a result of change. This is an interesting concept and applies to anything.
Yes, this assumes that rainfall will change enormously. While locally there may be variations to historical rainfall, this can be overcome with land manage practices and planting if and where the rain falls.Most of the world’s agricultural and are marginal due to high weather variability (rainfall, low temperatures, temporary inundation etc), and their status could change if currently rainfall is the limiting factor and due to climate change, rainfall increases. This may compensate for those areas where rainfall variability increases or total average seasonal rainfalls decrease.
It is also likely that due to greater energy in the atmosphere and the atmosphere being able to hold more water, that average rainfall totals may increase. There is also modelling showing that this increase in total rainfalls may also have a greater variability (wide variance on a bell curve, along with broader bell curve).
Unfortunately the media and popular science publishers often portray the worst and extreme case scenarios which are usually not what will happen in reality. For example, there was a famous Australian who said that many of the eastern seaboard water reservoirs will never fill again, panicking government into building expensive back up water systems, This was later to be proven to be a extreme opinion rather than based on realistic modelling and/or evidence.
With models there are probabilities that some even will occur…this is how models work. If a model indicates that 1% chance of all land areas now being subject to long term droughts, it does not mean that it is fact. There is a 1% confidence that it will occur…with higher confidences other outcomes will eventuate.
Climate change will cause impacts, some which will be negative and some positive. It appears that there is a reluctance worldwide to prevent any CO2 rises, so one needs to also look at the positives with the negatives as this will lead to better adaption, if and when the predicted consequences of climate change arrive.
