Perilous Times and Climate Change
Study says rapidly rising temperatures damage rice growth
The Associated Press
Monday, August 9, 2010; 10:28 PM
MANILA, Philippines -- A projected rise in temperatures because of
climate change will slow the growth of rice production in Asia, an
international team of scientists says in a new study.
The study published Monday in the peer-reviewed journal of the
U.S.-based National Academy of Sciences builds on previous findings
that rising temperatures during the last 25 years have already cut the
rice yield growth rate by 10 percent to 20 percent in several parts of
Asia.
A decline in rice production means that more people will slip into
poverty and hunger, the researchers said.
Around 3 billion people eat rice every day, and more than 60 percent of
the world's 1 billion poorest and undernourished people who live in
Asia depend on rice as their staple, according to the Philippine-based
International Rice Research Institute.
Higher daytime temperatures can increase rice yields, but higher
nighttime temperatures have a negative effect. The nighttime
temperatures are rising faster and will cause a net loss in
productivity, said Jarrod Welch, lead author and graduate student of
economics at the University of California, San Diego.
"If we cannot change our rice production methods or develop new rice
strains that can withstand higher temperatures, there will be a loss in
rice production over the next few decades as days and nights get
hotter," Welch wrote in the study. "This will get increasingly worse as
temperatures rise further towards the middle of the century."
Scientists believe global greenhouse gas emissions must be cut in half
by mid-century to keep the Earth's average temperature from rising more
than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above the levels that
existed before nations began industrializing in the late 18th century.
Welch said the study that analyzed six years of data from 227 irrigated
rice farms was the first of its kind because it used "real-world
conditions" in addition to previous findings from controlled
experiments.
---
Online:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/07/26/1001222107.full.pdf+html