Summary/Abstract
Although extreme weather events recur periodically everywhere, the impacts of their simultaneous occurrence on crop yields are globally unknown. In this study, the authors estimate the impacts of combined hot and dry extremes as well as cold and wet extremes on maize, rice, soybean, and wheat yields using gridded weather data and reported crop yield data at the global scale for 1980–2009. The study’s results show that co-occurring extremely hot and dry events have globally consistent negative effects on the yields of all inspected crop types. Extremely cold and wet conditions were observed to reduce crop yields globally too, although to a lesser extent and the impacts being more uncertain and inconsistent. Critically, the authors found that over the study period, the probability of co-occurring extreme hot and dry events during the growing season increased across all inspected crop types; wheat showing the largest, up to a six-fold, increase. Hence, this study highlights the potentially detrimental impacts that increasing climate variability can have on global food production.