Categories: Environment

GRAPHIC: Agricultural droughts will likely become more frequent and more intense

The newly released United Nations report does not bode well for food production, indicating a probable near-doubling of droughts that affect agriculture.

This article is republished from The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting. Read the original article here.

Last week, the United Nations released its latest report on climate change, finding many of the world’s changes are unprecedented and irreversible. 

“It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land,” the IPCC report reads. 

Related Post

“It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.”

If the planet continues to warm, many of the changes will become more frequent and more intense, according to the report.

For example, before the industrial revolution, a drought affecting agriculture might have happened once every 10 years. But, with the current 1 degree Celsius of warming, droughts occur more frequently — once every six years.

If the planet’s temperature rises 2 degrees higher than pre-industrial levels — at the Paris Agreement’s target — droughts will happen every 4 years. And if the temperature increases to 4 degrees, it will happen every 2.4 years.

Ignacio Calderon, USA TODAY Network Agriculture Data Fellow, Investigate Midwest
Share
Published by
Ignacio Calderon, USA TODAY Network Agriculture Data Fellow, Investigate Midwest

Recent Posts

Is California giving its methane digesters too much credit?

Every year, California dairy farms emit hundreds of thousands of tons of the potent greenhouse…

2 years ago

Your car is killing coho salmon

Highway 7 runs north-south through western Washington, carving its way through a landscape sparsely dotted…

2 years ago

The pandemic has transformed America’s dining landscape into an oligopoly dominated by chains 

One of the greatest pleasures I had as a child growing up in the Chicago…

2 years ago

California is moving toward food assistance for all populations—including undocumented immigrants

Undocumented immigrants experience food insecurity at much higher rates than other populations, yet they are…

2 years ago

Babka, borscht … and pumpkin spice? Two writers talk about Jewish identity through contemporary cookbooks.

Writer Charlotte Druckman and editor Rebecca Flint Marx are both Jewish journalists living in New…

2 years ago

How some big grocery chains help ensure that food deserts stay barren

Last fall, first-year law student Karissa Kang arrived at Yale University and quickly set out…

2 years ago