The use of modern crop varieties is a dominant method of obtaining high yields in crop production. Efforts to identify suitable varieties, with characteristics that would increase crop yield under future climate conditions, remain essential to developing sustainable agriculture and food security. This work aims to evaluate potential genotypic adaptations (i.e., using varieties with increased ab...

INTRODUCTION More than 95% of the population in Burkina Faso uses some form of solid biomass fuel. When these fuels are burned in traditional, inefficient stoves, pollutant levels within and outside the home can be very high. This can have important consequences for both health and climate change. Thus, the push to switch to cleaner burning fuels is advantageous. However, there are several cons...

Low variability of crop production from year to year is desirable for many reasons, including reduced income risk and stability of supplies. Therefore, it is important to understand the nature of yield variability, whether it is changing through time, and how it varies between crops and regions. Previous studies have shown that national crop yield variability has changed in the past, with the d...

Statistical decision theory can provide useful support for climate change decisions made under conditions of uncertainty. However, the probability distributions used to calculate expected costs in decision theory are themselves subject to uncertainty, disagreement, or ambiguity in their specification. This imprecision can be described using sets of probability measures, from which upper and low...

Weather and climate affect many ecological processes, making spatially continuous yet fine-resolution weather data desirable for ecological research and predictions. Numerous downscaled weather data sets exist, but little attempt has been made to evaluate them systematically. Here we address this shortcoming by focusing on four major questions: (1) How accurate are downscaled, gridded climate d...

Geoengineering has been proposed as a feasible way of mitigating anthropogenic climate change, especially increasing global temperatures in the 21st century. The two main geoengineering options are limiting incoming solar radiation, or modifying the carbon cycle. Here we examine the impact of five geoengineering approaches on sea level; SO(2) aerosol injection into the stratosphere, mirrors in ...

With a vast area of marginal land, the Loess Plateau of China is a promising region for large-scale production of second-generation energy crops. However, it remains unknown whether such production is sustainable in the long run, especially under climate change. Using a regional climate change model, PRECIS, we analyzed the impact of climate change on Miscanthus production in the Loess Plateau....

Midcentury targets have been proposed as a guide to climate change policy that can link long-term goals to shorter-term actions. However no explicit mitigation analyses have been carried out of the relationship between midcentury conditions and longer-term outcomes. Here we use an integrated assessment modeling framework with a detailed representation of the energy sector to examine the depende...