B.A.

Kimball,
S.B. Idso
U.S. Water Conservation Laboratory, 4331 E. Broadway, Phoenix, AZ 85040 U.S.A.
Accepted 15 February 1983, Available online 26 March 2003
Contribution from Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture

Probable effects of increasing global atmospheric CO2 concentration on crop yield, crop water
use, and world climate are discussed. About 430 observations of the yields of 37 plant species
grown with CO2 enrichment were extracted from the literature and analyzed. CO2 enrichment
increased agricultural weight yields by an 36%. Additional analysis of 81 experiments which had
controlled CO2 concentrations showed that yields will probably increase by 33% with a doubling
of atmospheric CO2 concentration. Another 46 observations of the effects of CO2 enrichment on
transpiration were extracted and averaged. These data showed that a doubling of
CO2 concentration could reduce transpiration by 34%, which combined with the yield increase,
indicates that water use efficiency may double.

Climate variability and vulnerability to climate change: a review

Authors

1.
1.
o
1.

Philip K Thornton,

Polly J Ericksen,

2.
1.

Mario Herrero,

3.
1.

Andrew J Challinor

First published: 26 April 2014Full publication history

DOI: 10.1111/gcb.12581View/save citation
Cited by: 21 articlesRefreshcitation countCiting literature

It is widely projected that as the planet warms, climate and weather variability will
increase. Changes in the frequency and severity of extreme climate events and in the
variability of weather patterns will have significant consequences for human and natural
systems. Increasing frequencies of heat stress, drought and flooding events are projected
for the rest of this century, and these are expected to have many adverse effects over and
above the impacts due to changes in mean variables alone (IPCC, 2012).

2015 World Hunger and Poverty Facts and Statistics

World Hunger Education Service

The world produces enough food to feed everyone. For the world as a whole, per capita food availability
has risen from about 2220 kcal/person/day in the early 1960s to 2790 kcal/person/day in 2006-08, while
developing countries even recorded a leap from 1850 kcal/person/day to over 2640 kcal/person/day. This
growth in food availability in conjunction with improved access to food helped reduce the percentage of
chronically undernourished people in developing countries from 34 percent in the mid 1970s to just 15
percent three decades later. (FAO 2012, p. 4) The principal problem is that many people in the world still
do not have sufficient income to purchase (or land to grow) enough food. Harmful economic
systems. Hunger Notes believes that a principal underlying cause of poverty and hunger is the ordinary
operation of the economic and political systems in the world. Essentially control over resources and
income is based on military, political, and economic power that typically ends up in the hands of a
minority, who live well, while those at the bottom barely survive, if they do.
Global warming will not increase crops yield once all factors are taken into account. Even though
increase atmospheric CO2 does lead to better yields and more efficient water usage on crops,
This doesnt take into account the massive weather variability, including droughts, flooding and
late year freezes, which have been becoming more and more prevalent over the last few years, as
a direct result of Global warming. These changes in weather variability will inevitably have hugely
detrimental effects on agriculture, and the 33% increase in crops which may come from a
doubling in CO2, will be mostly negated if not reversed in a climate with that level of CO2.
Even if these problems can be dealt with, and the end result were to be a substantial increase in
crops yields this alone would to very little to help feed population who currently have inadequate
access to food, plenty of food to feed the world population is produced right now, yet people go
hungry, because of lack of access to food in their region, the best way to fix this is to give them
access to land to produce their own food on, however with the changing weather pattern available
land not poverties by floods and droughts will become more scarce and valuable, leading to more
hunger in developing nations regardless of crop yields.