Climate Futures, Earth System Models, and Crop Productivity

January 28, 2026

Location

Online

Presenters

Sabrina Cohen
Colorado State University, USA

Outline

Due to the burning of fossil fuels, the impacts of climate change, such as heat waves, droughts, floods, and crop failures, are accelerating. To mitigate these effects, the launching of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, which creates sulfate aerosols that reflect sunlight and cool the Earth, has been proposed. This technique is known as stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI).

Cohen et al. (2025) explore the projected effects of climate change and SAI in the 2050-2069 period relative to 2020-2039 using an Earth system model. We focus on four regions especially vulnerable to climate change: West Africa, South Central America, and South and East Asia.

We investigate how changes in extreme heat, precipitation, and soil moisture, among other factors, influence simulated crop productivity in these regions under one climate change and three SAI scenarios.

In this webinar, we will present these findings and discuss their implications for agriculture in climate-vulnerable regions.

Reference