Occasional Thoughts on Climate Change

[GaWx]

On 10/4/2025 at 6:30 AM, chubbs said:

Do you have a reference for this? Per the articles below, we have had larger crops due to technology improvement not climate change. The impact of climate change depends on the crop and region. No large net impacts so far. On a global average, doesn't look like a disaster in the future either; but, some regions and crops may have significant negative impacts. Also need to consider extreme events which will pack a bigger punch in a warmer world. A bad year can be destabilizing regionally.

https://ourworldindata.org/crop-yields-climate-impact

https://ourworldindata.org/will-climate-change-affect-crop-yields-future 

Hey Charlie,

 As promised with the help of a Midwest pro met., here is the first response supporting the net benefit of CC to crops. This one covers soybeans (posts to cover other crops to come later):

Let's separate out other factors(technology for instance), so that we can look only at the photosynthetic benefits from increasing CO2 to soybeans.

Turns out that the impact of CO2 on soybeans has more studies than almost any other plant. 

Here's how to access the empirical evidence/data from the site that has more of it than any other. Please go to this link:

http://www.co2science.org/data/data.php

Go to plant growth data base:

http://www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/plantgrowth.php

Go to plant dry weight(biomass):

http://www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/dry/dry_subject.php

Pick the name of a plant, any plant and go to it based on its starting letter. Let's pick soybeans. Go to the letter S: http://www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/dry/dry_subject_s.php

Then scroll down and hit soybeans. This is what you get:

http://www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/dry/g/glycinem.php

 Look at the following screenshot for the table showing the large benefits of CO2 to soybeans: