Rice is a staple food for more than half of the world’s population. Rice yields depend on numerous factors, such as agricultural practices, but they also depend on the temperature at which the crop is grown. Previous studies have shown that temperatures above rice’s optimum physiological temperature can reduce crop yield.

As a result, the International Food Policy Research Institute has stated that the effects of rising temperatures from climate change would likely reduce rice yield by 10 percent by 2050. This could have dramatic impacts across the world, as hunger and malnutrition are already significant problems.

But little is known about the physiological mechanisms through which rice plants respond and adapt to climate change. Previous investigations have left a lot of uncertainty, as they’ve used different methods to develop crop models. To address this, an international team of scientists has explored how rising temperatures affect the sensitivity of rice yields using a new compilation of data from 83 field warming experiments at 13 sites across the globe. The team also evaluated three modeling approaches (statistical models, local crop models, and global gridded crop models) to understand one of the sources of uncertainty.