Rising Temperatures Could Slash U.S. Crop Yields by 50%

Rising temperatures around the world are about to absolutely wreck food crops everywhere, but the United States is looking at some particularly scary numbers. A massive new study shows that production of key crops could drop by 50% by the end of this century.

Climate change hitting the global food system is one of the most terrifying parts of what's coming. But figuring out exactly how much damage climate change will do to crops - and whether farmers can adapt enough to offset it - has been really hard to pin down until now.

This new analysis took eight years to complete and represents the first serious attempt to tackle both of those big questions at once. Scientists looked at six major crops - corn, soybeans, rice, wheat, cassava, and sorghum - across more than 12,000 regions in 54 countries. Together, these crops provide more than two-thirds of the calories that keep humanity fed.

The Numbers Are Brutal

The researchers also measured how real farmers are actually adapting to climate change right now, from switching crop varieties to changing irrigation systems, to figure out the overall impact of global warming.