Current Benefits of Wildfire Smoke for Yields in the US Midwest May Dissipate by 2050
Wildfires throughout western North America produce smoke plumes that can stretch across the agricultural regions of the American Midwest. Climate change is likely to increase the number and size of these fires and subsequent smoke plumes. These smo...
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Washington, DC: World Bank
2022
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/412661646340432785/Current-Benefits-of-Wildfire-Smoke-for-Yields-in-the-US-Midwest-May-Dissipate-by-2050 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37106 |
| Summary: | Wildfires throughout western North
America produce smoke plumes that can stretch across the
agricultural regions of the American Midwest. Climate change
is likely to increase the number and size of these fires and
subsequent smoke plumes. These smoke plumes change direct,
diffuse, and total sunlight during the crop growing season
and consequently influence yields of both corn and soybeans.
The analysis in this paper uses a twelve-year panel of
county-level yields from all counties east of the 100th
meridian combined with measures of exposure to smoke plumes
of low and high density during the growing season. It shows
that low-density plumes enhance yields, likely by increasing
in the fraction of diffuse light, while high-density plumes
decrease yields. Because there are more low-density plumes
today, the net effect is a slight increase in yields on
average. As climate change makes wildfires larger and more
frequent, the overall impact of smoke on yields is expected
to be substantially more negative. |
|---|