National Climate Assessment (NCA): Overview of Midwest and its Climate Impacts

National Climate Assessment; Contributing Author: Ginny Brown

Initial Publication Date: April 29, 2016

Summary

The full report of the National Climate Assessment (NCA) provides an in-depth look at climate change impacts on the U.S. It details the multitude of ways climate change is already affecting and will increasingly affect the lives of Americans. This particular resource is a subsection of the full NCA report that addresses the Midwest and it's Climate Impacts. The Midwest region includes the states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin. The Highlights section below offers a high-level overview of climate change impacts on this region, including the six Key Messages and selected topics. (see Ch. 18: Midwest).

The National Climate Assessment summarizes the impacts of climate change on the United States, now and in the future. A team of more than 300 experts guided by a 60-member Federal Advisory Committee produced the report, which was extensively reviewed by the public and experts, including federal agencies and a panel of the National Academy of Sciences.

Key Message: Impacts to Agriculture

In the next few decades, longer growing seasons and rising carbon dioxide levels will increase yields of some crops, though those benefits will be progressively offset by extreme weather events. Though adaptation options can reduce some of the detrimental effects, in the long term, the combined stresses associated with climate change are expected to decrease agricultural productivity.

Extreme heat, heavy downpours, and flooding will affect infrastructure, health, agriculture, forestry, transportation, air and water quality, and more. Climate change will also exacerbate a range of risks to the Great Lakes.

Climate change poses a major challenge to U.S. agriculture, because of the critical dependence of the agricultural system on climate and because of the complex role agriculture plays in social and economic systems. Climate change has the potential to both positively and negatively affect the location, timing, and productivity of crop, livestock, and fishery systems at local, national, and global scales.

The U.S. produces nearly $330 billion per year in agricultural commodities. This productivity is vulnerable to direct impacts on crop and livestock development and yield from changing climate conditions and extreme weather events, and indirect impacts through increasing pressures from pests and pathogens. Climate change has the potential to both positively and negatively affect agricultural systems at local, national, and global scales. Climate change will also alter the stability of food supplies and create new food security challenges for the U.S. as the world seeks to feed nine billion people by 2050.

The agricultural sector continually adapts through a variety of strategies that have allowed previous agricultural production to increase, as evidenced by the continued growth in production and efficiency across the United States. However, the magnitude of climate change projected for this century and beyond, particularly under higher emissions scenarios, will challenge the ability of the agriculture sector to continue to successfully adapt.