Latest news with #EnvironmentalResearchLetters
Gizmodo
a day ago
- Science
- Gizmodo
Nuclear Winter Would Be Even Worse Than We Thought
Despite happening (thankfully) just once in real life, nuclear warfare has long been a staple element of science fiction. Popular depictions of nuclear conflict—from biographic thrillers like Oppenheimer to imagined disasters like The Day After—reflect the understanding that its consequences would be irreversible and catastrophic to modern society. Unsurprisingly, nuclear warfare and its potential repercussions concern scientists as much as fiction writers. In a recent paper published in Environmental Research Letters, researchers at Pennsylvania State University examined how nuclear war might disrupt food security worldwide, focusing specifically on the global production of corn, the most produced grain crop in the world. In the worst-case scenario, nuclear weapons would wreak havoc on our atmospheric systems, gradually cutting our annual corn production by up to 87%, the study warns. For their simulations, the authors considered 38,572 locations for corn production across six different nuclear war scenarios of increasing severity. The simulations took place under nuclear winter conditions, a hypothetical climate scenario following a large-scale nuclear war. During nuclear winters, black carbon from fires triggered by nuclear detonations would fill up the sky, obstructing sunlight. The resulting drop in global temperatures could last for over a decade—long enough to decimate agricultural systems worldwide, according to the scientists. In addition to black carbon, the authors examined the potential UV-B radiation exposure to plants. The Earth's ozone usually blocks this type of radiation, but this protective layer would be weakened in the wake of nuclear war. As UV-B radiation causes DNA damage and obstructs plant photosynthesis, the researchers modeled how overexposure to this energy source could affect the soil-plant-atmosphere system that drives crop growth. The results were disturbing. First, the 'best-case scenario,' a regional nuclear war, would release enough soot into the atmosphere to reduce annual corn production by 7%—which, to be clear, would severely impact the global food system, study lead author and meteorologist Yuning Shi explained in a press release. A global-scale war, on the other hand, would inject a massive 165 million tons of soot into the atmosphere, curbing global corn production by a whopping 80%. That wasn't all; radiation damage 'would peak in years 8 and 9' following the initial detonation of the bomb, causing an additional 7% decrease in corn yields, according to the paper. 'The blast and fireball of atomic explosions produce nitrogen oxides in the stratosphere,' Shi explained. This, in combination with heat-absorbing soot, injects a fiery cycle into the atmosphere that 'rapidly [destroys] ozone, increasing UV-B radiation levels at the Earth's surface.' Thankfully, these are just simulations. They nevertheless 'force us to realize the fragility of the biosphere—the totality of all living things and how they interact with one another and the environment,' Shi said. What's more, the study acts as an early precursor to a more refined, effective response plan for potential disasters, he added. Hopefully, that disaster won't be nuclear—though it could be something like a volcanic eruption, which obstructs sunlight in a similar way and is something we can better prepare for. For example, the paper recommended preparing 'agricultural resilience kits' containing seeds for crops that can grow under cooler conditions. 'These kits would help sustain food production during the unstable years following a nuclear war, while supply chains and infrastructure recover,' said Armen Kemanian, an environmental systems expert and paper senior author, in the same release. But these kits could easily assist food security in areas affected by severe volcanic activity, he added. Natural disasters are beyond our control, save for the preparatory part. A self-inflicted environmental catastrophe and global-scale famine—that's clearly another story. When it comes to nuclear winter, the 'best approach to preventing its devastating effects is to avoid it,' the scientists wrote.
India.com
4 days ago
- Science
- India.com
What will happen if a nuclear war breaks out? Chilling findings from study reveals...
While the world is still grappling with the threat of nuclear war, a new study has raised new alarm bells. The study indicated that even a small nuclear war could be a dangerous threat to humanity. It could lead to a breakdown of global supply chains and a loss of crops, resulting in famine in many parts of the world. A study led by researchers at Penn State University, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, emphasized that whether a nuclear war is regional or global, its impacts would be significant enough to plunge the planet into darkness and create catastrophic famine. According to a report from Firstpost, this study is especially important at a time of rising geopolitical instability and nuclear weapons taking on new prominence in global geopolitics. The study provides a detailed model for how a nuclear war could impact global agriculture. The study explores how the expulsion of soot from a nuclear war would block sunlight on Earth, disrupting various climatic systems, which would then produce disastrous effects for food production across the world. At the core of this study is the assumption that nuclear firestorms, in particular, those started in burning cities and industrial areas, would inject enormous concentrations of soot into the atmosphere. The soot would spread throughout the atmosphere globally. Thus, it will be a major blocking layer (essentially a dark haze) at the upper bounds of the troposphere, preventing any sunlight from penetrating the Earth's surface. Such a blocking layer could persist for a number of years. This will lead to dropping temperatures. changing weather patterns, and potentially eliminating food security for a vast portion of the world. In the event of a large nuclear conflict, such as one between Russia and the United States, the amount of light hitting Earth's surface could decrease so drastically that worldwide corn production would drop by as much as 80 percent, according to Firstpost. Such a colossal collapse in agricultural output would destroy food security for much of the planet, leading to famine and instability on a global level. To assess what the potential impacts might be, the team used a model called the Cycles agroecosystem model, a sophisticated simulation of agriculture developed at Penn State University. This model integrates climate-specific daily weather, soil chemistry, crop growth, and the movement of nitrogen and carbon to predict how crops would react to different combinations of climate and agricultural practices. For this study, the model was calibrated specifically for nuclear winter – with a diminished sunlight exposure, lower global temperature, and increased exposure to harmful UV-B radiation from ozone layer depletion. When would agriculture begin to recover—if at all? 'Using maize (Zea maize L.) as a sentinel crop, we found that annual maize production could decline from 7% after a small-scale regional nuclear war with 5 Tg soot injection, to 80% after a global nuclear war with 150 Tg soot injection, with recovery taking from 7 to 12 years. UV-B damage would peak 6–8 years post-war and can further decrease annual maize production by 7%. Over the recovery period, adaptive selection of maize maturity types to track changing temperatures could increase production by 10% compared to a no-adaptation strategy,' reads the statement in the abstract section of the study. The researchers applied the model to follow the effects over ten years, specifically to witness how maize (corn), being one of the world's most important staple food crops, would respond to the extreme and stressful conditions. The researchers analyzed six hypothetical nuclear war scenarios, and one of the more horrifying findings was that recovery of global food systems could take longer than a decade after the conflict. In essence, once a nuclear war happens, the fallout from it will last for decades. The unequivocal conclusion from the study is that a nuclear war would involve far more than military or political disaster. It would cause an ecological and humanitarian collapse. A nuclear war of any scale would create a famine across the world, with consequences that could adversely affect the future of mankind for centuries to come. Researchers analyzed six possible nuclear war scenarios corresponding to the amount of soot injected into the atmosphere. The soot injections ranged from 5 teragrams (Tg) representing a regional conflict between India and Pakistan, to a full-scale nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia with soot injections of 150–165 Tg. What happens to crops if sunlight disappears? The differences are stark: the global war scenario would inject 30 to 33 times more soot than the regional one with far worse global cooling, extreme reductions in sunlight, and widespread crop failures of historic proportions. What is nuclear winter, and why is it dangerous? Probably the most astonishing aspect is how long the effects of nuclear winter would last. It is also important to note that it is not a normal incident or a transitory natural disaster in which agriculture might recover quickly. Recovery after a nuclear war will take almost a decade or longer to go back to productive agricultural conditions. The destruction occurs from the first years and after, and indeed there is still considerable and persistent damage at year 12. As such, food systems would not have time to stabilize or recover during this 'prolonged onslaught of destruction. This study shows that adaptation strategies like dynamic tailoring of maize maturity types can improve food production by 10% over a 13 year recovery period compared with static approaches under a global nuclear war scenario,' reads the statement in the conclusion section of the study.
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First Post
4 days ago
- Science
- First Post
What happens if nuclear war strikes? Sun blocked, crops fail, famine unleashed
With nuclear war making it to geopolitical debates, a major new study warns that even a limited atomic conflict could trigger global food security and plunge the Earth into darkness for days read more It was just a coincidence that new research on how a nuclear winter could devastate agriculture appeared around the same time The New York Times published a recent review serving as a timely reminder to read Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen, a gripping and sobering non-fiction narrative published last March that imagines, in minute-by-minute detail, what could happen if a nuclear missile were launched at the United States. Based entirely on real-world protocols, interviews with military and civilian experts and declassified documents, the author argues that nuclear deterrence is an illusion sustained by dangerous assumptions that technology is infallible, that decisions can be made perfectly under pressure and that all actors will behave rationally. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Through this realistic yet terrifying scenario, she urges readers and policymakers to recognise how little time stands between peace and unthinkable devastation and to reconsider the policies that make nuclear war possible with just one miscalculation. At its core, her book is a warning. And the new scientific study published in Environmental Research Letters by researchers at Penn State University too delivers a chilling warning: a nuclear war — whether regional or global — could plunge the planet into darkness, collapse food systems and unleash unprecedented global famine. As geopolitical conflicts intensify and nuclear sabre-rattling returns to the global stage, this research takes on urgent significance. It presents the most comprehensive modelling to date of how nuclear war could impact global agriculture by simulating how firestorm-generated soot would block sunlight, disrupt climate systems and devastate crop production. Soot, smoke and a shroud over the Earth At the core of the study is the projection that soot from nuclear firestorms, particularly from burning cities and industrial areas, would be lofted into the stratosphere, forming a sun-blocking layer that could linger for years. In the case of a large-scale nuclear conflict, such as one between the United States and Russia, sunlight reaching Earth's surface could decline so sharply that global corn yields would plummet by as much as 80 per cent. That level of collapse would obliterate food security for much of the world. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Should we trust this study? To understand how bad the effects could be, the researchers used a tool called the Cycles agroecosystem model. This is an advanced farming simulation developed at Penn State. It uses daily weather data, soil chemistry, how plants grow and how carbon and nitrogen interact to predict how crops will respond to different farming methods and climate conditions. For this study, the model was adjusted to show what would happen during a nuclear winter—a time with less sunlight, colder global temperatures and more harmful UV-B rays due to damage to the ozone layer. The researchers ran the model over ten years to see how maize (corn), one of the world's main crops, would do under these extreme conditions. What all could happen in nuclear wars The researchers examined six potential nuclear war scenarios, each modelled according to the amount of soot that would be released. These ranged from a 5-teragram (Tg) soot injection—representative of a regional India-Pakistan conflict—to a 150–165 Tg scenario, representing a full-scale US-Russia nuclear exchange. The difference is vast: the global war scenario would inject 30 to 33 times more soot than the regional conflict, drastically intensifying global cooling and crop failures. Food may become scarce Even in the smallest modelled scenario, where about 5 Tg of soot is introduced into the atmosphere, the results are alarming. Corn yields decline globally by approximately 7 per cent, enough to strain food supply chains and cause spikes in food prices, especially in vulnerable countries with high import dependence. The regional war scenario would still block 20 to 35 per cent of incoming sunlight and reduce global surface temperatures by 2°C to 5°C — enough to disrupt climate systems such as the South Asian monsoon, with serious consequences for rice and wheat harvests. Under the full-scale global nuclear war scenario, however, the damage becomes existential. With 150–165 Tg of soot darkening the skies, the study predicts a catastrophic 80 per cent global decline in corn production. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD This would not be a temporary setback. Nuclear winter conditions would persist for seven to twelve years, with global temperatures plunging and crop-growing seasons shortened to the point where staple crops could not mature. The sun would be blocked to such a degree that most agricultural regions would become temporarily unviable. It could be a perfect storm The Cycles model simulated not only cooling and sunlight reduction but also the intensification of UV-B radiation, due to ozone layer destruction from soot-induced atmospheric changes. UV-B is known to damage plant tissues and impair growth. In the scenarios studied, UV-B peaks six to eight years after detonation, during which time even recovering climate conditions would be undermined by elevated radiation. This further reduces potential yields and delays the recovery of agricultural systems. Why this all matters While the seven per cent drop in corn under the India-Pakistan war model may appear modest, the global food system is tightly interconnected. A shortfall in one region — particularly in maize, wheat or rice — can ripple across continents through disrupted trade networks, hoarding, price inflation and access inequality. In the regional scenario, billions could face hunger, especially in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The 80 per cent yield loss in the full global war model, however, represents nothing short of a planetary food collapse. If other staple crops like wheat, rice and soybeans experience similar declines (as past nuclear winter studies suggest), widespread famine would become nearly inevitable. Such an outcome would overwhelm international aid systems, incite civil unrest and result in deaths numbering in the hundreds of millions, if not billions. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Seven to 12 years of darkness and hunger One of the most startling findings is the duration of the nuclear winter effects. Unlike a temporary natural disaster, the recovery of agricultural conditions after a nuclear war would take close to a decade — or more. The damage peaks in the early years but remains significant through year 12, meaning food systems would not have time to stabilise or self-correct. Recovery is not linear and the compound stresses of sunlight loss, UV-B radiation and global trade breakdown would delay return to normalcy. How we can survive The study also explores adaptation strategies that could provide some degree of protection. One approach is the use of short-season crop varieties, particularly maize types that mature quickly and are less dependent on long, warm growing seasons. Adjusting planting calendars, improving nutrient management and selecting crop types more tolerant of cold and UV-B radiation are other possibilities. In model simulations, such adaptive measures resulted in up to 10 per cent higher yields compared to non-adaptive scenarios, especially in the post-peak years of the nuclear winter. However, these adaptations face significant real-world barriers. Most notably, access to seeds of shorter-maturity crops and the infrastructure to distribute them would likely be disrupted in a post-nuclear world. Recognising this, the study recommends the creation of 'agricultural resilience kits' which means pre-stocked packages of adaptive seeds, tools and guidance tailored for different regions. These kits could be distributed preemptively or stored for rapid deployment after a disaster, providing a lifeline to struggling farming communities. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Maybe, it's time for real action The conclusion of the study is unequivocal. A nuclear war would be far more than a military or political catastrophe. It would be an ecological and humanitarian collapse. Even a limited regional exchange could trigger dangerous global agricultural shocks. A full-scale nuclear conflict would bring about a planetary famine, with long-term consequences for civilisation itself. The Penn State researchers emphasise the importance of preparedness and diplomacy, noting that the current level of planning for such a scenario is vastly inadequate. This study deepens our understanding of the far-reaching impacts of nuclear weapons not just in terms of immediate loss of life, but through the slow, cruel scenario of starvation and ecological collapse. It serves as a scientific imperative to reduce the risk of nuclear war and to invest in climate-resilient agricultural systems that can withstand global-scale disruptions. People refer to Hiroshima or Nagasaki as nuclear catastrophe in wars. But that happened 80 years ago. Nuclear technology has vastly improved, and bombs become a thousand times more powerful. While some intensify nuclear sabre-rattling, the rest of the world hopes that sanity prevails as geopolitical games look increasingly chaotic.
Time Magazine
7 days ago
- Business
- Time Magazine
The Surprising Reason Your Groceries Are More Expensive
There's a connection between what you are seeing outside your window and what you are seeing in your grocery store, experts say. Both extreme weather and food costs have been on the rise in recent years. The Consumer Price Index, or CPI, showed, inflation overall rose 2.7% in June from a year earlier, as tomatoes, eggs, and coffee have all seen significant increases. During the same period, the country has battled record heat, hurricanes, and dangerous flooding. Research suggests it's more than just coincidence that the price increases and weather extremes are coming together. A report published Monday in the journal Environmental Research Letters shows how extreme weather events is correlated to specific food price spikes in the immediate aftermath. Food yield being affected by weather is a tale as old as agriculture, but researchers in the study map how climate change has exacerbated extreme weather events, and is directly correlated to specific food price surges. In fact, researchers name food prices as the second-biggest way climate change is currently being felt across the globe, second to only extreme heat itself. The results of these food price spikes can be devastating, especially for lower-income consumers who spend more of their income on food than the average consumer. Increasing grocery prices have been a major issue on consumers' minds, and were a significant factor in the 2024 election. Two-thirds of Americans say they are very concerned about these costs, according to an April Pew Research Center survey. Though experts say there are other compounding factors related to the rising prices, the report notes that unexpected extreme climate conditions and their effects on crop yield cannot be understated. 'The unprecedented nature of many of the climate conditions behind recent food price spikes highlights the ongoing threats to food security as climate change continues to push societies towards ever less familiar climate conditions,' write the researchers, led by Maximilian Kotz, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. 'While the 2023/24 El Ninõ likely played a role in amplifying a number of these extremes, their increased intensity and frequency is in line with the expected and observed effects of climate change.' Unprecedented weather affects crop yields The study maps 16 specific extreme weather events since 2022 that have impacted food yields, immediately raising the prices of crops that were not able to be harvested. In 2022, for example, droughts across California and Arizona contributed to a 80% year-on-year increase in U.S. vegetable prices by the end of the year, the study found—an impact compounded by the fact that California accounts for over 40% of the country's vegetable production. Weather extremes outside the country have also affected prices: 2023 droughts in Mexico, it showed, contributed to a 20% price increase in vegetables the following January; droughts in Brazil have raised coffee prices 55% globally; and heatwaves in Japan contributed to a 48% raise in rice prices in the fall of 2024. These heatwaves and droughts were 'unprecedented' researchers say, and were felt deeply. David Ortega, food economist and professor at Michigan State University, says it is important to note that climate change does not just impact weather via heat and drought, though. 'It's not just drought, it's floods, it's hurricanes. It can be even colder temperatures that disrupt crops or freeze and frost that are earlier or later than the normal that affect agricultural production,' Ortega, who is not connected to the study, tells TIME. He points to citrus production in Florida, which was heavily impacted by the major hurricanes that hit the state hard in 2024. The study specifically cites the United Kingdom as an example, in which 'wet winters' contributed to an over 22% increase in potato prices. '[Price increases are] being felt right away, because food is perishable. You can store some—a lot of the fruits and vegetables in Mexico tend to be frozen—but a lot of stuff is shipped fresh, and the stuff that is shipped fresh is going to be reflected in the price right away,' says Marc Bellemare, professor of economics at the University of Minnesota. 'Food markets are reasonably integrated.' Andrew Hultgren, assistant professor of agricultural and consumer economics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, says that these extreme weather events particularly impact farmers in 'small locations that grow a majority of the world's supply of some crop,' as the study also notes. He points specifically to the study's example of Ghana and the Ivory Coast, where 60 percent of the world's cocoa is produced. The study links 'unprecedented' temperatures in the region in February 2024 to an increase in global market prices of cocoa of around 300% by that April. 'Corn has grown all over the world, right? So if you have a bad corn season somewhere … it'll be smoothed by somewhere else that will probably be having a relatively good season,' Hultgren says. 'If most of your production is in one location, you don't get that spatial smoothing,' he continues, noting the intensity of particular price increases in these instances. Exacerbating inequalities and inflation The research also notes that food instability and extreme weather could stoke more political instability and inflation, with the world's poor bearing most of the economic pain and health impacts. Bellemare emphasizes that these food price spikes will be felt most by low-income people, who spend a more significant portion of their income on food than the average American. 'The average U.S. household spends about 10% of its budget on food. It is much higher for low income households,' he says. 'I worry more about the distributional consequences than I worry about the geographic consequences.' Hultgren stresses that shifting food prices change the value of the aid low-income Americans receive through programs like SNAP as well. 'That means that the value of food aid, if it's noted in monetary terms, is fluctuating for you as a family, and that does add unpredictability in the finances of a poor family and that variability can just make decisions on other expenditures more difficult,' he says. Hultgren also points out that these inequalities will be felt differently in different countries. For those in Europe and America, the price increases will feel like inflation, he says, but they will be 'an even bigger problem in developing and poorer parts of the world.' Experts note that climate change is just one of a confluence of factors that are all coalescing to affect both supply and demand of food products, and leading to rising food prices. Ortega specifically points to 2022, when he says there was 'the highest increase in food prices in a generation.' He says that the impact of the war in Ukraine must be noted—but the effect of climate change compounded supply chain disruptions and inflation problems. The research paper also notes that food price increases are leading to increased headline inflation. 'Central bank mandates for price stability may become increasingly challenging to deliver if more frequent extreme weather events make food prices less stable domestically and in global markets,' the paper observes. 'These challenges may be magnified if persistent temperature increases cause a sustained upward pressure on inflation or inflation volatility results in lower credibility and a de-anchoring of inflation expectation.' Looking at the future Ortega conducts research on how 'shocks,' like the COVID-19 pandemic or Russia's invasion of Ukraine, affect the agri-food business and impact consumers. Many of these shocks are temporary, Ortega says, though their effects may be intensely felt. The impacts of climate change, however, have only just begun. 'Work like this that shows the impact of climate change on food prices really brings to the surface what I see as one of the significant threats that our food system faces going into the future,' Ortega. 'Climate events and adverse weather that are driven by climate change are increasing in frequency, and that's only going to continue going into the future.' The researchers note in the study that their work is a 'a reminder of the urgency to enact policies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit global warming in line with globally agreed targets.' Further, though, they state that mitigations like early warning systems and "timely information on climate conditions' can help farmers limit their exposure and impact to certain extreme events. 'We're not unresponsive in the face of climate change,' Bellemare says. 'There's a lot of adaptation going on. There's insurance products that are being rolled out to those farmers. Everyone's adapting either in terms of production or in terms of financial instruments to kind of insure themselves or hedge against those things.' Some of this adaptation can also be done in farmers' decision-making, Hultgren says, noting farmers can choose to plant more if they know prices are rising, can 'think about what the price history has been for the crops that they can plant,' and can consider the forecast for the coming season. But to make those decisions, he says, information must be available and research conducted. 'If we cut information out of the picture, if we don't provide information about how weather distributions are shifting, how we think they're going to shift in the future, what they think the seasonal forecast for farmers [is] ... that potentially has negative consequences for the ability to for agents to just adapt,' Hultgren says. Ortega notes that weather can be extremely hard to predict, especially fast-moving weather events like floods or hurricanes. And on that front, Ortega says that the government does not seem to be moving in the direction of progress. 'That's one area that I'm highly concerned about, given a lot of the funding cuts at the federal level in the United States, at the moment,' he says. 'We need to be investing to ensure that we have the best science and technology in order to develop those drought resistant varieties, solvent varieties of crops, and ensure that our producers and producers around the world have the best tools needed in order to mitigate the impacts of climate change on their operations.'
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First Post
22-07-2025
- Business
- First Post
Are your grocery bills rising? Barcelona researchers say they have found the reason
Have your grocery bills gone up? Besides the local inflation trends, researchers now point to a more potent disruptor — climate change — that is making your plate more expensive read more Consumers around the world may not realise that their rising grocery bills have less to do with local inflation or supply chain issues and more to do with extreme weather conditions globally. A new study from the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, in collaboration with the European Central Bank, points to climate change as a critical driver of food price increases across continents. The research team traced spikes in food costs sometimes by hundreds of percent to weather patterns that are becoming more frequent and intense. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Rather than isolated incidents, the researchers described these price shocks as directly linked to 16 extreme weather events between 2022 and 2024. The analysis, which appeared in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Research Letters, emphasised that many of these events were statistically unprecedented in their regions. Max Kotz, the lead author and a postdoctoral fellow, noted that events like heatwaves, floods and droughts are now pushing agricultural systems beyond their limits. A global phenomenon with local consequences Across the globe, basic food items have surged in price following disruptive weather events. In the United States, vegetable prices soared more than 80 percent after California endured its driest three-year period ever recorded. The Bloomberg reported that nearly a million acres of farmland were left unplanted, causing crop losses of nearly $2 billion. Arizona's reduced water supply from the Colorado River compounded the crisis, while Hurricane Ian disrupted Florida's harvests. In Eastern Australia, record-breaking floods in early 2022 triggered a lettuce shortage that pushed prices up by more than 300 percent. The retail cost of iceberg lettuce skyrocketed from around A$2.80 to A$12. Some fast-food outlets even resorted to substituting cabbage in burgers to maintain menus. Similar trends were seen in Asia, where scorching heat reaching 115°F (46.1°C) led to a 40 per cent rise in Chinese vegetable prices over just three months. In South Korea, napa cabbage, vital for making kimchi — became 70 per cent more expensive. Local reports described government efforts to release national cabbage stocks to stabilise the market. Climate inflation: A persistent threat? While food prices often stabilise after temporary spikes, the researchers cautioned that climate-driven price hikes could become more routine. The authors suggested that El Nino patterns between 2023 and 2024 may have intensified certain weather extremes, but emphasised that the broader trend is one of increasing volatility. Kotz explained that price responses tend to materialise within one to two months after a climate event, especially when heat or drought significantly lowers output. While economists have pointed out that food prices often normalise as higher prices incentivise greater production, this cycle may not hold for all crops. For instance, commodities like coffee and beef are geographically limited, meaning that prices stay elevated longer and are more vulnerable to recurring disruptions. A compound effect on households and central banks These climate-linked price hikes are more than just inconvenient — they carry major implications for household budgets and monetary policy. According to the nonprofit Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, British households paid an additional £361 (approximately $484) for food in 2022 and 2023 due to climate-related factors. This figure highlights how vulnerable everyday consumers are to forces far beyond their control. With central banks around the world working to tame inflation, the unpredictable nature of climate-driven food prices poses a serious challenge. Kotz and his colleagues stressed that unless systemic changes are made, these shocks will continue to impact both consumer affordability and economic stability. The wider web of climate impacts on agriculture A broader look at climate change's effects on food prices reveals an interconnected series of pressures. Rising temperatures and changing precipitation patterns reduce crop yields, while unpredictable growing seasons disrupt harvest timing. Water scarcity, a growing concern in regions like the American Southwest, limits irrigation and further diminishes supply. The resurgence of crop pests and plant diseases under warmer climates can force farmers to increase pesticide use, raising production costs. Meanwhile, extreme temperatures also affect livestock, reducing milk yields and increasing mortality rates further driving up the cost of meat and dairy products. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Infrastructure-related issues, like increased fuel prices or transportation disruptions due to weather events, add another layer of inflationary pressure. Even regulatory responses to climate change — such as stricter environmental rules or new tariffs — can raise operational costs that trickle down to the consumer. What can be done? The Barcelona study recommends a combination of early warning systems, agricultural adaptation strategies like improved irrigation, and robust government policies to mitigate food insecurity. However, the authors cautioned that even well-designed responses have limitations. Ultimately, the researchers suggested that the only long-term solution lies in addressing the root of the problem — greenhouse gas emissions. Without a concerted global effort to curb warming, extreme weather will continue to strain food production systems. As Stevenson pointed out, additional complications like tariffs can make it difficult for producers to balance domestic and export markets, especially for high-cost items like beef. He warned that future policy missteps could further strain an already fragile system. A new normal in the aisles For many consumers, the link between a heatwave in Asia or a drought in Arizona and the rising cost of a lettuce head may not be immediately obvious. But as the evidence mounts, researchers are urging governments and the public to recognise that climate change is not just an environmental issue — it's an economic one. Whether shopping in Barcelona, Beijing or Boston, grocery bills are increasingly influenced by forces in the sky and sea. Unless climate trends are reversed, experts say, the price of food will likely continue its upward climb. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
