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Vol:.(1234567890)Scientific Reports |        (2022) 12:17268  | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-22228-7
www.nature.com/scientificreports/
Although, so far there are plenty of research on the impacts of global warming by 1.5 °C temperature, includ-
ing the impacts comparison of global warming by 1.5 °C versus 2.0 °C44. It is necessary to do more quantitative 
impacts assessments of global warming by 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C on crops yield and market price to address research 
gaps and support the requirement of the scientific community and governments. In this paper, the future climate 
situations were selected and analyzed which are the approximate scenarios with global warming by 1.5 °C and 
2.0 °C, based on the simulation results from 5 climate models recommended by ISI-MIP under 4 RCP scenarios. 
Then the per unit yield changes of maize all over the world under global warming by 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C were 
analyzed and the spatial distributions of changes in maize yield were revealed relative to the baseline from 
1985 to 2006, applying crop model DSSAT (Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer). Next, we 
examine the effects of the resulting maize production shocks in different countries; the market price of maize is 
simulated using GTAP to reveal the impacts of climate change on global crop trade. Finally, the future trend of 
maize yield and market price in the main breadbasket is assessed and the adaptation suggestions are put forward 
for maize cultivation.
Materials and methods
Data processing. In this study, historical daily weather data (1986–2005) are from the AgMERRA dataset. 
AgMERRA is a post-processing of the NASA Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications 
(MERRA) data. The dataset is proved to be suitable for agricultural modelling and features consistent, daily 
time-series  data45.
For future (2020–2099), the original climate scenario data (Table  1) were extracted from output archives of 
five ESMs (including GFDL-ESM2M, HadGEM2-ES, IPSL-CM5A-LR, MIROC-ESM-CHEM and NorESM1-M) 
under four RCPs (RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6.0, RCP8.5) retrieved from the CMIP website. The climate scenario data 
was interpolated into 0.5° × 0.5° horizontal resolution and bias-corrected with respect to historical observations 
to remove systematic  errors46. The data of maize-planting regions are from the gridded global dataset in 2000 
by combining two data  products47,48.
Simulation of climate scenarios with global warming by 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C. In this study, climate 
data of global warming by 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C are determined according to the results of global climate models 
driven by typical concentration paths (RCPs) of greenhouse gas emissions. Eligible data are selected from a 
total of 20 sets of data under four RCP scenarios of five ESMs (including GFDL-ESM2M, HadGEM2-ES, IPSL-
CM5A-LR, MIROC-ESM-CHEM and NorESM1-M), which estimate the temperature, precipitation and sun-
shine hours (Fig. 1).
Table 1.  Basic information of 5 ESMs in CMIP5. Horizontal resolution means the number of longitudinal 
grids × the number of latitudinal grids.
Model Research institute Country Horizontal resolution
GFDL-ESM2M Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory The United States 144 × 90
HadGEM2-ES Hadley Center for Climate Prediction and Research The United Kingdom 192 × 145
IPSL-CM5A-LR L ’ Institute Pierre-Simon Laplace France 96 × 96
NorESM1-M Norway Climate Center Norway 144 × 96
MIROC-ESM Center for Climate System Research, National Institute for Environmental Studies, and Frontier Research 
Center for Global Change Japan 128 × 64
Figure 1.  Changes of global temperature of 20 years moving average from 2020 to 2099 simulated by 5 ESMs 
under 4 RCP scenarios. Note: The black horizontal dashed lines: global warming by 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C; the black 
vertical solid line: the years when global warming reaches 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C simulated by the selected models 
and scenarios.