Risk of successive hot-pluvial extremes on crop yield loss over global breadbasket regions

Multiple climate extremes can coincide in time or happen sequentially and become a compound hazard. Recently, frequent occurrences of successive hot-pluvial extremes (SHPEs) have been presented, yet the risk of SHPEs on crop yield has not been investigated. Here we reveal peril of recurrent occurrences of SHPEs during intra-growing season and their connection with subsequent yield loss over breadbasket regions. Our results show an increasing trend in evolution of recurrent SHPEs during intra-growing seasons from 1979 to 2024. A significant risk of synchronized low crop yields is found in breadbasket regions, as shown by negative yield percentage changes and linear regression analysis. XGBoost classifier model predicts a negative likelihood of 49%, 50%, 49%, and 50% for maize, rice, soybean, and wheat yield responses to the emergence of frequent SHPE events, respectively. Alternatively, XGBoost regression surpasses and explains 36% of yield variability caused by recurrent occurrences of SHPEs globally for the studied crops, although it exhibits heterogeneities across different regions. The insights provide a foundation for considering the actual risk, which ultimately contributes to improving crop yield. Successive hot-pluvial extremes during crop-growing seasons occur more frequently over global breadbasket regions between 1979 and 2024 and are associated with synchronized low yields for four main crops, suggests an analysis of climate extremes and yield data by machine learning models.