Abstract
Climate change is increasingly challenging agricultural productivity and global food security. However, the extent to which changes in temperature and precipitation will translate into cropland suitability across crops and global warming levels remains poorly constrained. Here, we use a data-driven model linking climate and soil conditions to observed crop yields to assess future changes in global cropland suitability for twelve major crops. We project suitability responses under four Global Warming Levels (+1.5 to +4◦C), quantifying transitions among suitability classes and the climatic drivers associated with these changes. Our results show widespread future declines in cropland suitability compared to the baseline period (1985-2014), affecting between 36 and 52% of the currently harvested areas, depending on the warming level considered, particularly across low-to mid-latitude regions. Suitability increases are projected for a subset of crops at mid-to high latitudes. More than 75% of crops presently grown in semi-arid and tropical regions become less suitable as warming intensifies. By contrast, barley, maize, and wheat show increased suitability at higher latitudes, especially at the transition between the current humid continental and subarctic climate zones. These findings underscore the need to explicitly integrate spatially-explicit information on expected changes in climatic and soil conditions into crop adaptation planning to anticipate regional vulnerabilities and support sustainable agricultural development.