Warmer autumns and winters could reduce honey bee overwintering survival with potential risks for pollination services.

Honey bees and other pollinators are critical for food production and nutritional security but face multiple survival challenges. The effect of climate change on honey bee colony losses is only recently being explored. While correlations between higher winter temperatures and greater colony losses have been noted, the impacts of warmer autumn and winter temperatures on colony population dynamics and age structure as an underlying cause of reduced colony survival have not been examined. Focusing on the Pacific Northwest US, our objectives were to (a) quantify the effect of warmer autumns and winters on honey bee foraging activity, the age structure of the overwintering cluster, and spring colony losses, and (b) evaluate indoor cold storage as a management strategy to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change. We perform simulations using the VARROAPOP population dynamics model driven by future climate projections to address these objectives. Results indicate that expanding geographic areas will have warmer autumns and winters extending honey bee flight times. Our simulations support the hypothesis that late-season flight alters the overwintering colony age structure, skews the population towards older bees, and leads to greater risks of colony failure in the spring. Management intervention by moving colonies to cold storage facilities for overwintering has the potential to reduce honey bee colony losses. However, critical gaps remain in how to optimize winter management strategies to improve the survival of overwintering colonies in different locations and conditions. It is imperative that we bridge the gaps to sustain honey bees and the beekeeping industry and ensure food and nutritional security.

Climate analogs can catalyze cross-regional dialogs for US specialty crop adaptation.

Communication theory suggests that interactive dialog rather than information transmission is necessary for climate change action, especially for complex systems like agriculture. Climate analogs-locations whose current climate is similar to a target location's future climate-have garnered recent interest as transmitting more relatable information; however, they have unexplored potential in facilitating meaningful dialogs, and whether the way the analogs are developed could make a difference. We developed climate context-specific analogs based on agriculturally-relevant climate metrics for US specialty crop production, and explored their potential for facilitating dialogs on climate adaptation options. Over 80% of US specialty crop counties had acceptable US analogs for the mid-twenty-first century, especially in the West and Northeast which had greater similarities in the crops produced across target-analog pairs. Western counties generally had analogs to the south, and those in other regions had them to the west. A pilot dialog of target-analog pairs showed promise in eliciting actionable adaptation insights, indicating potential value in incorporating analog-driven dialogs more broadly in climate change communication.

Impacts of irrigation efficiency on water-dependent sectors are heavily controlled by region-specific institutions and infrastructures.

Farmers' investment in more efficient irrigation systems represents a primary adaptation strategy when confronting climate change. However, the regional benefits of these investments and their influence on the conflicting demands among different water dependent stakeholders for intensely irrigated regions remains an open question. Using the Pacific Northwest of the United States as an illustrative region of focus, we show that higher irrigation efficiency has diverse effects across stakeholders that are contingent on many local climatic, institutional and infrastructural factors such as the availability of water storage, the location of hydropower generators, and water rights. These complexities limit simple abstractions of irrigation efficiency as broader policy challenge and are central to its inclusion within the class of "wicked problems". Additionally, we argue that the widely used rebound effect concept, which implicitly discourages irrigation efficiency supporting policies, should not be assumed to fully capture the nuances of the complex suite of regional impacts that emerge from irrigation efficiency investments. Consequently, the evaluation of irrigation efficiency investments requires a broader framing across a diversity of perspectives. policies and actions that are pluralistic, context-specific, and closely engage various groups of stakeholders in the policymaking process.

Supply chains for processed potato and tomato products in the United States will have enhanced resilience with planting adaptation strategies.

Food systems are increasingly challenged to meet growing demand for specialty crops due to the effects of climate change and increased competition for resources. Here, we apply an integrated methodology that includes climate, crop, economic and life cycle assessment models to US potato and tomato supply chains. We find that supply chains for two popular processed products in the United States, French fries and pasta sauce, will be remarkably resilient, through planting adaptation strategies that avoid higher temperatures. Land and water footprints will decline over time due to higher yields, and greenhouse gas emissions can be mitigated by waste reduction and process modification. Our integrated methodology can be applied to other crops, health-based consumer scenarios (fresh versus processed) and geographies, thereby informing decision-making throughout supply chains. Employing such methods will be essential as food systems are forced to adapt and transform to become carbon neutral due to the imperatives of climate change.