Global warming is accelerating 5,000 times faster than rice can evolve, threatening the food security of billions (opens in new tab)

Rice is a staple food for over one billion people in Asia. Understanding rice’s historical thermal limits is critical for predicting its response to future climate shifts. Here, we integrate contemporary records of rice cultivation, archaeological data spanning rice’s long-term history of cultivation, and temperature projections for the past and future to assess how warm temperatures have constrained rice’s distribution and the adaptive strategies used to sustain its production. These thermal...