Aggravated risk of soil erosion with global warming – A global meta-analysis

•The effect of global warming on soil erosion was quantified.•The suitability of soil erosion models for global scale assessment was evaluated.•Spatial patterns of soil erosion under global warming were analyzed comprehensively.•The main climatic forces driving changes in soil erosion were analyzed. Climate warming has widely variable effects on terrestrial ecosystems, and warming-induced changes in soil erosion could accelerate or slow down future warming. Numerous methods and models have been developed to evaluate soil erosion. However, the quantification of the impact of climate change on soil erosion and selection of the most appropriate soil erosion model for a particular study area remain unclear. With the intensification of climate warming, solutions to these problems are becoming increasingly more important. In this study, we performed a meta-analysis of research on global soil erosion to verify the effects of climate warming on soil erosion. Four databases were searched for relevant peer-reviewed publications from 1980 to 2019 using five keywords. The results showed that soil erosion has increased worldwide, mainly in semiarid areas (p