Changing climatic pattern is an unambiguous and unavoidable global issue arising out of rapid industrialization with the progress of civilization. Unpredicted but frequent occurrence of various abiotic stresses has increased to several folds due to global climate change. Moreover, abiotic stresses may also aggravate biotic stresses and lead to exponential damage. These stresses have a huge detrimental bearing on crop production, food and nutritional security throughout the globe. The severity of different abiotic stress like drought, heat and cold stress, soil salinity, etc., vary with crops and their phenological phases, such as the effects on C3 plants differ from that on C4 plants or cereals like rice and wheat suffer more from high temperatures during their reproductive phase. The cereals, however, have a wide range of adaptation mechanisms to cope with these abiotic stresses. Activation of a complex stream of molecular networks or accumulation of different metabolites is initiated as an immediate response to stress. A proper understanding of these mechanisms along with a thorough knowledge on crop biology and weather phenomena would be helpful in the development of effective mitigation options against these abiotic stresses. Better crop performance under adverse conditions would also be ensured with the aid of genetic engineering and breeding of cereal crops or novel methods of stimulating crop growth through the use of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria. Further, a proper integration of the above techniques along with improved agronomic practices will go a long way in meeting increasing food demands even under the global climate change scenario.