Rice is a staple food crop that provides more calories to the global population than any other crop. Rice production is also a major consumer of fresh-water resources. Hence, changes in rice evapotranspiration (ET_c) due to projected warming patterns is becoming necessary in any management of water resources and food security assessments. Here, air temperature (T_a) measurements from 1003 meteorological stations covering the period from 1967 to 2016 in China, Japan and the Philippines are first used to assess warming trends. Energy fluxes were then assembled so as to evaluate the responses of rice ET_c to various warming trends. A modified Priestley-Taylor formulation was used to interpret ET_c under differing warming scenarios. Results showed that the average values of daily mean T_a from 1997–2016 increased by 4.6% relative to the period from 1967–1996, where 85% of all stations marked an increase of 0.5–1.5 °C. Greater increment in average daily minima in T_a (5.1%) was noted in the past 20 years compared to the average daily maximum in T_a (3.7%), showing asymmetric warming. The changed growth duration linearly decreased as ambient seasonal mean T_a increased, and higher temperature sensitivity of altered growth duration occurred at greater warming level. Overall, the proposed modified Priestley-Taylor model can be used for estimating ET_c of rice for both half-hourly and daily scales provided the growth duration is a priori known. Changes in seasonal ET_c of rice under varying types of warming patterns are largely explained by both ambient seasonal mean T_a and changes in growth duration.