Abstract
A new methodology to extract crop yield response to climate variability and change from long-term crop yield observations is presented in this study. In contrast to the existing first-difference approach (FDA), the proposed methodology considers that the difference in value between crop yields of two consecutive years reflects necessarily the contributions of climate and management conditions, especially at large spatial scales where both conditions may vary significantly from one year to the next. Our approach was applied to remove the effect of non-climatic factors on crop yield and, hence, to isolate the effect of the observed climate change between 1961 and 2006 on three widely crops grown in three Mediterranean countries—namely wheat, corn and potato—using national-level crop yield observations’ time-series. Obtained results show that the proposed methodology provides us with a ground basis to improve substantially our understanding of crop yield response to climate change at a scale that is relevant to large-scale estimations of agricultural production and to food security analyses; and therefore to reduce uncertainties in estimations of potential climate change effects on agricultural production. Furthermore, a comparison of outputs of our methodology and FDA outputs yielded a difference in terms of maize production in Egypt, for example, that exceeds the production of some neighbouring countries.
Highlights
Crop yield response to climate change has received major attention for about three decades which is justified by the critical ramifications that such a response could have on global food security, human health and worldwide socio-economic stability [1,2,3,4]
The critical importance of understanding crop yield response to climate change triggered the development of numerous crop models varying from simple statistical to complex process based schemes that simulate mechanistically key physical and physiological processes involved in crop growth and development (e.g., [5,6])
The large uncertainties associated with the most recent estimations of future crop production provide salient evidence that much effort is still needed to unravel the complexity of crop response to environmental changes; our attempt to enhance our understanding of crop yield response to climate change using long-term observations
Summary
Crop yield response to climate change has received major attention for about three decades which is justified by the critical ramifications that such a response could have on global food security, human health and worldwide socio-economic stability [1,2,3,4]. The critical importance of understanding crop yield response to climate change triggered the development of numerous crop models varying from simple statistical to complex process based schemes that simulate mechanistically key physical and physiological processes involved in crop growth and development (e.g., [5,6]). Effects of climate extremes on plant growth and development, and on crop yield are still poorly represented in current crop models [12,13]. The important deficiencies that are still associated with their simulations contribute greatly to the large uncertainties in estimates of climate change effects on crop production
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