The critical benefits of snowpack insulation and snowmelt for winter wheat productivity

Peng Zhu, Taegon Kim, Zhenong Jin (), Chenxi Lin, Xuhui Wang, Philippe Ciais, Nathaniel D. Mueller, Amir Aghakouchak, Jianxi Huang, David Mulla and David Makowski
Additional contact information
Peng Zhu: CEA CNRS UVSQ Orme des Merisiers
Taegon Kim: University of Minnesota
Zhenong Jin: University of Minnesota
Chenxi Lin: University of Minnesota
Xuhui Wang: Peking University
Philippe Ciais: CEA CNRS UVSQ Orme des Merisiers
Nathaniel D. Mueller: Colorado State University
Amir Aghakouchak: University of California
Jianxi Huang: China Agricultural University
David Mulla: University of Minnesota
David Makowski: Université Paris-Saclay

Nature Climate Change, 2022, vol. 12, issue 5, 485-490

Abstract: Abstract How climate change will affect overwintering crops is largely unknown due to the complex and understudied interactions among temperature, rainfall and snowpack. Increases in average winter temperature should release cold limitations yet warming-induced reductions of snowpack thickness should lead to decreased insulation effects and more exposure to freezing. Here, using statistical models, we show that the presence of snowpack weakens yield sensitivity to freezing stress by 22% during 1999–2019. By 2080–2100, we project that reduced snow cover insulation will offset up to one-third of the yield benefit (8.8 ± 1.1% for RCP 4.5 and 11.8 ± 1.4% for RCP 8.5) from reduced frost stress across the United States. Furthermore, by 2080–2100 future decline in wheat growing season snowfall (source of snowmelt) will drive a yield loss greater than the yield benefit from increasing rainfall. Explicitly considering these factors is critical to predict the climate change impacts on winter wheat production in snowy regions.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01327-3 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcli:v:12:y:2022:i:5:d:10.1038_s41558-022-01327-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nclimate/

DOI: 10.1038/s41558-022-01327-3

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Climate Change is currently edited by Bronwyn Wake

More articles in Nature Climate Change from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().