The impacts of increased heat stress events on wheat yield under climate change in China

Xuan Yang, Zhan Tian (), Laixiang Sun (), Baode Chen, Francesco N. Tubiello and Yinlong Xu
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Xuan Yang: National Meteorological Centre of China Meteorological Administration
Zhan Tian: Shanghai Climate Center, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Meteorology and Health, Shanghai Meteorological Service
Laixiang Sun: University of Maryland
Baode Chen: Shanghai Typhoon Institute of China Meteorological Administration
Francesco N. Tubiello: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Yinlong Xu: Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences

Climatic Change, 2017, vol. 140, issue 3, No 20, 605-620

Abstract: Abstract China is the largest wheat-producing country in the world. Wheat is one of the two major staple cereals consumed in the country and about 60% of Chinese population eats the grain daily. To safeguard the production of this important crop, about 85% of wheat areas in the country are under irrigation or high rainfall conditions. However, wheat production in the future will be challenged by the increasing occurrence and magnitude of adverse and extreme weather events. In this paper, we present an analysis that combines outputs from a wide range of General Circulation Models (GCMs) with observational data to produce more detailed projections of local climate suitable for assessing the impact of increasing heat stress events on wheat yield. We run the assessment at 36 representative sites in China using the crop growth model CSM-CropSim Wheat of DSSAT 4.5. The simulations based on historical data show that this model is suitable for quantifying yield damages caused by heat stress. In comparison with the observations of baseline 1996–2005, our simulations for the future indicate that by 2100 the projected increases in heat stress would lead to an ensemble-mean yield reduction of −7.1% (with a probability of 80%) and −17.5% (with a probability of 96%) for winter wheat and spring wheat, respectively, under the irrigated condition. Although such losses can be fully compensated by CO2 fertilization effect as parameterized in DSSAT 4.5, a great caution is needed in interpreting this fertilization effect because existing crop dynamic models are unable to incorporate the effect of CO2 acclimation (the growth-enhancing effect decreases over time) and other offsetting forces.

Keywords: Heat Stress; Winter Wheat; Spring Wheat; Wheat Yield; Generalize Likelihood Uncertainty Estimation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10584-016-1866-z

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