Potential impact of climate change on wheat yield in South Australia

Abstract

Refined and improved climate change scenarios have been applied in this study to quantify the possible impacts of future climate change on South Australian wheat yield with probability attached. This study used the APSIM-Wheat module and information drawn from the Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) and nine climate models for 2080. A wheat yield response surface has been constructed within 80 climate change scenarios. The most likely wheat yield changes have been defined under combinations of changes in regional rainfall, regional temperature and atmospheric CO2 concentration (CO2). Median grain yield is projected to decrease across all locations from 13.5 to 32% under the most likely climate change scenarios. This has economic and social implications from local to national levels. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.