Impacts of Changes in Both Climate and Its Variability on Food Production in Northeast China

Abstract

Nine scenarios of climatic change and climatic variability were generated in 19 sites in 3 agroecological zones in northeast China using the WGEN as a tool and based on the output of three general circulation models (GISS, GFDL, and UKMO GCMs), the local current daily weather data from 1961 to 2000 at each site, as well as on the three hypotheses on the increase in climatic variability in future. Four crop models (SOYGRO, CERES-Maize, CERES-Wheat, and CERES-Rice) were selected as the effect models and their parameter modification, validation and sensitivity analyses were carried out using the baseline weather, statistical yield data of the 4 crops and the local typical soil data. Finally, the potential impacts of changes in both climate and its variability on the food production in this regions with a doubling of CO2 concentration doubled were assessed by running the effect models under both baseline and various (climatic change+climatic change variability) scenarios, and by comparing the outputs simulated. The results showed that the four effect models were available in the studied regions and can be used as a tool in climate impact study. Climate change would be favorable for soyabean and rice production in the region, especially in the northern cold zone and eastern wet zone, but unfavorable for both maize and spring wheat, where the simulated yields particularly maize yield, were significantly reduced under all the scenarios. With increasing of climatic variability, not only the yields were reduced compared with the control, but also the yield stabilities also decreased for the rainfed crops, such as soyabean, maize and spring wheat. However, there was no influence for the irrigated rice.