Modeling El Niño Southern oscillation climate impact on Mexican agriculture

Abstract

El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) induces climate anomalies in Mexico that have significant impacts on rain-fed agriculture. This research simulates ENSO scenarios to identify climate anomalies during El Niño and El Viejo years (also known as La Niña years), and fluctuations in maize and bean crop yield. Daily weather data from 275 meteorological stations located throughout the country were used to distinguish local climate conditions under El Niño (EN), Strong El Niño (SEN), and El Viejo (EV) from those of Neutral years, based on the Thermal Anomaly Index of sea surface water of the Pacific ocean. Crop yields were assessed with a process-based crop growth model under weather generation using climate parameters of each ENSO scenario. The modeling scheme allowed the identification of regions of Mexico sensitive to ENSO events and susceptible to crop yield changes as a result of deviations in air temperature and precipitation occurring during the crop growing season in EN, SEN and EV years.