Studies of agricultural impacts of possible future climate change seldom report distributions of potential outcomes. Part of the reason for this may be that little empirical evidence is available on sources of agricultural output variability. This study presents maximum likelihood panel data estimates of the impacts of climate on yield variability for the major U.S. agricultural crops. Panel data timeseries techniques are used to specify and estimate a stochastic production function of the form suggested by Just and Pope. The effects of climate on yield levels and variances are shown to vary depending on the crop. For sorghum more rainfall and higher temperatures increase yields while increasing yield variability. Precipitation and temperature individually have opposite effects on corn yield levels and variability.

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