“…Brazil is located mainly in the tropical zone with several different climates (Alvares et al, 2013) and presents suitable conditions for production of several profitable crops. However, inter-annual crop yield variability is strongly influenced by El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phases (Rodrigues et al, 2011;Zebiak et al, 2015), Pacific decadal oscillation (Kayano and Andreoli, 2007), Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (Kayano et al, 2016), drought intensification (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 2014; Marengo and Torres, 2016), resulting anomalous crop yield losses (Soler et al, 2010;Rolim et al, 2015) and * Correspondence to: P. C. Sentelhas, Department of Biosystems Engineering, ESALQ, University of São Paulo, Av. Pádua Dias, 11, 13418-900 Piracicaba, SP, Brazil.…”