Agroclimatic conditions in Europe under climate change

Abstract

To date, projections of European crop yields under climate change have been based almost entirely on the outputs of crop-growth models. While this strategy can provide good estimates of the effects of climatic factors, soil conditions and management on crop yield, these models usually do not capture all of the important aspects related to crop management, or the relevant environmental factors. Moreover, crop-simulation studies often have severe limitations with respect to the number of crops covered or the spatial extent. The present study based on agroclimatic índices, pro vides a general picture of agroclimatic conditions in western and central Europe (study área lays between 8.5°W-27°E and 37-63.5°N), which allows for a more general assessment of climate-change impacts. The results obtained from the analysis of data from 86 different sites were clustered according to an environmental stratification of Europe. The analysis was carried for the baseline and future climate conditions (time horizons of 2030, 2050 and with a global temperature increase of 5 °C) based on outputs of three global circulation models. For many environmental zones, there were clear signs of deteriorating agroclimatic condition in terms of increased drought stress and shortening of the active growing season, which in some regions become increasingly squeezed between a cold winter and a hot summer. For most zones the projections show a marked need for adaptive measures to either increase soil water availability or drought resistance of crops. This study concludes that rainfed agriculture is likely to face more climate-related risks, although the analyzed agroclimatic indicators will probably remain at a level that should permit rainfed production. However, results suggests that there is a risk of increasing number of extremely unfavorable years in many climate zones, which might result in higher interannual yield variability and constitute a challenge for proper crop management.

Exploring Growth Variability and Crown Vitality of Sessile Oak (Quercus Petraea) in the Czech Republic

“…The database for the area of interest included daily data on minimum and maximum temperature, precipitation and global radiation sums, as well as daily mean wind speed and water vapor pressure. Using AgriClim (Trnka et al, 2012) and SoilClim (Hlavinka et al, 2011) software packages, daily soil water contents in two layers (0-0.4 and 0.4-1.3 m below soil surface) were calculated, as well as values of the standard precipitation index (SPI) according to McKee et al (1993), the selfcalibrated Palmer drought severity index (PDSI) and the Palmer Z-index (ZIND) according to Palmer (1965), as well as the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) according to Vicente-Serrano et al (2010).…”

Contributions of different bias‐correction methods and reference meteorological forcing data sets to uncertainty in projected temperature and precipitation extremes

“…For downward shortwave radiation flux, PFD, WFD, and WFDEI perform a monthly correction of reanalysis data, whereas the correction used in S14FD and GRASP is based on 12 monthly climatology (section A3). Some agroclimatic index values that use downward shortwave radiation flux as the input [Trnka et al, 2011] probably differ by forcing data set; therefore, the use of different forcing data sets as the reference climatology in the bias correction of GCM data would be a nonnegligible source of uncertainty in their projections.…”

Effect of temperature and precipitation on nitrate leaching from organic cereal cropping systems in Denmark

“…Such impacts are well recognized and have been widely reported over the recent decades (Ritcey and Wu, 1999;Olesen et al, 2000a;Orlandini et al, 2008;Bindi and Olesen, 2011;Hatfield and Singer, 2011;Tao and Zhang, 2011;Trnka et al, 2011). Changes in the mean and variability of temperature and rainfall patterns have direct effects on crop yields.…”