Assessment and prediction of the first‐flowering dates for the major fruit trees in Korea using a multi‐RCM ensemble

Abstract

An impact of global warming on the first‐flowering date (FFD) of cherry, peach and pear in north‐eastern Asia are investigated using the Korean national scenario. For the study, we used the dynamically downscaled daily temperature with 12.5 km horizontal resolution derived from five regional climate models (RCMs) under the same lateral forcing from HadGEM2‐AO on the basis of Historical (1981–2010) and four Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) (2021–2100) scenarios. According to our analysis of the Historical simulations, the five RCMs and phenological model have good capability in simulating temperature and FFD with uncertainties of about 2.4–3.4 °C and 8.4–13.9 days, respectively, while well reflecting the topographical effect. On the basis of the highest emission scenario (RCP8.5), the temperature increments of 4.8 °C induce an acceleration in blooming rate, thereby advancing the FFDs of cherry, peach and pear by the end of the 21st century by about 14.5, 15.8 and 14.5 days, respectively, compared with the current reference simulation (Historical). We found high availability of the Korean national scenarios with moderate reliability. We believe that the next generation of the Korean national downscaling project considering diverse lateral forcing will offer better performance and more useful projections to end users.

Bulbous perennials precisely detect the length of winter and adjust flowering dates

“…Nowadays, by exploiting developed meteorological observations, continuous efforts have been made to explore relationships between weather parameters and phenophases to optimize for example, sowing times of economically important taxa (e.g. Harding et al ., 1976; Zheng et al ., 2012; Aguilera et al ., 2015; Hur & Ahn, 2017; Flynn & Wolkovich, 2018). Large species pools of wild‐growing taxa, often kept in ornamental gardens, were also subjected to long‐term phenological studies.…”

Projections of suitable cultivation area for major fruit trees and climate‐type in South Korea under representative concentration pathway scenarios using the ensemble of high‐resolution regional climate models

“…Hur and Ahn (2015) showed that by the end of this century, the first‐flowering date of peach and pear would advance to the middle of April to late March and early April under the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios, respectively. Hur and Ahn (2017) also showed that the first‐flowering date of the cherry would be 14.5 days earlier than the current reference period (historical simulation) by the end of this century under the RCP8.5 scenario. Although Kim et al (2009), Choi et al (2015) and Moon et al (2017) examined the future changes in ‘Fuji’ apple, Korean pines and Satsuma Mandarin, respectively, under the projected climate in South Korea, not many in‐depth studies have been done on the future changes in fruit crops in the region.…”

Climatic yield potential of Japonica‐type rice in the Korean Peninsula under RCP scenarios using the ensemble of multi‐GCM and multi‐RCM chains

“…Ensemble prediction using multiple models has generally proven to be more reliable, skillful and consistent than single-model prediction (Tebaldi and Knutti, 2007). Hur et al (2017) used daily temperature data that were dynamically downscaled through one CGCM (Hadley Center Global Environmental Model version 3, HadGEM3)five RCMs (WRF version 4.3.4, RegCM4; HadGEM3-RA; Seoul National University Meso-scale Model version 5, SNU-MM5; Global/Regional Integrated Model system, GRIMs) chain to project the first-day of cherry blossoms under warmed climate. Although the study used multi-RCM results for their analysis to reduce the uncertainties and bias of the model simulation, they still may not have eliminated the uncertainty and bias that could result from using a single CGCM.…”