El Niño influence on potential maize yield in Iberian Peninsula

Abstract

El Niño phenomenon is the leading mode of sea surface temperature interannual variability. It can affect weather patterns worldwide and therefore crop production. Crop models are useful tools for impact and predictability applications, allowing to obtain long time series of potential and attainable crop yield, unlike to available time series of observed crop yield for many countries. Using this tool, crop yield variability in a location of Iberia Peninsula (IP) has been previously studied, finding predictability from Pacific El Niño conditions. Nevertheless, the work has not been done for an extended area. The present work carries out an analysis of maize yield variability in IP for the whole 20th century, using a calibrated crop model at five contrasting Spanish locations and reanalyses climate datasets to obtain long time series of potential yield. The study tests the use of reanalysis data for obtaining only climate‐dependent time series of crop yield for the whole region, and to use these yield to analyse the influences of oceanic and atmospheric patterns. The results show a good reliability of reanalysis data. The spatial distribution of the leading principal component of yield variability shows a similar behaviour over all the studied locations in the IP. The strong linear correlation between El Niño index and yield is remarkable, being this relation non‐stationary on time, although the air temperature–yield relationship remains on time, being the highest influences during grain filling period. Regarding atmospheric patterns, the summer Scandinavian pattern has significant influence on yield in IP. The potential usefulness of this study is to apply the relationships found to improving crop forecasting in IP.

Wheat yield in Spain and associated solar radiation patterns

“…() found an association between winter cereal and the Southern Oscillation index, the Scandinavian and the NAO patterns; Capa‐Morocho et al . () found non‐stationary relationships between El Niño and maize.…”

“…In Morocco, Jarlan et al (2014) determined the association between wheat yield and the NAO and the ENSO. In Spain, Gimeno et al (2002) identified relationships between the ENSO and the NAO with agricultural yield; Rodriguez-Puebla et al (2007) found an association between winter cereal and the Southern Oscillation index, the Scandinavian and the NAO patterns; Capa-Morocho et al (2016) found non-stationary relationships between El Niño and maize. This paper is structured as follows: Section 2 presents the data and methods used, including the statistical approaches of partial least squares (PLS) regression, ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD), and K-means cluster analysis.…”

Probabilistic El Niño effect on flood damages assessment

“…ENSO‐neutral, the third episode, is a phase between these two extreme phases (Australia Bureau of Meteorology, 2012). El Niño and La Niña can both have global impacts on weather, climate, wildfires, ecosystems, and economies (Capa‐Morocho et al ., 2016; Correia Filho et al ., 2019; Hooshyaripor et al ., 2019; Sangha et al ., 2020). Moreover, it has shown that ENSO affects the frequency and intensity of droughts (Varikoden et al ., 2015; Rivera et al ., 2018; Sobral et al ., 2019) and floods (Dilley and Heyman, 1995; Sun et al ., 2015; Saghafian et al ., 2017).…”

Climate variability effects on field crops in Iberian Peninsula. Predictability

“…Nevertheless, there are few studies that relate tropical SST with crop production variability in Europe and even less in IP (Capa-Morocho et al, 2014;Gimeno et al, 2002). Recently, we found a non-stationary relationship between El Niño 3 and maize yield anomalies in IP using reanalysis datasets and crop simulations (Capa-Morocho et al, 2015).…”