Winds of Change: A Century of Agroclimate Research

Abstract

Climate has been of primary concern from the beginning of agricultural research. Early in the 20th century, climatology and agronomy evolved separately, focusing primarily on production agriculture and crop adaptation. Concepts developed include thermal units and water use efficiency. The integrated discipline of agroclimatology developed in the mid‐20th century. As theoretical understanding evolved, numerous papers related to agroclimatology were named Citation Classics. Spectral properties of plants and soils were identified that underpin today's remote sensing technologies. Commercialization of instrumentation enhanced our ability to efficiently collect data using standardized methods. Private and public‐sector partnerships advanced research capacity. Later in the 20th century, research focus shifted toward integrating knowledge into crop growth and agronomic models. Remote sensing provided capacity to gain theoretical and practical understanding of regional scale processes. In the early 21st century, recognition of earth as a system along with inter‐related human systems is driving research and political agendas. There is a pressing need to change our data‐rich to an information‐rich environment. The emerging cyberinformatics field along with natural resource and agricultural system models allow us to apply climate information to assessments and decision support related to water supply, production, environmental management, and other issues. Solutions to today's problems require interdisciplinary and multi‐sectoral teams. While needs have never been greater, fewer universities maintain critical mass required to offer advance degrees in agroclimatology. It will be increasingly important that agrclimatology attract top students and provide training and practical experience in conducting integrated systems research, communications, and team skills.

Parameterization of the Satellite-Based Model (METRIC) for the Estimation of Instantaneous Surface Energy Balance Components over a Drip-Irrigated Vineyard

“…Accurate estimation of ETa is a key to understand a range of hydrological, climatic, and ecosystem processes [8,9]. Presently, there are various methods to obtain ETa based on the measurements of the surface energy balance (SEB) [10,11] such as the Eddy Covariance (EC) and Bowen ratio (BRES) systems, which have been widely used in research to quantify ETa of a vineyard [7,[12][13][14][15][16][17]. However, these systems do not provide spatial trends of ETa because these measurements represent a point influenced by a small footprint area [18,19].…”

“…During the last 20 years, satellite-based remote sensing (SBRS) tools have emerged as a low-cost, yet reliable alternative to estimate ETa over large areas and wide range of vegetation types [10,11,[20][21][22][23][24]. These remote sensing tools estimate ETa based on algorithms which compute the SEB components using remotely sensed surface reflectance in the visible (VIS) and near-infrared (NIR) wavebands and surface temperature (radiometric) from the infrared (IR) thermal bands [19,24,25].…”

Bayesian Models of Thermal and Pluviometric Time Series in the Fucino Plateau

“…To incorporate a range of environmental concerns, and to calculate effects of tillage systems and other management practices, functions for nutrient cycling, soil carbon dynamics, have been also developed. The research in this area, also confirms that the availability of climatic information is critical for the effectiveness of decision support systems (Steiner et al, 2008). Many methods to characterize climate, with the main purpose to identify key indices to summarize climatic resources and the potential ability to sustain animal and plant life of different areas of the Planet, were developed.…”

Genetic plant improvement and climate changes

“…There is evidence that the most significant damage is not caused specifically by the high daytime temperatures, but rather by the amplitude of variation between day and night temperatures (Steiner and Hatfield 2008). This is also one of the most important aspects of global warming.…”

“…It is therefore necessary to increase the water use efficiency (WUE) of plants. This concept was established in the beginning of the twentieth century and is defined as the proportion of biomass produced in relation to the quantity of water consumed (Steiner and Hatfield 2008). All efforts should be directed towards improving the water use efficiency.…”