The Influence of Climate Change on Winter Wheat during 2012–2100 under A2 and A1B Scenarios in China

By assuming constant winter wheat varieties and agricultural practices in China, the influence of climate change on winter wheat is simulated using the corrected future climate projections under SRES A2 and A1B scenarios from 2012 to 2100, respectively. The results indicate that the growth of winter wheat would be strongly influenced by climate change in future. The average flowering and maturity dates of winter wheat would advance by 26 and 27 days under scenario A2, and by 23 and 24 days respectively under scenario A1B from 2012 to 2100. The simulated potential productivity of winter wheat shows a decrease of 14.3% and 12.5% for scenarios A2 and A1B respectively without the fertilization effect of CO2, while an increase of 1.3% and 0.6% with the fertilization effect of CO2. Additionally, for northern China, the simulated potential productivity would markedly decrease under both scenarios, independent with the fertilization effect of CO2, which indicates that the current planted winter wheat would be more vulnerable than that in southern China. The most likely reason is the current winter wheat varieties in northern China are winter varieties or strong winter varieties, which need some days of low temperature for dormancy. While in southern China, the winter wheat is spring or half winter varieties and can grow slowly during winter, thus, they would be affected slightly when winter temperature increases. The results of this study may have important implications for adaptation measures.CitationSong, Y.-L., D.-L. Chen, Y.-J. Liu, et al., 2012: The influence of climate change on winter wheat during 2012–2100 under A2 and A1B scenarios in China. Adv. Clim. Change Res., 3(3), doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1248.2012.00138.