Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
6537499 | Agricultural and Forest Meteorology | 2014 | 11 Pages |
Abstract
Crop yield is partially determined by atmospheric climate variability, which in turn depends on changes in the sea surface temperature (SST). El Niño is the leading mode of SST interannual variability, and its impacts extend worldwide. Nevertheless, the predictability of these impacts is controversial, especially those associated with European climate variability, which have been found to be non-stationary and non-linear. The present study shows how potential crop yield obtained from reanalysis data and crop models serves as an alternative and more effective index of El Niño teleconnections because it integrates the nonlinearities between the climate variables in a unique time series. The relationships between El Niño and crop yield anomalies are more significant than the individual contributions of each of the atmospheric variables used as input in the crop model. Additionally, the non-stationarities between El Niño and European climate variability are more clearly detected when analyzing crop-yield variability. The understanding of this relationship allows for some predictability up to one year before the crop is harvested. This predictability is not constant, but depends on both high and low frequency modulation. These findings enhance the importance of crop models for impact studies, for the improvement of crop forecasting, and as generators of a climate variability index (the potential yield) for analyzing climate variability and change.
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Earth and Planetary Sciences
Atmospheric Science
Authors
Mirian Capa-Morocho, Belén RodrÃguez-Fonseca, Margarita Ruiz-Ramos,