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Towards probabilistic projections of climate change impacts on global crop yields
Author(s) -
Tebaldi C.,
Lobell D. B.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2008gl033423
Subject(s) - probabilistic logic , climate change , environmental science , range (aeronautics) , precipitation , yield (engineering) , crop yield , climatology , atmospheric sciences , mathematics , meteorology , statistics , agronomy , geography , ecology , materials science , geology , metallurgy , composite material , biology
There is a widely recognized need in the scientific and policy communities for probabilistic estimates of climate change impacts, beyond simple scenario analysis. Here we propose a methodology to evaluate one major climate change impact ‐ changes in global average yields of wheat, maize, and barley by 2030 ‐ by a probabilistic approach that integrates uncertainties in climate change and crop yield responses to temperature, precipitation, and carbon dioxide. The resulting probability distributions, which are conditional on assuming the SRES A1B emission scenario and no agricultural adaptation, indicate expected changes of +1.6%, −14.1%, −1.8% for wheat, maize, and barley, with 95% probability intervals of (−4.1, +6.7), (−28.0, −4.3), (−11.0, 6.2) in percent of current yields, respectively. This fully probabilistic analysis aims at quantifying the range of plausible outcomes and allows us to gauge the relative importance of different sources of uncertainty.