Comprehensive climate factor characteristics and quantitative analysis of their impacts on grain yields in China's grain-producing areas

Abstract

Climate change elements are important indicators for assessing the impact of climate change on the agricultural economy. A Comprehensive Climate Factor (CCF) that is composed of three indicators, growing season mean temperature, precipitation and sunshine hours indicators was developed. These indicators are aggregated into a single index that is a measure of the sensitivity of regionally integrated climate change. This paper uses this factor to explore the integrated climate variations over China's grain-producing areas in 1981–2015, divide the areas into climate change-sensitive zones, and quantitatively assess the impact intensity of CCF variation on grain yield. The results indicate that the growing season mean CCF basically increased in most grain-producing areas. The climatic tendency of the North plate is greater than that of the South plate, reaching 0.52 decade−1, and the South plate has a quasi-4a periodic variation. The patterns of the impact of climate change on grain yield show that the impact intensity of climate change gradually decreased in each decade (from 0.25 to 0.2) and was stronger in the southwest than in the northeast. This research can be applied to improve the accuracy of economic-climate model simulations and predictions and to provide a theoretical reference and scientific support for assessing the impact and risk of climate change.

Keywords

• Environmental science
• Meteorology
• Climate change
• Environmental economics
• Environmental impact assessment
• Environmental risk assessment