European Commission, Joint Research Centre, via Enrico Fermi 2749, 21027, Ispra, Italy.
Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), c Jordi Girona 29, 08034, Barcelona, Spain.
Sci Rep. 2018 Jan 22;8(1):1322. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-19586-6.
Seasonal crop yield forecasting represents an important source of information to maintain market stability, minimise socio-economic impacts of crop losses and guarantee humanitarian food assistance, while it fosters the use of climate information favouring adaptation strategies. As climate variability and extremes have significant influence on agricultural production, the early prediction of severe weather events and unfavourable conditions can contribute to the mitigation of adverse effects. Seasonal climate forecasts provide additional value for agricultural applications in several regions of the world. However, they currently play a very limited role in supporting agricultural decisions in Europe, mainly due to the poor skill of relevant surface variables. Here we show how a combined stress index (CSI), considering both drought and heat stress in summer, can predict maize yield in Europe and how land-surface initialised seasonal climate forecasts can be used to predict it. The CSI explains on average nearly 53% of the inter-annual maize yield variability under observed climate conditions and shows how concurrent heat stress and drought events have influenced recent yield anomalies. Seasonal climate forecast initialised with realistic land-surface achieves better (and marginally useful) skill in predicting the CSI than with climatological land-surface initialisation in south-eastern Europe, part of central Europe, France and Italy.
季节作物产量预测是维持市场稳定、将作物减产的社会经济影响降到最低、保障人道主义粮食援助的重要信息来源，同时也促进了利用有利于适应战略的气候信息。由于气候变率和极端情况对农业生产有重大影响，因此能够提前预测恶劣天气事件和不利条件，有助于减轻不利影响。季节气候预测为世界上几个地区的农业应用提供了额外的价值。然而，由于相关地面变量的技巧较差，它们目前在支持欧洲的农业决策方面发挥的作用非常有限。在这里，我们展示了如何结合夏季的干旱和热应力综合应激指数 (CSI) 来预测欧洲的玉米产量，以及如何使用初始化为土地表面的季节气候预测来预测它。CSI 在观察到的气候条件下平均解释了近 53%的年度间玉米产量变化，并且展示了同期的热应力和干旱事件如何影响最近的产量异常。与使用气候学土地表面初始化相比，使用现实土地表面初始化的季节气候预测在预测 CSI 方面具有更好的（且略有帮助的）技巧，在东南欧、中欧部分地区、法国和意大利。
