Impacts of El Niño Southern Oscillation on the global yields of major crops.
The monitoring and prediction of climate-induced variations in crop yields, production and export prices in major food-producing regions have become important to enable national governments in import-dependent countries to ensure supplies of affordable food for consumers. Although the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) often affects seasonal temperature and precipitation, and thus crop yields in many regions, the overall impacts of ENSO on global yields are uncertain. Here we present a global map of the impacts of ENSO on the yields of major crops and quantify its impacts on their global-mean yield anomalies. Results show that El Niño likely improves the global-mean soybean yield by 2.1-5.4% but appears to change the yields of maize, rice and wheat by -4.3 to +0.8%. The global-mean yields of all four crops during La Niña years tend to be below normal (-4.5 to 0.0%). Our findings highlight the importance of ENSO to global crop production.
National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8604, Japan.
Toshichika
T
Iizumi
Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research, Bureau of Meteorology, Melbourne, Victoria 3008, Australia.
Jing-Jia
JJ
Luo
1] Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK [2] CGIAR-ESSP Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Copenhagen, Frederiksberg DK-1958, Denmark.
Andrew J
AJ
Challinor
National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8604, Japan.
Gen
G
Sakurai
Graduate School of Engineering, Shizuoka University, Hamamatsu 432-8561, Japan.
Masayuki
M
Yokozawa
1] Research Institute for Global Change, Yokohama Institute for Earth Sciences, JAMSTEC, Yokohama, Kanagawa 236-0001, Japan [2] Application Laboratory, Yokohama Institute for Earth Sciences, JAMSTEC, Yokohama, Kanagawa 236-0001, Japan.
Hirofumi
H
Sakuma
Biospheric Sciences Branch, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, USA.
Molly E
ME
Brown
Application Laboratory, Yokohama Institute for Earth Sciences, JAMSTEC, Yokohama, Kanagawa 236-0001, Japan.
Toshio
T
Yamagata
D018556:Crops, Agricultural; D059000:El Nino-Southern Oscillation; D005523:Food Supply; D006801:Humans; D012275:Oryza; D011891:Rain; D012914:Snow; D013696:Temperature; D014908:Triticum; D003313:Zea mays