Uncertainty in soil data can outweigh climate impact signals in global crop yield simulations.
Global gridded crop models (GGCMs) are increasingly used for agro-environmental assessments and estimates of climate change impacts on food production. Recently, the influence of climate data and weather variability on GGCM outcomes has come under detailed scrutiny, unlike the influence of soil data. Here we compare yield variability caused by the soil type selected for GGCM simulations to weather-induced yield variability. Without fertilizer application, soil-type-related yield variability generally outweighs the simulated inter-annual variability in yield due to weather. Increasing applications of fertilizer and irrigation reduce this variability until it is practically negligible. Importantly, estimated climate change effects on yield can be either negative or positive depending on the chosen soil type. Soils thus have the capacity to either buffer or amplify these impacts. Our findings call for improvements in soil data available for crop modelling and more explicit accounting for soil variability in GGCM simulations.
Ecosystem Services and Management Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 2361 Laxenburg, Austria.|Department of Geography, Ludwig Maximilian University, 80333 Munich, Germany.
Christian
C
Folberth
Ecosystem Services and Management Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 2361 Laxenburg, Austria.|Soil Science and Conservation Research Institute, National Agricultural and Food Centre, 82713 Bratislava, Slovak Republic.
Rastislav
R
Skalský
Ecosystem Services and Management Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 2361 Laxenburg, Austria.|School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Canterbury, Christchurch 8140, New Zealand.
Elena
E
Moltchanova
Ecosystem Services and Management Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 2361 Laxenburg, Austria.|Department of Soil Science, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University, 84104 Bratislava, Slovak Republic.
Juraj
J
Balkovič
Ecosystem Services and Management Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 2361 Laxenburg, Austria.
Ligia B
LB
Azevedo
Ecosystem Services and Management Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 2361 Laxenburg, Austria.
Michael
M
Obersteiner
European Commission, Joint Research Centre, 21027 Ispra, Italy.
Marijn
M
van der Velde