Abstract: Despite widespread application in studying climate change impacts, most crop models ignore complex interactions among air temperature, crop and soil water status, CO2 concentration and atmospheric conditions that influence crop canopy temperature. The current study extended previous studies by evaluating Tc simulations from nine crop models at six locations across environmental and production conditions. Each crop model implemented one of an empirical (EMP), an energy balance assuming neutral stability (EBN) or an energy balance correcting for atmospheric stability conditions (EBSC) approach to simulate Tc. Model performance in predicting Tc was evaluated for two experiments in continental North America with various water, nitrogen and CO2 treatments. An empirical model fit to one dataset had the best performance, followed by the EBSC models. Stability conditions explained much of the differences between modeling approaches. More accurate simulation of heat stress will likely require use of energy balance approaches that consider atmospheric stability conditions.

Abstract: Robust projections of climate impact on crop growth and productivity by crop models are key to designing effective adaptations to cope with future climate risk. However, current crop models diverge strongly in their climate impact projections. Previous studies tried to compare or improve crop models regarding the impact of one single climate variable. However, this approach is insufficient, considering that crop growth and yield are affected by the interactive impacts of multiple climate change factors and multiple interrelated biophysical processes. Here, a new comprehensive analysis was conducted to look holistically at the reasons why crop models diverge substantially in climate impact projections and to investigate which biophysical processes and knowledge gaps are key factors affecting this uncertainty and should be given the highest priorities for improvement. First, eight barley models and eight climate projections for the 2050s were applied to investigate the uncertainty from crop model structure in climate impact projections for barley growth and yield at two sites: Jokioinen, Finland (Boreal) and Lleida, Spain (Mediterranean). Sensitivity analyses were then conducted on the responses of major crop processes to major climatic variables including temperature, precipitation, irradiation, and CO2, as well as their interactions, for each of the eight crop models. The results showed that the temperature and CO2 relationships in the models were the major sources of the large discrepancies among the models in climate impact projections. In particular, the impacts of increases in temperature and CO2 on leaf area development were identified as the major causes for the large uncertainty in simulating changes in evapotranspiration, above-ground biomass, and grain yield. Our findings highlight that advancements in understanding the basic processes and thresholds by which climate warming and CO2 increases will affect leaf area development, crop evapotranspiration, photosynthesis, and grain formation in contrasting environments are needed for modeling their impacts.

Abstract: To improve climate change impact estimates and to quantify their uncertainty, multi-model ensembles (MMEs) have been suggested. Model improvements can improve the accuracy of simulations and reduce the uncertainty of climate change impact assessments. Furthermore, they can reduce the number of models needed in a MME. Herein, 15 wheat growth models of a larger MME were improved through re-parameterization and/or incorporating or modifying heat stress effects on phenology, leaf growth and senescence, biomass growth, and grain number and size using detailed field experimental data from the USDA Hot Serial Cereal experiment (calibration data set). Simulation results from before and after model improvement were then evaluated with independent field experiments from a CIMMYT world-wide field trial network (evaluation data set). Model improvements decreased the variation (10th to 90th model ensemble percentile range) of grain yields simulated by the MME on average by 39% in the calibration data set and by 26% in the independent evaluation data set for crops grown in mean seasonal temperatures >24 °C. MME mean squared error in simulating grain yield decreased by 37%. A reduction in MME uncertainty range by 27% increased MME prediction skills by 47%. Results suggest that the mean level of variation observed in field experiments and used as a benchmark can be reached with half the number of models in the MME. Improving crop models is therefore important to increase the certainty of model-based impact assessments and allow more practical, i.e. smaller MMEs to be used effectively.