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Agriculture and Environment

Article  in  Environment and Development Economics · October 2001

DOI: 10.1017/S1355770X01250281 · Source: OAI

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 AGRICULTURE AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Climate change and agriculture

–effects and mitigation
Mikhail A. Semenov, Pete Falloon,
Keith W.T. Goulding, Goetz M. Richter
and Margaret J. Glendining

Scientists involved in the Third

Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) agree that
most of the climate changes
observed over the last 50 years are
due to human activity and in
particular, increases of greenhouse
gases (GHG). For example, the
average global surface temperature
has increased by 0.6oC over the
20th century (IPCC), more than in
any other century for the last 600
years (Figure 1). The thickness of
the Arctic sea-ice cover has reduced
by 40% of its volume from 1958-
76 to 1993-1997. Atmospheric
concentrations of CO2 due to
human activity have increased by
31% since 1750, the highest
during the past 420,000 or
possibly, the past 20 million years.

The Kyoto Protocol has set targets

for the reduction of GHG emissions
but policies to stabilise emissions
in developed countries could cost
up to 2% of GDP. Understanding
the likely consequences of climate
change on agriculture is crucial for
the development of appropriate
strategies to combat global
warming.
Predicting the effect of
climate change on crop yield
Crop simulation models can be used to
predict the effect of climate change on
yield but climate scenarios with high
temporal and spatial resolutions are
required. The way that climate
scenarios are constructed could
influence the outcome of analysis. In
most modelling studies on crops,
including the IPCC 2nd Assessment,
only changes in the means of the
climate variables have been
considered important. However,
analysis of the sensitivity of crop
simulation models has clearly shown
that changes in climatic variability
can have a significant effect on crop
growth and associated agricultural
risk. The frequency of extreme
weather events, such as drought or
cold spells, correlates better with
changes in climatic variability than
with mean values.
Using downscaling techniques, two
weather scenarios were constructed
for Seville, Spain, based on the UK
Transient Global Climate Model (UKTR)
and the LARS stochastic weather

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32
 Figure 1. Departures of annual temperatures (oC) from the average
annual temperatures for the Northern Hemisphere over the period
1961-1990 for the last 600 years. The blue line is a reconstructed
temperature, and the red line is observed.

Figure 2. Cumulative
probability functions of
wheat yield, simulated
by the SIRIUS crop
growth model for the
base climate and for the
UKTR scenarios with and
without changes in
climatic variability.

generator, one incorporating changes
in mean values only, the other
incorporating changes in mean values
and variability1. There were no
significant differences between
monthly mean temperatures and total
precipitation over the growing season
for the two scenarios. For the baseline
1960-90 climate, the average 30 year
grain yield, simulated by the SIRIUS
wheat simulation model, was 5.6 t/ha
and its coefficient of variation (CV)
was 0.24. Using the scenario without
variability, the grain yield and its CV
did not change much (5.2 t/ha and
0.23, respectively). However, when
changes in climate variability were
incorporated, the average grain yield
dropped to 3.9 t/ha and its CV almost
doubled to 0.48, probably due to the
increased occurrence of prolonged dry
spells over the period of vegetative
growth. Consideration of climatic
variability increased the probability of
yields lower than 3.5 t/ha from 10%
to almost 50% (Figure 2). Such
changes would make wheat a risky
crop to grow in Spain and have
important economic and social
consequences.
The wheat growth simulation model
SIRIUS was also used to analyse the
sensitivity to climate change of
various crop parameters, and
particularly the risk of drought on crop
production in the UK. Climate
scenarios were based on the Hadley
Centre’s HadCM2 model. Scenario
simulations suggest that higher
evapotranspiration may regionally
increase the soil moisture deficit
(Figure 3). However, it appears
unlikely that drought will have a
major impact on wheat production and
grain yields may even increase by the

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Figure 3: Probability of
exceeding the threshold
for accelerated
senescence in the past
(1990s) and future
(2050s) – example East
Midlands
2050s, due to rising CO2
concentrations.
Modelling climate and land
use change effects on soils
Soils play an important role in global
climate and there is considerable
potential to manipulate soils to offset
climate change. Signatory states to
the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change must
provide detailed national emissions
inventories that fully report all
anthropogenic sources of GHG.
Additionally, the Kyoto Protocol
allows carbon credits (CO2 removed
from the atmosphere) to be offset
against CO2 emissions, including
agricultural soils. We have been
working with the Centre for Ecology
and Hydrology, the Institute for
Grassland and Environmental
Research (IGER), Silsoe Research
Institute and the National Soil
Resource Institute to calculate
national CO2 and N2O emissions
inventories for the UK.
The IPCC provides a methodology for
calculating emissions using defined
emission factors. Rothamsted’s
nitrogen turnover model SUNDIAL and
the IGER NCYCLE model predicted that
the IPCC default values for N2O were
often too high for most situations in
the UK. As a consequence, we have
modified DNDC, a model of N2O
emission, for application in the UK2,
and have used it as the basis of an
AG R I C U LT U R E A N D T H E E N V I R O N M E N T
alternative N2O inventory. The UK
version of the model, UK-DNDC, was
applied to each county, simulating
emissions from eighteen different
crop types on the three dominant
soils in each county (Figure 4).
Validation of the model at the field
scale showed that predictions
matched observations well. Using UK-
DNDC, the estimate of N2O-N emission
from UK agriculture in 1990 was 53
Gg. This compares with 87 Gg
calculated using the IPCC default
values. The main reason for the
difference is that DNDC uses UK-
specific factors for emissions from soil
and excreta from grazing animals and
34
estimates that only 14% on average
of applied N fertiliser is leached,
compared with the 30% assumed by
the IPCC methodology.
Results from the Rothamsted carbon
model (RothC) also suggest that the
IPCC default values for CO2 emissions
from soil may be too high. In a
similar way, RothC is now being used
to estimate CO2 fluxes from soil under
land use change and climate change
in the UK, as well as to estimate how
changing land management might
offset CO2 emissions (Figure 5). The
methodology is based on state-of-the
art geographic datasets, including a
unified soil map for the UK, the
national land use map, and current
and future climate data. However,
such estimates must include the
impacts of suggested land use
changes on all trace gasses, i.e. N2O
and CH4 as well as CO2. Preliminary
calculations suggest that this has a
major effect, improving some
mitigation options but reducing the
impact of others3.
Results from both inventories may be
subject to considerable uncertainty4.
Many of the estimates of emissions
Figure 4. N2O-N
emission from UK
agriculture as kg/ha
per UK county
IACR • ANNUAL REPORT 2001-2002
 Figure 5: The UK Carbon model system

factors for N2O are imprecise, with overall CO2-C mitigation potential References:
uncertainties of up to 126%. There is benefit. For this reason, there is a 1 Porter, J. R. & Semenov, M. A. (1999)

also great spatial variability in soil C, need to develop methods to Nature 400, 724
and similar studies of CO2 flux from simultaneously account for the fluxes 2 Brown L, Syed B, Jarvis SC, Sneath

soils in the US suggest uncertainties of trace gases as well as CO2 fluxes. RW, Phillips VR, Goulding KWT & Li C
of up to 80%. Such inventories and the RothC and (2002) Atmospheric Environment, 36,
DNDC models especially, are ideal 917-928
tools for investigating the effect of 3 Smith, P. et al. (2001) Nutrient

Exploitation management practices on CO2 and N2O Cycling in Agroecosystems 60, 237-
There are significant challenges to be emissions and mitigation options. 252.
met in estimating GHG fluxes from 4 Falloon P and Smith P (2002) Global

British soils. A vast proportion of the Crop models can be used to optimise Change Biology (submitted).
soil C store in Great Britain is held in the allocation of crops to soils and
peat soils which are susceptible to diminish the risk of drought. Multiple
changes in climate and management. simulations based on the probabilistic
However there are currently no approach, allow an assessment of the
suitable models to simulate the C likelihood of yield loss and
cycle in peat soils. It will be difficult agricultural risk, and the exploration
to demonstrate the small changes in of mitigation strategies.
soil C that may occur over the first
Kyoto Protocol reporting period
(2008-2012) against the large
“background” level of soil organic
carbon. Some changes in land
management or climate may affect
the fluxes of trace gases from soils
(N2O and CH4 which have higher
global warming potentials) as well as
CO2 fluxes. For instance, conversion
to no-till agriculture could increase
soil C storage but also increase N2O
emissions, thus sharply reducing the

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