Identification

Title

Solar radiation management impacts on agriculture in China: A case study in the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP)

Abstract

Geoengineering via solar radiation management could affect agricultural productivity due to changes in temperature, precipitation, and solar radiation. To study rice and maize production changes in China, we used results from 10 climate models participating in the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP) G2 scenario to force the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT) crop model. G2 prescribes an insolation reduction to balance a 1% a−1 increase in CO₂ concentration (1pctCO₂) for 50 years. We first evaluated the DSSAT model using 30 years (1978–2007) of daily observed weather records and agriculture practices for 25 major agriculture provinces in China and compared the results to observations of yield. We then created three sets of climate forcing for 42 locations in China for DSSAT from each climate model experiment: (1) 1pctCO₂, (2) G2, and (3) G2 with constant CO₂ concentration (409 ppm) and compared the resulting agricultural responses. In the DSSAT simulations: (1) Without changing management practices, the combined effect of simulated climate changes due to geoengineering and CO₂ fertilization during the last 15 years of solar reduction would change rice production in China by −3.0 ± 4.0 megaton (Mt) (2.4 ± 4.0%) as compared with 1pctCO₂ and increase Chinese maize production by 18.1 ± 6.0 Mt (13.9 ± 5.9%). (2) The termination of geoengineering shows negligible impacts on rice production but a 19.6 Mt (11.9%) reduction of maize production as compared to the last 15 years of geoengineering. (3) The CO₂ fertilization effect compensates for the deleterious impacts of changes in temperature, precipitation, and solar radiation due to geoengineering on rice production, increasing rice production by 8.6 Mt. The elevated CO₂ concentration enhances maize production in G2, contributing 7.7 Mt (42.4%) to the total increase. Using the DSSAT crop model, virtually all of the climate models agree on the sign of the responses, even though the spread across models is large. This suggests that solar radiation management would have little impact on rice production in China but could increase maize production.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7mw2j4v

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2014-07-27T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact