Climate forecasts shown to warn of crop failures

Seed Daily via SPX: Climate data can help predict some crop failures several months before harvest, according to a new study from an international team, including a research scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Scientists found that in about one-third of global cropland, temperature and soil moisture have strong relationships to the yield of wheat and rice at harvest. For those two key crops, a computer model could predict crop failures three months in advance for about 20 percent of global cropland, according to the study, published July 21 in Nature Climate Change.

"You can estimate ultimate yields according to the climatic condition several months before," said Molly Brown, with Goddard's Biospheric Sciences Laboratory. "From the spring conditions, the preexisting conditions, the pattern is set."

The scientists wanted to examine the reliability and timeliness of crop failure forecasts in order for governments, insurers and others to plan accordingly. The research team, led by Toshichika Iizumi with the National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences in Tsukuba, Japan, created and tested a new crop model, incorporating temperature and precipitation forecasts and satellite observations from 1983 to 2006.

They then examined how well those data predicted the crop yield or crop failure that actually occurred at the end of each season. For example, by looking at the temperature and soil moisture in June of a given year, they were hoping to predict the success of a corn harvest in August and September.

The team studied four crops - corn, soybeans, wheat and rice - but the model proved most useful for wheat and rice. Crop failures in regions of some major wheat and rice exporters, such as Australia and Uruguay, could be predicted several months in advance, according to the study. The model also forecasted some minor changes in crop yield, not just the devastating crop failures resulting from severe droughts or other weather extremes....

An alternate view of Dorothea Lange's migrant mother photo, 1936