U.S. Regional Agricultural Production in 2030 and 2095: Response to CO2 Fertilization and Hadley Climate Model (HadCM2) Projections of Greenhouse-Forced Climatic Change
Research activities underway to evaluate potential consequences of climate change and variability on the agriculture, water resources, and other U.S. sectors were mandated by the Global Change Research Act of 1990. These activities are being carried out in a public-private partnership under the guidance of the U.S. Global Change Research Program. Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have been using integrated assessment methodologies to appraise the possible impacts of global warming and climatic variability on the behavior of managed and natural systems. This interim PNNL report contributes to the U.S. National Assessment process with an analysis of the modeled impacts of climatic changes projected by the Hadley/UKMO (HadCM2) general circulation model on agricultural productivity and selected environmental variables. The construction of climatic data for the simulation runs followed general guidelines established by the U.S. National Assessment Synthesis Team. The baseline climate data were obtained from national records for the period 1961 - 1990. The scenario runs for two future periods (2025 - 2030 and 2090 - 2099) were extracted from results of a HadCM2 run distributed at a half-degree spatial resolution. The Erosion Productivity Impact Calculator (EPIC) was used to simulate the behavior of 204 "representative farms" (i.e., soil-climate-management combinations) under baseline climate, the two future periods and their combinations with two levels of atmospheric C02 concentrations (365 and 560 ppm). Analysis of simulation results identified areas in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and California that would experience large temperature increases by 2030. Slight cooling is expected by 2030 in parts of Alabama, Florida, Maine, Montana, Idaho, and Utah. Larger areas will experience increased warming by 2095. Uniform precipitation increases are expected by 2030 in the north eastern quarter of the country. These uniform precipitation increases are expected to expand to the eastern half of the country by 2095. Regional increases, decreases and no change in dryland corn yields were predicted under from future climate-change scenarios. Yield increases were predicted in the Lakes, Corn Belt and Northeast regions of the U.S. Increases in irrigated corn yields were predicted in almost all regions of the country. Soybean yields are anticipated to decrease in the Northern and Southern Plains, the Corn Belt Delta, Appalachian, and Southeast regions. Soybean yields in the Lakes and Northeast regions should increase. Simulated winter wheat exhibited consistent trends of yield increase under scenarios of climate change. Evapotranspiration in dryland corn is expected to increase under both scenarios of climate change. Water-use efficiency on dryland, however, would decrease by 2 - 4 kg ha-l mm-l under climate change. Surface runoff could decrease from baseline during the 2030 period and increase during the 2095 period. Dryland corn growing in 2030 would experience more days with water stress than it does under current climate. Corn production is likely to change in 2030 and 2095 in the three currently most important producing regions of the country. In 2030, corn production is expected to increase in the Corn Belt and Lakes regions and to decrease in the Northern Plains. The overall impact would be a decrease in national production. National production of dryland winter wheat is likely to increase in both future periods.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC06-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 14790
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-12252; R&D Project: 29552; KP1204020; ON: DE00014790
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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