Modeling impacts of climate change on spring wheat in northern India

Abstract

This study attempts to quantitatively understand the impact of changes in meteorological drivers due to climate change on spring wheat in northern India using numerical experiments with the Simple and Universal CRop growth Simulator (SUCROS) model. The model was calibrated and evaluated for spring wheat cultivar HD2967 using observed crop and meteorological data from a field site at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. Sensitivity studies were performed with the SUCROS model by incrementally changing the meteorological drivers to understand the underlying processes through which each meteorological driver affects spring wheat crop growth. The effect of climate change on spring wheat growth was estimated by conducting numerical experiments where the SUCROS model was driven with bias-corrected projections of future climate from six climate models for two scenarios for mid and end century. Results show that competitive/synergistic interactions between meteorological drivers lead to a slight increase in growth at the beginning of the growing season, and a strong decrease of about 50 per cent during the later stage. Apart from improving our understanding of crop growth processes, this study has also policy implications for agriculture and food security in the context of climate change.