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Studies show that climate variability drives interannual changes in meteorological variables in Europe, which directly or indirectly impacts crop production. However, there is no climate-based decision model that uses indices of atmospheric oscillation to predict agricultural production risks in Europe on multiple time-scales during the growing season. We used Fast-and-Frugal trees to predict sugar beet production, applying five large-scale indices of atmospheric oscillation: El Niño Southern Oscillation, North Atlantic Oscillation, Scandinavian Pattern, East Atlantic Pattern, and East Atlantic/West Russian pattern. We found that Fast-and-Frugal trees predicted high/low sugar beet production events in 77% of the investigated regions, corresponding to 81% of total European sugar beet production. For nearly half of these regions, high/low production could be predicted six or five months before the start of the sugar beet harvesting season, which represents approximately 44% of the mean annual sugar beet produced in all investigated areas. Providing early warning of crop production shortages/excess allows decision makers to prepare in advance. Therefore, the use of the indices of climate variability to forecast crop production is a promising tool to strengthen European agricultural climate resilience.

Coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation models (GCMs) simulate different realizations of possible future climates at global scale under contrasting scenarios of land-use and greenhouse gas emissions. Such data require several additional processing steps before it can be used to drive impact models. Spatial downscaling, typically by regional climate models (RCM), and bias-correction are two such steps that have already been addressed for Europe. Yet, the errors in resulting daily meteorological variables may be too large for specific model applications. Crop simulation models are particularly sensitive to these inconsistencies and thus require further processing of GCM-RCM outputs. Moreover, crop models are often run in a stochastic manner by using various plausible weather time series (often generated using stochastic weather generators) to represent climate time scale for a period of interest (e.g. 2000 ± 15 years), while GCM simulations typically provide a single time series for a given emission scenario. To inform agricultural policy-making, data on near- and medium-term decadal time scale is mostly requested, e.g. 2020 or 2030. Taking a sample of multiple years from these unique time series to represent time horizons in the near future is particularly problematic because selecting overlapping years may lead to spurious trends, creating artefacts in the results of the impact model simulations. This paper presents a database of consolidated and coherent future daily weather data for Europe that addresses these problems. Input data consist of daily temperature and precipitation from three dynamically downscaled and bias-corrected regional climate simulations of the IPCC A1B emission scenario created within the ENSEMBLES project. Solar radiation is estimated from temperature based on an auto-calibration procedure. Wind speed and relative air humidity are collected from historical series. From these variables, reference evapotranspiration and vapour pressure deficit are estimated ensuring consistency within daily records. The weather generator ClimGen is then used to create 30 synthetic years of all variables to characterize the time horizons of 2000, 2020 and 2030, which can readily be used for crop modelling studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This preliminary study is an inventory of the main resources and difficulties in adaptation of the Crop Growth Monitoring System (CGMS) used by Agri4cast unit of IPSC from Joint Research Centre (JRC) - Ispra of European Commission to conditions of Romania.In contrast with the original model calibrated mainly with statistical average yields at national level, for local calibration of the model the statistical yields at lower administrative units (macroregion or county) must be used. In addition, for winter crops, the start of simulation in the new system will be in the autumn of the previous year. The start of simulation (and emergence day) in the genuine system is 1st of January of the current year and the existing calibration was meant to provide a compensation system for this technical physiological delay.Proposed approach provides a better initialisation of the water balance (emergence occurs after start of simulation), as well as a better account for impact of wintering conditions, but obviously a new calibration for all cultivar dependent parameters is necessary. For the preoperational run, the localized model will use the weather data available till the last day available and the missing data from the rest of the year will be replaced either by the daily values of the long term averages or by the values from a year considered similar with the current one.Proposed adaptations permit a better use of information available on local scale and the localized model may be the core of a regional system for crop monitoring and in the same degree as the original system it can be used as tool for specific researches, such as studying the impact of climate changes.

Abstract: Climate change impacts on potential and rainfed crop yields on the European continent were studied using output of three General Circulation Models and the Crop Growth Monitoring System in combination with a weather generator. Climate change impacts differ per crop type and per CO2 emission scenario. Crops planted in autumn and winter (winter wheat) may benefit from the increasing CO2 concentration. Rainfall is sufficient and if the CO2 concentration increase is high, yields may increase up to 2090. If the CO2 increase is less, increasing temperatures result in declining or stagnating yields after 2050. Crops planted in spring (potato, sugar beet) initially benefit from the CO2 increase, however as time progresses the increasing temperatures reduce these positive effects. By the end of the century yields decline in southern Europe and production may only be possible if enough irrigation water is available. In northern Europe depending on the temperature and CO2 concentration increase, yields either stagnate or decline. However in some of the cooler regions yield increase is still possible. Crops planted in late spring and summer (maize) may suffer from droughts and high temperature in summer. By the end of the century, depending on the temperature rise, crop yields decline almost everywhere. If the temperature increase is less only in north western Europe yields remain stable. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Recent changes in the simulated potential crop yield and biomass production caused by changes in the temperature and global radiation patterns are examined, using the Crop Growth Monitoring System. The investigated crops are winter wheat, spring barley, maize, winter rapeseed, potato, sugar beet, pulses and sunflower. The period considered is 1976–2005. The research was executed at NUTS2 level. Maize and sugar beet were the crops least affected by changing temperature and global radiation patterns. For the other crops the simulated potential yield remained stable in the majority of regions, while decreasing trends in simulated potential yields prevailed in the remaining regions. The changes appear in a geographical pattern. In Italy and southern central Europe, temperature and radiation change effects are more severe than elsewhere, in these areas potential crop yields of more than three crops significantly decreased. In the UK and some regions in northern Europe the yield potential of various crops increased. In a next step the national yield statistics were analyzed. For a large majority of the countries the yield increases of wheat, barley and to a lesser extent rapeseed are leveling off. Several explanations could be given, however, as the simulated yield potential for these crops decreased in various regions, the changing temperature and radiation patterns may also contribute to the diminishing yield increases or to the stagnation. In more than 50% of the investigated countries the maize, potato and sugar beet yields continue to increase. This can be attributed to improving production techniques, new crop varieties, sometimes in combination with an improving climatic potential. In some regions in northern Europe, yields continue to increase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Recent trends in European seasonal weather conditions and related crop water requirements, crop water consumption and crop water deficits were studied using the Crop Growth Monitoring System of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission for the period 1976–2005. Soft wheat was selected as a typical winter crop. Sugar beet was selected as a typical spring/summer crop. First we analyzed the spatial and temporal variation of the average seasonal mean temperature and the average seasonal estimated global radiation, subsequently the spatial and temporal variation of the simulated seasonal water requirement, water consumption and water deficit of wheat and sugar beets were studied. We found that the weather pattern changes are not uniformly distributed across Europe. A seasonal dependence was found. The impacts of the changing weather patterns differ per crop and per region. In various European regions the wheat water requirement showed a downward trend which can be attributed to a shorter growing season as a result of higher temperatures in spring. This downward trend can also be attributed to a lower evaporative demand in winter and spring as a result of diminishing global radiation values. Only a limited number of regions showed an upward trend. For sugar beets the Mediterranean regions of France and Spain showed a downward trend in the water requirement which can be attributed to a lower evaporative demand due to reduced solar radiation in summer and autumn. Large areas with an upward trend in the water requirement are spread across the rest of Europe. These upward trends can be attributed to higher temperatures in summer and autumn. The regional trend patterns in actual crop water consumption and water deficit are less distinct than found for the crop water requirements. Changes in these variables can be attributed to the combined effect of variations in crop water requirements and rainfall. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]