How does rising atmospheric CO2 affect marine organisms?

Click to locate material archived on our website by topic


Future Winter Wheat Yields on the North China Plain
Reference
Yang, P., Wu, W., Li, Z., Yu, Q., Inatsu, M., Liu, Z., Tang, P., Zha, Y., Kimoto, M. and Tang, H. 2014. Simulated impact of elevated CO2, temperature, and precipitation on the winter wheat yield in North China Plain. Regional Environmental Change 14: 61-74.

Background
With so many climate alarmists decrying the predicted impacts of anthropogenic CO2 emissions on world climate, it is only natural that people would be concerned about the potential effects of this phenomenon - if it were ever to occur - on food production, especially in the world's most populated country, i.e., China.

What was done
According to the authors, they studied the separate and interacting effects of projected changes in the air's CO2 concentration, temperature and precipitation on the growth and yield of winter wheat at five representative sites on the North China Plain (NCP), using a crop yield simulation model known as the Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC) model and employing crop and weather data from five representative NCP sites - Beijing, Tianjin, Shijiazhuang, Jinan and Zhengzhou - each of which differed significantly in their geographic and climatic parameters.

What was learned
Yang et al. report that a 310-ppm increase in the air's CO2 concentration "would increase the winter wheat yield by 24.8 and 43.1% in irrigated and rain-fed fields, respectively," while "the interacting effects of elevated CO2, temperature and precipitation produced average yield increases of 23.1% with the irrigated treatment and 27.7% with the rain-fed treatment."

What it means
In the words of the ten researchers, these simulations "may be useful for identifying appropriate management or genotype adaptations of winter wheat to cope with a climate change scenario in the North China Plain."

Reviewed 18 June 2014