| Summary: | This project investigates the effects of changes in interannual (and daily) climatic variability (including changes in ENSO event frequency and persistence), on crop production in the Southeastern U. S. The investigators will also determine the difference in crop response to two different types of future climate?one from a control and doubled CO2 experiment of a high resolution regional climate model; and another based on the results of a fully coupled transient experiment of the GENESIS climate model. The project will combine stochastic modeling of interannual climate variability, transient GCM modeling, high resolution regional climate modeling, application of crop models, and regional economic modeling. This work will build on a regional modeling study that is currently underway, funded by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, whereby high resolution (approx. 50 km) control and doubled CO2 runs will be produced. These runs will be used as a baseline climate scenario and apply them to crop models (i.e., CERES and CROPGRO family of models). Two types of scenarios will be developed from these runs: one including only mean changes in the relevant climate variables and another including both mean and daily variability changes. The investigators will also construct guided sensitivity studies of changes in the frequency of El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) events relevant to the region, through examination of both indications of past changes in ENSO events and the most recent results of coupled climate model transient experiments. These changes will be stochastically simulated and applied to the crop models. The investigators will also use the detailed results of a soon to be completed transient run directly to form an additional scenario. Statistical downscaling techniques will be used to create higher resolution as well as more reliabel results from the GCM. Resulting changes in yield from the different scenarios will provide input to an agricultural sector economic model for evaluation of economic sensitvity to the different sets of yield changes. The results of this project will provide valuable information on the possbile sensitivity of agriculture in the Southeastern region of the United States to a range of possible climate changes, and ultimately the sensitivity of the regional economy to these perturbations in agricultural production.
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