Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Climate variability impacts on rainfed cereal yields in west and northwest Iran

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
International Journal of Biometeorology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In order to assess the response of wheat and barley to climate variability, the correlation between variations of yields with local and global climate variables was investigated in west and northwest Iran over 1982–2013. The global climate variables were the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Arctic Oscillation (AO), and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) signals. Further, minimum (T min), maximum (T max), and mean (T mean) temperature, diurnal temperature range (DTR), precipitation, and reference evapotranspiration (ET0) was used as local weather factors. Pearson’s correlation coefficient was applied to analyze the relationships between climatic variables and yields. Unlike T min, T mean, ET0, and T max, the yields were significantly associated with the entire growing season (EGS) DTR in most sites. Therefore, considering weather extreme variables such as DTR sheds light on the crop–temperature interactions. It is also found that the April–May–June (AMJ), October–November–December (OND), and EGS rainfall variations markedly influence the yields. Unlike the AO and NAO indices, the Niño-4 and SOI (the ENSO-related signals) were significantly correlated with the OND and EGS precipitation and DTR. Thus, the ENSO anomalies highly impact rainfed yields through influencing the OND and EGS rainfall and DTR in the studied sites. As the correlation coefficient of the OND and July–August–September (JAS) Niño-4 with yields was significant (p < 0.05) for almost all locations, the JAS and OND Niño-4 may be a good proxy for cereal yield forecasting. Further, an insignificant increment and a significant reduction in yields are expected in La Niña and El Niño years, respectively, relative to neutral years.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Abdolrahimi M (2016) The effect of El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on world cereal production. The University of Sydney

  • Alexandrov V, Hoogenboom G (2000) Vulnerability and adaptation assessments of agricultural crops under climate change in the southeastern USA. Theor Appl Climatol 67:45–63. doi:10.1007/s007040070015

  • Allen RG, Pereira LS, Raes D, Smith M (1998) Crop evapotranspiration—guidelines for computing crop water requirements—FAO irrigation and drainage paper 56. FAO, Rome 300:6541

    Google Scholar 

  • Asseng S, Foster I, Turner NC (2011) The impact of temperature variability on wheat yields. Glob Chang Biol 17:997–1012. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2486.2010.02262.x

  • Bannayan M, Sanjani S, Alizadeh A, Lotfabadi SS, Mohamadian A (2010) Association between climate indices, aridity index, and rainfed crop yield in northeast of Iran. Field Crop Res 118:105–114. doi:10.1016/j.fcr.2010.04.011

  • Bannayan M, Lotfabadi SS, Sanjani S, Mohamadian A, Aghaalikhani M (2011) Effects of precipitation and temperature on crop production variability in northeast Iran. Int J Biometeorol 55:387–401. doi:10.1007/s00484-010-0348-7

  • Barnston AG, Tippett MK, L'Heureux ML, Li S, DeWitt DG (2012) Skill of real-time seasonal ENSO model predictions during 2002-11: is our capability increasing? Bull Am Meteorol Soc 93:631–651. doi:10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00111.1

  • Bonsal BR, Zhang X, Vincent LA, Hogg WD (2001) Characteristics of daily and extreme temperatures over Canada. J Clim 14:1959–1976. doi:10.1175/1520-0442(2001)014<1959:CODAET>2.0.CO;2

  • Brown I (2013) Influence of seasonal weather and climate variability on crop yields in Scotland. Int J Biometeorol. 57:605–614. doi:10.1007/s00484-012-0588-9

  • Cai W, Borlace S, Lengaigne M, Van Rensch P, Collins M, Vecchi G, Timmermann A, Santoso A, McPhaden MJ, Wu L (2014) Increasing frequency of extreme El Niño events due to greenhouse warming. Nat Clim Chang 4:111–116. doi:10.1038/nclimate2100

  • Chen D, Cane MA, Kaplan A, Zebiak SE, Huang D (2004) Predictability of El Niño over the past 148 years. Nature 428:733–736. doi:10.1038/nature02439

  • Dai A, Trenberth KE, Karl TR (1999) Effects of clouds, soil moisture, precipitation, and water vapor on diurnal temperature range. J Clim 12:2451–2473. doi:10.1175/1520-0442(1999)012<2451:EOCSMP>2.0.CO;2

  • Ghasemi A, Khalili D (2006) The influence of the Arctic Oscillation on winter temperatures in Iran. Theor Appl Climatol 85:149–164. doi:10.1007/s00704-005-0186-4

  • Gibbs WJ, Maher JV (1967) Rainfall deciles as drought indicators. Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Bull. 48, pp 37

  • Gimeno L, Ribera P, Iglesias R, de la Torre L, García R, Hernández E (2002) Identification of empirical relationships between indices of ENSO and NAO and agricultural yields in Spain. Clim Res 21:165–173. doi:10.3354/cr021165

  • Hadley NF, Szarek SR (1981) Productivity of desert ecosystems. Bioscience 31:747–753. doi:10.2307/1308782

  • Hallett TB, Coulson T, Pilkington JG, Clutton-Brock TH, Pemberton JM, Grenfell BT (2004) Why large-scale climate indices seem to predict ecological processes better than local weather. Nature 430:71–75. doi:10.1038/nature02708

  • Hanley DE, Bourassa MA, O'Brien JJ, Smith SR, Spade ER (2003) A quantitative evaluation of ENSO indices. J Clim 16:1249–1258. doi:10.1175/1520-0442(2003)16<1249:AQEOEI>2.0.CO;2

  • Homaee M, Schmidhalter U (2008) Water integration by plants root under non-uniform soil salinity. Irrig Sci 27:83–95. doi:10.1007/s00271-008-0123-2

  • Homaee M, Dirksen C, Feddes R (2002a) Simulation of root water uptake: I. Non-uniform transient salinity using different macroscopic reduction functions. Agric Water Manag 57:89–109. doi:10.1016/S0378-3774(02)00072-0

  • Homaee M, Feddes R, Dirksen C (2002b) Simulation of root water uptake: II. Non-uniform transient water stress using different reduction functions. Agricultural water management 57:111–126. doi:10.1016/S0378-3774(02)00071-9

  • Hurrell JW, Kushnir Y, Visbeck M (2001) The North Atlantic Oscillation. Science 291:603–605. doi:10.1126/science.1058761

  • Hurrell JW, Kushnir Y, Ottersen G, Visbeck M (2013) An overview of the North Atlantic Oscillation. In: the North Atlantic Oscillation: climatic significance and environmental impact. American Geophysical Union, pp 1–35. doi: 10.1029/134GM01

  • Lobell DB (2007) Changes in diurnal temperature range and national cereal yields. Agric For Meteorol 145:229–238. doi:10.1016/j.agrformet.2007.05.002

  • Lobell DB, Ortiz-Monasterio JI, Asner GP, Matson PA, Naylor RL, Falcon WP (2005) Analysis of wheat yield and climatic trends in Mexico. Field Crop Res 94:250–256. doi:10.1016/j.fcr.2005.01.007

  • Lobell DB, Cahill KN, Field CB (2007) Historical effects of temperature and precipitation on California crop yields. Clim Chang 81:187–203. doi:10.1007/s10584-006-9141-3

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McPhaden MJ, Zebiak SE, Glantz MH (2006) ENSO as an integrating concept in earth science. Science 314:1740–1745. doi:10.1126/science.1132588

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Mearns LO, Rosenzweig C, Goldberg R (1997) Mean and variance change in climate scenarios: methods, agricultural applications, and measures of uncertainty. Clim Chang 35:367–396. doi:10.1023/A:1005358130291

  • Ministry of Agriculture (2015) Statistics of agricultural products, crop production in 2013–2014. Office of Statistics and Information Technology. Ministry of Agriculture, Tehran

    Google Scholar 

  • Modarres R, Ouarda T (2014) Modeling the relationship between climate oscillations and drought by a multivariate GARCH model. Water Resour Res 50:601–618. doi:10.1002/2013WR013810

  • Morid S, Smakhtin V, Moghaddasi M (2006) Comparison of seven meteorological indices for drought monitoring in Iran. Int J Climatol 26:971–985. doi:10.1002/joc.1264

  • Nazemosadat M (1999) ENSO’s impact on the occurrence of autumnal drought in Iran. Drought Network News (1994–2001) Paper 65

  • Nazemosadat M (2001a) Winter drought in Iran: associations with ENSO. Drought Network News (1994–2001) Paper 63

  • Nazemosadat M (2001b) Winter rainfall in Iran: ENSO and aloft wind interactions. Iranian Journal of Science and Technology Transactions of Civil Engineering 25:611–624

    Google Scholar 

  • Nazemosadat M, Cordery I (2000) On the relationships between ENSO and autumn rainfall in Iran. Int J Climatol 20:47–61. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1097-0088(200001)20:1<47::AID-JOC461>3.0.CO;2-P

  • Nazemosadat M, Ghasemi A (2004) Quantifying the ENSO-related shifts in the intensity and probability of drought and wet periods in Iran. J Clim 17:4005–4018. doi:10.1175/1520-0442(2004)017<4005:QTESIT>2.0.CO;2

  • Nouri M, Homaee M, Bannayan M, Hoogenboom G (2016) Towards modeling soil texture-specific sensitivity of wheat yield and water balance to climatic changes. Agric Water Manag 177:248–263. doi:10.1016/j.agwat.2016.07.025

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pingali PL (2012) Green Revolution: Impacts, limits, and the path ahead. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 109:12302–12308. doi:10.1073/pnas.0912953109

  • Podesta G, Letson D, Messina C, Royce F, Ferreyra RA, Jones J, Hansen J, Llovet I, Grondona M, O'Brien JJ (2002) Use of ENSO-related climate information in agricultural decision making in Argentina: a pilot experience. Agric Syst 74:371–392. doi:10.1016/S0308-521X(02)00046-X

  • Prasad PVV, Pisipati SR, Momčilović I, Ristic Z (2011) Independent and combined effects of high temperature and drought stress during grain filling on plant yield and chloroplast EF-Tu expression in spring wheat. J Agron Crop Sci 197:430–441. doi:10.1111/j.1439-037X.2011.00477.x

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Ray DK, Gerber JS, MacDonald GK, West PC (2015) Climate variation explains a third of global crop yield variability. Nature Commun 6 doi: 10.1038/ncomms6989

  • Ribot JC, Najam A, Watson G (2005) Climate variation, vulnerability and sustainable development in the semi-arid tropics. In: Ribot JC, Magalhaes AR, Panagides S (eds) Climate variability, climate change and social vulnerability in the semi-arid tropics. Cambridge University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Rodwell MJ (2013) On the predictability of North Atlantic climate. In: Hurrell JW, Kushnir Y, Ottersen G, Visbeck M (eds) The North Atlantic Oscillation: climatic significance and environmental impact. American Geophysical Union, pp 173–192. doi:10.1029/134GM08

  • Rogers JC (1984) The association between the North Atlantic Oscillation and the Southern Oscillation in the northern hemisphere. Mon Weather Rev 112:1999–2015. doi:10.1175/1520-0493(1984)112<1999:TABTNA>2.0.CO;2

  • Sadeghi A, Kamgar-Haghighi A, Sepaskhah A, Khalili D, Zand-Parsa S (2002) Regional classification for dryland agriculture in southern Iran. J Arid Environ 50:333–341. doi:10.1006/jare.2001.0822

  • Shuai J, Zhang Z, Sun D-Z, Tao F, Shi P (2013) ENSO, climate variability and crop yields in China. Clim Res 58:133–148. doi:10.3354/cr01194

  • Stenseth NC, Mysterud A (2005) Weather packages: finding the right scale and composition of climate in ecology. J Anim Ecol 74:1195–1198.doi:10.1111/j.1365-2656.2005.01005.x

  • Stenseth NC, Ottersen G, Hurrell JW, Mysterud A, Lima M, Chan KS, Yoccoz NG, Ådlandsvik B (2003) Review article. Studying climate effects on ecology through the use of climate indices: the North Atlantic Oscillation, El Niño Southern Oscillation and beyond. Proc R Soc Lond Ser B Biol Sci 270:2087–2096. doi:10.1098/rspb.2003.2415

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stige LC, Stave J, Chan K-S, Ciannelli L, Pettorelli N, Glantz M, Herren HR, Stenseth NC (2006) The effect of climate variation on agro-pastoral production in Africa. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 103:3049–3053. doi:10.1073/pnas.0600057103

  • Stone P, Nicolas M (1995) Comparison of sudden heat stress with gradual exposure to high temperature during grain filling in two wheat varieties differing in heat tolerance. I. Grain growth. Funct Plant Biol 22:935–944. doi:10.1071/PP9950935

    Google Scholar 

  • Tabari H, Abghari H, Hosseinzadeh Talaee P (2014) Impact of the North Atlantic Oscillation on streamflow in western Iran. Hydrol Process 28:4411–4418. doi:10.1002/hyp.9960

  • Tao F, Yokozawa M, Liu J, Zhang Z (2008) Climate-crop yield relationships at provincial scales in China and the impacts of recent climate trends. Clim Res 38:83–94. doi:10.3354/cr00771

  • Thompson DW, Wallace JM (1998) The Arctic Oscillation signature in the wintertime geopotential height and temperature fields. Geophys Res Lett 25:1297–1300. doi:10.1029/98GL00950

  • Tkadlec E, Zboril J, Losík J, Gregor P, Lisická L (2006) Winter climate and plant productivity predict abundances of small herbivores in central Europe. Clim Res 32:99-108. doi:10.3354/cr0320999

  • Trenberth KE (1997) The definition of El Niño. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 78:2771–2777. doi:10.1175/1520-0477(1997)078<2771:TDOENO>2.0.CO;2

  • Tubiello F, Rosenzweig C, Goldberg R, Jagtap S, Jones J (2002) Effects of climate change on US crop production: simulation results using two different GCM scenarios. Part I: wheat, potato, maize, and citrus. Clim Res 20:259–270. doi:10.3354/cr020259

  • UNEP (1997) World atlas of desertification, Second edn. Arnold, United Nations Environment Programme, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Weiss JL, Gutzler DS, Coonrod JEA, Dahm CN (2004) Long-term vegetation monitoring with NDVI in a diverse semi-arid setting, central New Mexico, USA. J Arid Environ 58:249–272. doi:10.1016/j.jaridenv.2003.07.001

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Soil Science, Tarbiat Modares University, P.O. Box 14115-336, Tehran, Iran

    Milad Nouri

  2. Department of Irrigation and Drainage, Tarbiat Modares University, P.O. Box 14115-336, Tehran, Iran

    Mehdi Homaee

  3. Ferdowsi university of Mashhad, Faculty of Agriculture, P.O. Box 91775-1163, Mashhad, Iran

    Mohammad Bannayan

Authors
  1. Milad Nouri
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Mehdi Homaee
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Mohammad Bannayan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mehdi Homaee.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Nouri, M., Homaee, M. & Bannayan, M. Climate variability impacts on rainfed cereal yields in west and northwest Iran. Int J Biometeorol 61, 1571–1583 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-017-1336-y

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-017-1336-y

Keywords

Search

Navigation