Jiabing Shuai, Zhao Zhang, Xiaofei Liu, Yi Chen, Pin Wang, Peijun Shi

State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Academy of Disaster Reduction and Emergency Management, Beijing 100875, China.

 

Abstract: The impacts of climate change on crop yield have increasingly been of concern. In this study, we investigated the impacts of trends in sunshine duration (S) and maximum temperature (T_max) on rice yields in Jiangsu Province at both the provincial and county level during the period from 1980 to 2008. The results showed that although S and T_maxboth were positively correlated with rice yields, the combined impacts of the decreasing trend of S (0.37 h/decade) and the increasing trend of T_max (0.34 °C/decade) in August caused a reduction of 0.16 t ha^-1 in rice yields (approximately 1.8 %) in Jiangsu Province, and the trend of S had played a dominant role in the yield losses. Further analyses suggest that the increasing concentration of aerosols from rapid economic development in Jiangsu Province has caused a significant solar dimming at least since 1960, making mitigations and adaptation measurements on regional haze impact imperative. Our study provides a prototype for detecting negative feedback on agricultural production caused by intensified anthropogenic activities that aim only to create rapid economic development.

 

Keywords: Climate change; Human activities; Rice yields; Aerosols.