Impact Assessment of Climate Change on Climatic Potential Productivity in Global Major Agricultural Regions Based on High Spatial and Temporal Resolution Data
Under climate change, the quantitative assessment of climatic potential productivity in the main agricultural areas of the world can reflect the degree of coordination among light, temperature and water resources and regional differences. Furthermore, it is of great significance for improving the level of land productivity and guiding the production of agriculture and animal husbandry. Taking the global major agricultural region as the research object, and using the high spatial and temporal resolution outputs of meteorological grid data and the climatic potential productivity model, we assessed the impact of climate change on climatic potential productivity in global major agricultural regions from 1981 to 2015. The results showed that: (1) From 1981 to 2015, the annual changes in the climatic potential productivity in global major agricultural regions showed increasing trend fluctuating from7.68 t·hm~(-2) and 8.28 t·hm~(-2), with an average of 7.97 t·hm~(-2). The maximum and the minimum climatic potential productivities were found in 2010 and in 1987, respectively. (2) Similarly to the interannual change, the interdecadal increase of climatic potential productivity was also obvious. The most significant increase was found between 1980s and 1990s. (3) The basic characteristic of the spatial distribution of climatic potential productivity was high in the south and low in the north. Global agricultural regions were mainly concentrated in East Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, Western Asia, Southern Europe, Southern Oceania, eastern South America and southern North America. Over the 35 years, the difference in average climatic potential productivity was significant in different regions. Among them, the highest value appeared in Southeast Asia (28.9 t·hm~(-2)). However, the climate production potential was low in southern North America, Southern Oceania, Central Asia, Central Africa and so on, with the value of below 5.1 t·hm~(-2). And (4) over the 35 years, the climatic potential productivities in the central, northern and southwestern agricultural regions of Asia, and central and southeastern North America evidently increased, and increased by 0.00-6.00 t·hm~(-2) in some areas. However, in most parts of Europe, northern and eastern South America, central and southern Africa, and Oceania, the climatic potential productivities decreased significantly, ranging from -7.99 t·hm~(-2) to 0.00 t·hm~(-2). Overall, climate change was beneficial to agricultural production in the agricultural regions of Asia and North America, and unfavorable to agricultural production in Europe, South America, Africa and Oceania in general.