Article published in Global Change Biology
Projected climate impacts to South African maize and wheat production in 2055: A comparison of empirical and mechanistic modeling approaches”, written by Lyndon and co-authored by Stephanie, has been accepted by Global Change Biology. The paper focuses on understanding how climate change impact projections of crop productivity differ between empirical and mechanistic models. Agricultural researchers use these models separately, but ecologists studying tree range shifts under future climates have shown that empirical models usually show larger negative impacts than mechanistic models. This paper revealed the same tendency in simulated future changes in maize and wheat productivity in South Africa: the mechanistic models projected future yield gains for both crops, while empirical models either showed yield losses or much smaller gains. Since empirical and mechanistic models have different strengths and weaknesses, climate impacts studies focusing on crop responses may gain a fuller picture of projection uncertainties by comparing results from both kinds of models. A more detailed summary of the paper is available here or here.