Deriving and Applying Response Surface Diagrams for Evaluating Climate Change Impacts on Crop Production

This paper presents the method to develop response surface diagrams (RSD) suitable to evaluate the impacts of climate change on potential crop production and crop area. The diagrams depict the response of different agricultural crops to average long-term changes in ambient temperature and precipitation on a country basis. They take into account the spatial and seasonal variability of climate, and differences in the climate response of important crops. RSDs for Germany and the Democratic Republic of Congo illustrate that countries and crop types differ greatly in their sensitivity to unit changes in long-term average climate. In comparing the area-weighted RSDs for Germany and Democratic Republic of Congo, it was found that the potential production in Germany of a weighted aggregation of crops is mainly sensitive to changes in temperature, whereas the potential crop production in the Democratic Republic of Congo mainly responds to changes in precipitation (over the specified ranges of climate variables). The RSDs can provide a visual overview of these varying sensitivities, and are a convenient and simple-to-understand method to summarize crop responses to climate change in a particular country.