Impacts of El Niño Southern Oscillation on the global yields of major crops

Toshichika Iizumi; Jing Jia Luo; Andrew J. Challinor; Gen Sakurai; Masayuki Yokozawa; Hirofumi Sakuma; Molly E. Brown; Toshio Yamagata

doi:10.1038/ncomms4712

Impacts of El Niño Southern Oscillation on the global yields of major crops

Toshichika Iizumi^*, Jing Jia Luo, Andrew J. Challinor, Gen Sakurai, Masayuki Yokozawa, Hirofumi Sakuma, Molly E. Brown, Toshio Yamagata

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

256 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The monitoring and prediction of climate-induced variations in crop yields, production and export prices in major food-producing regions have become important to enable national governments in import-dependent countries to ensure supplies of affordable food for consumers. Although the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) often affects seasonal temperature and precipitation, and thus crop yields in many regions, the overall impacts of ENSO on global yields are uncertain. Here we present a global map of the impacts of ENSO on the yields of major crops and quantify its impacts on their global-mean yield anomalies. Results show that El Niño likely improves the global-mean soybean yield by 2.1 - 5.4% but appears to change the yields of maize, rice and wheat by -4.3 to +0.8%. The global-mean yields of all four crops during La Niña years tend to be below normal (-4.5 to 0.0%). Our findings highlight the importance of ENSO to global crop production.

Original language	English
Article number	3712
Journal	Nature communications
Volume	5
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms4712
Publication status	Published - 2014 May 15
Externally published	Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Chemistry(all)
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology(all)
Physics and Astronomy(all)

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@article{1f97ab590c6741649241abca7216860e,

title = "Impacts of El Ni{\~n}o Southern Oscillation on the global yields of major crops",

abstract = "The monitoring and prediction of climate-induced variations in crop yields, production and export prices in major food-producing regions have become important to enable national governments in import-dependent countries to ensure supplies of affordable food for consumers. Although the El Ni{\~n}o/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) often affects seasonal temperature and precipitation, and thus crop yields in many regions, the overall impacts of ENSO on global yields are uncertain. Here we present a global map of the impacts of ENSO on the yields of major crops and quantify its impacts on their global-mean yield anomalies. Results show that El Ni{\~n}o likely improves the global-mean soybean yield by 2.1 - 5.4% but appears to change the yields of maize, rice and wheat by -4.3 to +0.8%. The global-mean yields of all four crops during La Ni{\~n}a years tend to be below normal (-4.5 to 0.0%). Our findings highlight the importance of ENSO to global crop production.",

author = "Toshichika Iizumi and Luo, {Jing Jia} and Challinor, {Andrew J.} and Gen Sakurai and Masayuki Yokozawa and Hirofumi Sakuma and Brown, {Molly E.} and Toshio Yamagata",

note = "Funding Information: We thank P. McIntosh and T. Beer for their comments. T.I and G.S. were supported by the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (S-10-2) of the Ministry of the Environment, Japan.",

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doi = "10.1038/ncomms4712",

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AU - Iizumi, Toshichika

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AU - Sakurai, Gen

AU - Yokozawa, Masayuki

AU - Sakuma, Hirofumi

AU - Brown, Molly E.

AU - Yamagata, Toshio

N1 - Funding Information: We thank P. McIntosh and T. Beer for their comments. T.I and G.S. were supported by the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (S-10-2) of the Ministry of the Environment, Japan.

PY - 2014/5/15

Y1 - 2014/5/15

N2 - The monitoring and prediction of climate-induced variations in crop yields, production and export prices in major food-producing regions have become important to enable national governments in import-dependent countries to ensure supplies of affordable food for consumers. Although the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) often affects seasonal temperature and precipitation, and thus crop yields in many regions, the overall impacts of ENSO on global yields are uncertain. Here we present a global map of the impacts of ENSO on the yields of major crops and quantify its impacts on their global-mean yield anomalies. Results show that El Niño likely improves the global-mean soybean yield by 2.1 - 5.4% but appears to change the yields of maize, rice and wheat by -4.3 to +0.8%. The global-mean yields of all four crops during La Niña years tend to be below normal (-4.5 to 0.0%). Our findings highlight the importance of ENSO to global crop production.

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Impacts of El Niño Southern Oscillation on the global yields of major crops

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