Contrasting wheat phenological responses to climate change in global scale

Abstract

Comprehensive analysis of how wheat phenology responds to environmental factors in global scale is helpful for tackling the possible adverse effects of ongoing climate change on wheat production. In this study, six phenological parameters of global wheat, i.e., the growing season start (SGS), peak (PGS), end (EGS), length (LGS), as well as the vegetative period length (LVP) and reproductive period length (LRP), were retrieved from remote sensing data (1981-2014) by threshold-, logistic-, and shape-based methods. And then, we analyzed the effects of temperature, precipitation, short-wave (SW) radiation, and frost on spatiotemporal patterns of wheat phenology. In addition, haze impacts on wheat phenology were investigated in China and India where haze weather appears frequently in winter-spring seasons. Results showed that the occurrence time of SGS/PGS/EGS is gradually advanced from the pole to the equator and annual mean air temperature can explain >70% of their spatial variations. A dominant advanced SGS/PGS/EGS and a shortened LGS/LVP/LRP were detected in the study region due to the significant increase in temperature and SW radiation, as well as the decrease in frost days. Interannual fluctuations of SGS/PGS/EGS are primarily controlled by air temperature, while precipitation and frost only exerted some obvious impacts in some locations. Higher preseason temperature would induce an earlier wheat phenology and a shorter growing season, while adequate precipitation and frequent frost in preseason could delay the occurrence timing of wheat phenology and lead to a longer growing season. Besides, the decreased temperature resulted from severe haze weather may have partly counteracted the global-warming-induced advancing trend of wheat phenology in China, but further advanced the occurrence timing of wheat phenology through prompting vernalization in India. Overall, though wheat growth is largely constrained by human management, we still highlight the strong impacts of global climate change on wheat phenology.

Keywords: Frost; Haze; Precipitation; Spatiotemporal pattern; Temperature; Wheat phenology.