GC51D-1122
Projecting Future Change in Growing Degree Days of Winter Wheat
Friday, 18 December 2015
Poster Hall (Moscone South)
Natalie Ruiz Castillo, Cameron University, Lawton, OK, United States, Carlos F. Gaitan Ospina, University of Oklahoma Norman Campus, South Central Climate Science Center, Norman, OK, United States and Renee A Mcpherson, University of Oklahoma Norman Campus, Norman, OK, United States
Abstract:
Southwest Oklahoma is one of the most productive regions in the Great Plains where winter wheat is produced. To assess the effect of climate change on the growing degree days (GDD) available for winter wheat production, we selected from the CMIP5 archive, two of the best performing Global Climate Models (GCMs) for the region (MIROC5 and CCSM4) to project the future change in GDD under the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 —a “business as usual” future trajectory for greenhouse gas concentrations. Two quantile mapping downscaling methods were applied to both GCMs to obtain local scale projections. The downscaled outputs were applied to a GDD formula to show the GDD changes between the historical period (1961–2004) and the future period (2006–2098) in terms of mean differences. The results show that at the end of the 2098 growing season, the increase in GDD is expected to be between -2.0 and 6. Depending on the GCM used, Southwest Oklahoma is expected to see an increase in future GDD under the CCSM4 GCM and a mix of increase, no change and decrease under the MIROC5 GCM.
