Assessing the impacts of climate change on 1st and 2nd crop corn yields in the Çukurova district using regional climate models

Çukurova region is one of the major agricultural production regions inTurkey. In addition to extreme weather conditions, such as drought and flood, lowerand/or severe rainfall along with increased temperature due to global climate changeaffects agricultural production. The aim of this study is to predict the climate ofÇukurova Region for the period between 2071 and 2100 and determine the effects ofclimate change on the first and second crop corn yields, using the regional climatemodel, RegCM3. Model applicability was tested by means of some test studies andverification processes. The RegCM model predicts mean maximum, mean minimum,maximum, and minimum temperatures with deviations ranging from 2.8 to -4.3, 9.2to -7.5, 14.6 to -4.3, 8 to -8.3 and 14.3 to -5.4 ºC respectively compared to theobservations for the reference period. Thus, RegCM3 has been found to beappropriate for climate change predictions in the Cukurova District. The results ofrainfall simulation were closely related to topography. The mean, mean maximum,yearly maximum, mean minimum and yearly minimum temperatures may experiencesome increases ranging from 3.0 to 4.5, 2.9 to 4.7, 3.1 to 6.2, 3.0 to 4.5, and 3.3 to8.5 (ºC) in the future period compared with the current conditions. The plant growthmodel WOFOST was used to determine the effect of climate change on the growthand yield of the first and second crop corn. WOFOST simulated the yield with 4.5%and -5.0% accuracy for 1st and 2nd crop corn, respectively. However in future watershortage conditions, first and second crop corn yields are expected to decrease by58% and 43.4%, , respectively, compared to the present.Keywords: RegCM, WOFOST, regional climate model, plant growth model, maizeyield,