Uncertainties in the Effects of Climate Change on Maize Yield Simulation in Jilin Province: A Case Study

Measuring the impacts of uncertainties identified from different global climate models (GCMs), representative concentration pathways (RCPs), and parameters of statistical crop models on the projected effects of climate change on crop yields can help to improve the availability of simulation results. The quantification and separation of different sources of uncertainty also help to improve understanding of impacts of uncertainties and provide a theoretical basis for their reduction. In this study, uncertainties of maize yield predictions are evaluated by using 30 sets of parameters from statistical crop models together with eight GCMs with reference to three emission scenarios for Jilin Province of northeastern China. Regression models using replicates based on bootstrap resampling reveal that yields are maximized when the optimum average growing season temperature is 20.1°C for 1990–2009. The results of multi-model ensemble simulations show a maize yield reduction of 11%, with 75% probability for 2040–69 relative to the baseline period of 1976–2005. We decompose the variance so as to understand the relative importance of different sources of uncertainty, such as GCMs, RCPs, and statistical model parameters. The greatest proportion of uncertainty (> 50%) is derived from GCMs, followed by RCPs with a proportion of 28% and statistical crop model parameters with a proportion of 20% of total ensemble uncertainty.