Assessment of agrometeorological indices over Southeast Europe in the context of climate change (1961-2018)

Chervenkov, Hristo and Slavov, Kiril (2021) Assessment of agrometeorological indices over Southeast Europe in the context of climate change (1961-2018). IDŐJÁRÁS / QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF THE HUNGARIAN METEOROLOGICAL SERVICE, 125 (2). pp. 255-269. ISSN 0324-6329

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Abstract

The regional response over Southeast (SE) Europe to the climate warming in global and continental scales has been confirmed to have essential impact on the agriculture and forestry since the middle of twentieth century. Normal variations in weather throughout a growing season cause variations in harvest and, generally, the impact could be large in terms of production amounts and economic returns. Agriculture is sensitive to the changes in weather and climate, and the occurrence of extreme events threaten the agricultural systems. Forests are particularly sensitive to climate change, because the long life-span of trees does not allow for rapid adaptation to environmental changes. This study provides an overview of the spatial patterns and the long-term temporal evolution of the following agrometeorological indices: growing season length, accumulated active temperatures and biologically effective degree days. Hence the focus is on the Growing season length, its start and end dates are analyzed separately. All indices are computed from the daily mean temperatures which, in turn, are derived from the output of the MESCAN-SURFEX system analysis of the collaborative initiative UERRA. The geographical domain of interest is Southeast Europe, and the assessment is performed at a very high spatial resolution on annual basis for the period 1961–2018. We find strong evidences of essential increase in the considered indices which dominates spatially over the low-elevated areas of the domain and is statistically significant at 5% level. Key message is also the revealed asymmetry of the increase in the most relevant index, the growing season length: its total lengthening is linked more to the shifting to earlier date of the start, rather than to its later cessation.

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