Climate change impacts on European wheat and maize yields

Crop yields are influenced and affected by climate conditions and the occurrence of extreme events in critical phenological phases during the growing season. As projected climate change for Europe points to an increase of climate extremes as well as a significant warming together with changes in precipitation regimes, it is essential to assess impacts on key socio-economic sectors such as agriculture. Here, we analyse European wheat and maize yields as projected by a crop model driven by bias-adjusted Euro-CORDEX regional climate model simulations under the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. The main findings highlight as maize will be the most affected crop with limited effects of simple adaptation strategies; while a north-south dipole in the projected changes characterizes wheat yields. In the wheat regions negatively affected by climate change, adaptation strategies will play a key role in counterbalancing the impacts of the projected changes.