The Global Gridded Crop Model Intercomparison – an AgMIP activity

The Global Gridded Crop Model Intercomparison was founded in 2012 as a joint activity of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) and the InterSectoral Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP). Over these 10 years, GGCMI has attracted contributions from many international crop modeling groups and has generated large global agricultural data sets in different model simulation phases. Input data comprise gridded management data for agricultural systems that can be used in combination with climate data that are provided by ISIMIP. Annual output data include crop yields and other variables of plants and soil status for irrigated and purely rainfed production systems for different field crops at 0.5 degree spatial resolution, covering the whole land surface, where crop production is feasible. All data are made publicly available. While Phase 1 of GGCMI was focused on the historical period^[1,2], aiming at model evaluation^[3], Phase 2 generated an unprecedented large data set of systematic disturbances along the CO2 (C), Temperature (T), Water (W) and Nitrogen (N) dimension^[4]. A major outcome of Phase 2 is a very large set of emulators^[5] that allows for lightweight, flexible and comprehensive crop yield projections and analyses. With analyses of Phase 2 still forming, Phase 3 was started in collaboration with ISIMIP’s Phase 3, providing new future projections for a range of CMIP6 climate change projections and different management scenarios. Crop models do not only provide outputs on crop yields but also on various processes, such as evapotranspiration, leaf area index, phenology and soil dynamics that allow for broader analyses. GGCMI is a collaborative effort and always open to new contributors. Given the amount and complexity of in- and output data, we welcome proposals for new studies and data analyses. In this presentation we’re providing an overview of the GGCMI activities and exemplify possible entry points for collaboration.

^{[1] http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/gmd-8-261-2015}

^{[2] http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41597-019-0023-8}

^{[3] http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-1403-2017}

^{[4] http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-2315-2020}

^{[5] http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-3995-2020}