Impacts of Extreme Temperatures and Drought on Yield of Food Crops: Data and Opportunities for Modeling.

Crop production is extremely sensitive to high temperature stress. It is projected the changes in future climate will be associated with not only increased seasonal mean temperatures but also increased exposure to short periods of extreme temperature stress (increased climate variability). Better understanding of temperature stress on yield components and developing temperature response curves will be critical for improved projections on impact of changing climate and climate variability on yield of food crops. This presentation will provide examples of available data from important food crop on (a) impacts of extreme temperature stress on components of yield; (b) temperature response curves and thresholds. Discussion will focus on understanding concepts and opportunities for model development and/or improvements to better simulate impacts of extreme temperature stress and using use in providing options for crop managaement and improving resilience of farming systems to environmental stresses.