Details of Award
NERC Reference : NE/J017337/1
Impact of tropospheric O3 on crop production under future climate and atmospheric CO2 concentrations, and their interactions within the Earth System
Training Grant Award
- Lead Supervisor:
- Professor S Sitch, University of Exeter, Geography
- Grant held at:
- University of Exeter, Geography
- Science Area:
- Atmospheric
- Earth
- Freshwater
- Marine
- Terrestrial
- Overall Classification:
- Terrestrial
- ENRIs:
- Global Change
- Science Topics:
- None
- Abstract:
- Estimating potential changes in future global food production is a critical element of climate impact assessments. However, few impact assessments on crop production have adequately considered the full range of potential implications of all aspects of climate change. One such omission is ozone (O3). Ozone can have important impacts on crop production, although its effects are rarely included in crop simulation models. An important aspect is physiological damage to crops by increased ground-level O3 concentrations. As part of a wider aim to develop holistic models for climate change impacts, a generic crop model (JULES-crop) is being developed for the Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES) land surface scheme, the land surface model of the Met Office's Unified Model. However, in common with many crop models this does not currently include ozone impacts. The overall aim of this studentship will be to further develop JULES-crop to include ozone impacts on crops. This will involve a literature search to identify and build relationships between crop production and ozone. These relationships will then be built into JULES-crop, and tested against available observed datasets at the site scale, and the model further developed as needed, e.g. JULES-crop will be extensively evaluated against the Soybean Free-Air-Concentration- Enrichment experiment for physiological response to elevated CO2 and O3. The final model will then be applied at a range of spatial scales (including regions anticipated to have significant increases in ozone concentrations in the future), and under future climate scenarios driven by outputs from the Met Office's flagship earth system model for the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, HadGEM2-ES. As a final step the crop response function will be tested within the latest Hadley Regional Model to investigate plant physiological feedbacks to the regional climate and atmospheric chemistry. The project will therefore help to build a state-of-the-art impact assessment model, and contribute to a more complete understanding of the impacts of climate change on food production.
- NERC Reference:
- NE/J017337/1
- Grant Stage:
- Completed
- Scheme:
- DTG - directed
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- Open CASE
This training grant award has a total value of £67,596
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| Total - Fees | Total - Student Stipend | Total - RTSG |
|---|---|---|
| £13,812 | £48,285 | £5,499 |
If you need further help, please read the user guide.