You et al. (2026) Winter wheat yield responses to extreme heat in the North China Plain: GGCMI-AgMIP model evaluation and a heat-stress phenology improvement in JULES-crop

Identification

• Journal: Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
• Year: 2026
• Date: 2026-08-12
• Authors: Lirong You, Karina Bett-Williams, Stephen A. Sitch, Christoph Müller, Huiyi Yang, Jefferson Goncalves De Souza, Munir Paul Hoffmann, Maria Carolina Duran Rojas, Beiyao Xu
• DOI: 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111404

Research Groups

• Faculty of Environment, Science and Economy, University of Exeter
• Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter
• UK Met Office
• Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich
• School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds
• Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science, University of Leeds
• School of Atmospheric Sciences, Nanjing University
• Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Member of the Leibniz Association
• Tropical Plant Production and Agricultural Systems Modelling (TROPAGS), University of Goettingen

Short Summary

This study evaluates the performance of crop models in simulating winter wheat yield responses to climatic variability and extremes in the North China Plain. The analysis focuses on three growing-season climatic drivers: mean temperature, precipitation, and extreme heat days (𝐸𝐻𝐷). The results show that most GGCMI models fail to reproduce the observed negative linear yield response to 𝐸𝐻𝐷 in the central NCP. However, incorporating heat-stress effects into phenological development improves the simulated response of winter wheat yield to extreme heat.

Objective

• Evaluate the ability of crop models to reproduce observed regional responses of winter wheat yield to growing-season mean temperature, precipitation, and 𝐸𝐻𝐷 in the North China Plain.
• Test whether incorporating heat-stress effects into phenological development improves the simulated response of winter wheat yield to extreme heat.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Regional (North China Plain)
• Temporal Scale: 1990-2019

Methodology and Data

• Models used: GGCMI Phase 2, JULES-crop-original, JULES-crop-improved
• Data sources: Winter wheat yield data at the prefecture level for four provinces in the NCP (Shandong, Henan, Hebei, and Anhui), meteorological station data from the National Meteorological Information Center of China

Main Results

• Most GGCMI models fail to reproduce the observed negative linear yield response to 𝐸𝐻𝐷 in the central NCP.
• Incorporating heat-stress effects into phenological development improves the simulated response of winter wheat yield to extreme heat, with JULES-crop-improved reproducing this response at 7 out of 16 sites where observations show a significant negative yield–𝐸𝐻𝐷 relationship.

Contributions

• This study extends GGCMI Phase 2 evaluation from broad-scale yield-level comparison towards regional, response-based diagnosis.
• It identifies heat-stress phenology as a plausible contributor to model bias and as a practical pathway for improving winter wheat simulations under intensifying heat extremes.

Funding

• Not specified in the provided text.

Citation

@article{You2026Winter,
  author = {You, Lirong and Bett-Williams, Karina and Sitch, Stephen A. and Müller, Christoph and Yang, Huiyi and Souza, Jefferson Goncalves De and Hoffmann, Munir Paul and Rojas, Maria Carolina Duran and Xu, Beiyao},
  title = {Winter wheat yield responses to extreme heat in the North China Plain: GGCMI-AgMIP model evaluation and a heat-stress phenology improvement in JULES-crop},
  journal = {Agricultural and Forest Meteorology},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111404},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111404}
}