A New Approach to Identifying the Weather–Crop Yield Functionals for Assessing Climate Change Consequences

O. D. Sirotenko and V. N. Pavlova

A new approach to identifying the weather–crop yield functionals is suggested. It is shown that elimination of crop yield trends using the difference regression (the first and second orders) makes it possible to substantially increase the accuracy and reliability of estimates of climate change (variation) influence on the agriculture productivity. The methodology suggested for assessing a climate change influence is realized for the grain crops in two regions of the Russian Federation with contrast climate conditions. At the same time, it is found that short-term (up to 2–3 years) crop yield trends taken into account and related to changes in the soil effective fertility promote a noticeable increase in the quality of long-term crop yield forecasts.