USING GIS AND STATISTICAL METHODS, WITH A FOCUS ON HEAT WAVE YEARS Herausgeber:

Abstract and Factsheet Crop yields are sensitive to climate variability. They also respond to inter-annual weather variability in essentially every phase of the vegetation period. Inter-annual dependencies are evident in oscillating wheat yield figures, yet have not been given the attention expected. How inter-annual wheat yield variability is affected by weather needs clarification, especially in the light of human induced climate change and increasingly intense and likely heat waves in Europe. This study applies geostatistical methods and GIS (geographic information systems) to analyze spatial and temporal variability of wheat on three aggregation levels in Europe (EU-15, German states level, and county level in one German state). Daily homogenized weather data and annual statistical data on wheat yields were analyzed for these purposes. Residuals are separated from long term yield trends with an extensively validated method and represent the base values for weather induced, short term inter-annual variations. They are correlated with selected climate variables in multiple regressio