Rice Yield Changes in Kerala due to Climate Change

The effect of climate change is most commonly manifested as a change in agricultural output due to changes in climate variables which are responsible for growth and development of crops. For cropping simulation models, station based weather data is regarded as the major source of input data, but for future climate scenarios, we resort to Global Climate Model (GCM) output. We used high-resolution climate data from Meteorological Research Institute GCM which is found to have high reliability in simulating present day climate of India particularly the observed climate trends over the Western Ghats and Kerala, the southern-most state of India. The chapter focuses on the importance of changing climate variables on the yield of rice. Our analysis suggests for adaptive measures that needs to be taken in order to cope with reduction in rice yield. Rice varieties that are tolerant to high temperatures and that require less water may be preferred in future.