THE POTENTIAL EFFECTS OF CLIMATE-CHANGE ON AUTUMN SOIL TILLAGE OPPORTUNITIES IN ENGLAND AND WALES

A model was used to estimate the number of autumn machinery work-days in England and Wales for a range of potential climate change sensitivity tests. The sensitivity tests were based on current best estimates of climate change and were referenced to a 30-year baseline climate. The analysis showed that decreases in precipitation have a much greater effect on the average number of work-days than increases in precipitation of a similar magnitude or increases in temperature of between 1 and 2 degrees C. A 2 degrees C increase in temperature was found to be off-set by a 10% increase in precipitation resulting in little change to the number of work-days compared with the baseline. The results suggested that autumn soil tillage opportunities will be improved by global warming unless precipitation increases substantially (by 15% or more). However, there are likely to be strong regional differences in the magnitude of this improvement.