Climate Variability and Corn Yields in Semiarid Ceará, Brazil

Abstract Understanding of climate influence on crop yields can help in the design of policies to reduce climate-related vulnerability in many parts of the world, including the target of this case study—the state of Ceara, Brazil. The study has examined the relationships between climate variations and corn yields and, in addition, has estimated the potential predictability of corn yields in Ceara drawing on the now well-established seasonal predictability of the region’s climate based on prevailing patterns of sea surface temperature (SST), especially in the tropical Atlantic and tropical Pacific Oceans. The relationships between corn yields and climate variables have been explored using observed data for the period of 1952–2001. A linear regression–based corn-yield model was evaluated by comparing the model-simulated yields with the observations using three goodness-of-fit measures: the coefficient of determination, the index of agreement, and the mean absolute error. A comparative performance analysis wa...