RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE OF DIFFERENT OCEANS AND THE MAIZE YIELDS IN THE ARGENTINE PAMPA REGION
Gabriela Viviana Müller, María Elena Fernández Long, Ezequiel Bosch
Centro de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia de Tecnología a la Producción(CICYTTP-CONICET), Diamante, Argentina
Facultad de Agronomía, Cátedra de Climatología y Fenología Agrícolas, Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA), Argentina
Manuscript received on 30 november 2013, in final form 14 de may de 2014
ABSTRACT
The sea surface temperature anomalies (SST) are closely related to the precipitation anomalies in central and eastern Argentina and therefore they are related to some crops in the Argentine Pampa region as well. The objective of this paper is to analyze the relationship between SST in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans and maize yields in the Pampa region. It is found that maize yields respond in different ways to the SST variability, except for the south, southeast and west of Buenos Aires province and the east of the La Pampa province, where the signal is either weak or nonexistent. It is also found that some oceanic regions have a significant influence over the rest of the Pampa region, in particular the subtropical Pacific Ocean, the equatorial Pacific Ocean ENSO region, the Indian Ocean dipole (IOD) and the tropical and subtropical western Atlantic Ocean mainly in the spring and in some cases in the fall.
Keywords: yields; Argentine Pampa región; Sea surface temperatures