Instead of using single-crop models, the project includes multiple models ( Figure 4), scenarios, locations, crops, and participants to standardize climate change impact studies and define the uncertainty of impact assessments ( Rosenzweig et al., 2013). AgMIP incorporates state-of-the-art climate products as well as crop and agricultural trade model improvements in coordinated regional and global assessments of future climate impacts. The recently founded Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP is a major international collaborative effort to assess climate impacts on the agricultural sector. Including uncertainty ensures that crop models are used in a similar way to the multimodel approach in climate change science ( Meehl et al., 2007). Experts suggest including the uncertainty in crop models in such climate change assessments and multimodel applications. Many future climate change impact assessments have been carried out using crop models for specific locations ( Semenov et al., 1996), agricultural regions ( Tao et al., 2009), and at the global scale ( Rosenzweig and Parry, 1994). Including these projections in crop models can help to assess possible impacts and explore management strategies to adapt to climate change.
A range of plausible projections (scenarios) of emissions from a number of general circulation model ensembles and various downscaling methods are usually employed together with single-crop models. Crop simulation models have been a key tool in assessing the impact of future climate change.