ABSTRACT
To date six national case studies have been made of the potential impact of climatic changes on agricultural production. Five were conducted by IIASA and United Nations Environment Programme between 1983 and 1986 in Iceland, Finland, the USSR and Japan, and in one province of Canada. This chapter provides a summary of results from the most detailed of the surveys: the model-based studies completed for several regions, and the comprehensive national reviews for Australia and New Zealand. In Australia and New Zealand national assessments have been based on a review of existing knowledge and on use of expert judgement rather than on experiments with a suite of agronomic and economic models. In Iceland, a linked series of hay-yield and livestock models sought to calculate the effect of warming on the number of sheep that the island could carry on its pastures. In Finland a combination of crop-yield and farm-income models was used to estimate the possible effects of climatic changes on farm profitability.
