ABSTRACT
On a world scale, however, climate and climate changes are undoubtedly the most important factors in production of agricultural products on a year-to-year basis. Perhaps the most striking fact about climate is that it changes on every scale of time and space—in every year, decade, century, or millenium, and in every region on earth. The effects of climate on human societies, however, are better understood than the causes of climate change. The most important single factor of climate in respect to crop losses on the world scale is occurrence of droughts. In the coastal zones and in tropics, precipitation should increase with greenhouse warming, though all such expectations are somewhat speculative. The global amount of rainfall should also increase because the warming will produce increased ocean evaporation, thus resulting in increased rainfall. In particular, the success of agroclimatic modeling depends on favorable governmental policies, stable political circumstances, and a positive attitude toward agriculture as a dignified and important profession.
