climate Article Assessment of Climatic Parameters for Future Climate Change in a Major Agricultural State in India Ranjeet Kumar Jha 1 , Prasanta K. Kalita 2, * and Richard A. Cooke 2   Citation: Jha, R.K.; Kalita, P.K.; Cooke, R.A. Assessment of Climatic Parameters for Future Climate Change in a Major Agricultural State in India. Climate 2021, 9, 111. https:// doi.org/10.3390/cli9070111 Academic Editors: Hen-I Lin, Daeha Kim and Jong Ahn Chun Received: 11 May 2021 Accepted: 26 June 2021 Published: 1 July 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1 Department of Agriculture, Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation, Green Fields, Vaddeswaram 522502, Andhra Pradesh, India; drranjeetkumar@kluniversity.in 2 Agricultural and Biological Engineering Department, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA; rcooke@illinois.edu * Correspondence: pkalita@illinois.edu; Tel.: +1-217-333-0945; Fax: +1-217-244-0323 Abstract: The change in future climate will have a prominent impact on crop production and water requirement. Crop production is directly related to climatic variables. Temperature, solar radiation, wind, precipitation, CO 2 concentration and other climatic variables dictate crop yield. This study, based on long-term historical data, investigates the patterns and changes in climatic variables (precipitation, temperature, and solar radiation) that would most significantly affect the future crop production in many parts of the world, and especially in India, where most farmers depend on rainfall for rice production. Statistical analyses—box and whisker plot, mean absolute error, Taylor diagram, double mass curve, Mann–Kendall trend test, and projected climate change—were used to assess the significance of the climatic factors for the purpose of agricultural modeling. Large variability in precipitation may cause the flash floods and affect the farming, and at the same time, increase in temperature from baseline period will lead to high water requirement by crops, and may cause drought if rainfall does not occur. Decrease in solar radiation will affect crop growth and development, and thus, would hamper the crop production. The results of this study would be useful in identifying the negative issues arising from climate change in future agricultural practices in Bihar, India. Furthermore, the results can also help in developing management strategies to combat the climate change impact on crop production. Keywords: climate change; global climate models; climate change scenarios; statistical analysis; crop production 1. Introduction The occurrence of climate change is being recognized all across the world [1]. The change in climate will potentially impact the global population by altering agricultural production [2,3]. Since the weather is a decisive factor for agricultural production, change in climate will affect the crop growth, yield, and water requirement. The future climate projection for South Asia by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change presents that the average annual temperature will increase by 3–6 ◦ C and 2–3 ◦ C with worst case scenario (RCP 8.5) and low emission scenario (RCP 2.6), respectively, by the end of the 21st century [4], and the change in precipitation will depend upon the location of any study [5]. The process of assessing the impact of climate change on agriculture depends on the climate data (precipitation, maximum and minimum temperature, and solar radiation), apart from environmental, social and economic aspects [6]. The future conditions, called future scenarios, are the central decision-making situations used by the policy and decision makers to explore the change in the climate first, and then use those trends to develop strategies for climatic resiliency. These scenarios are defined based on population growth, economic development, social aspects and advancement in new technologies [7–9]. There- fore, climate scenarios will continue to change during each generation and need to be modified by policymakers and scientists at a certain interval. The Intergovernmental Panel Climate 2021, 9, 111. https://doi.org/10.3390/cli9070111 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/climate