A study (Sarker et al.

, 2012) explains some findings about the impacts of climate

change on rice, one of the most significant crops in the world (IRRI, 2015). Again,
Sarker et al. (2012) explores the impacts of climate change on three cultivated rice,
namely, Aman, Aus and Boro rice.

Some findings in that study have corresponding

issues with my study as my study explores the impacts of climate change on rice
yields. This homework describes these corresponding issues in some aspects such as
the climate impacts on rice yields and statistical problems in climate change studies.
A higher temperature may negatively influence rice yields if observed
temperature exceeds its thresholds. For instance, minimum temperature tends to
increase Boro rice yields as observed minimum temperature was lower than its
threshold of 220C (Sarker et al., 2012). However, minimum temperature tends to
negatively affect Aman and Aus rice as they are planted where observed minimum
temperature is higher than its thresholds (Sarker et al., 2012). Consistent with this, my
study finds that minimum temperature tends to negatively affect rice yields as
observed minimum temperature is higher than its threshold.
This study (Sarker et al., 2012) points out rainfall can positively affect nonirrigated rice such as Aus rice. In contrast, rainfall may not significantly affect irrigated
rice such as Boro rice. This corroborates my study in which rainfall may not affect
irrigated rice as it is surrounded by irrigation facilities. This finding is also supported by
another study (Wang et al., 2013) which claims the insignificant impacts of rainfall on
irrigated rice.
Sarker et al. (2012) indicate that different cultivated rice may have different
responses to climate. Boro rice (irrigated rice) is positively affected by minimum
temperature, whereas Aus and Aman rice (non-irrigated rice) may negatively affected
by minimum temperature. This finding is consistent with my study as my study finds
that irrigated rice is a higher sensitive to minimum temperature than that of nonirrigated rice.

Both studies, this study (Sarker et al., 2012) and my study, claim that the
impacts of temperature are more pronounced than that of rainfall. This means that
temperature has a higher impact on rice yields than that of rainfall. Other studies
(Lobell et al., 2008; Lobell et al., 2011) corroborate this finding.

According to Lobell and Burke (2010), climate change studies may suffer from
some statistical issues, such as non-stationarity and heteroscedasticity. Likewise, our
studies are concern on some statistical problems. Owing to this, my study and Sarkers
study (2012) run some steps to assess these statistical issues. For example, we regress
the first differenced variables to tackle a non-stationary issue. We also run the BreuschPagan test to ascertain that our data has no any heteroscedasticity issue. Please note
that if we use non-stationary data, we will get spurious regression, leading to incorrect
statistical results. Heteroscedasticity means data has changing variances over time,
leading to over fitted models.
In case of statistical models, this study (Sarker et al., 2012) concludes that
statistical models may be capable of investigating the impacts of climate change on
rice yields for some reasons. Firstly, statistical models are derived from historical data
of rice yields and climate so that they can capture the impacts of climate on rice yields
appropriately. For instance, this study and my study prove that climate such as
minimum temperature may significantly affect rice yields. Secondly, statistical models
require less data, such as climate and rice yields while crop models may need more
data, such as climate, rice yields and agricultural practices (Lobell & Burke, 2010). In
other words, this study (Sarker et al., 2012) can be a supporting study for my study in
using statistical models to assess the impacts of climate change.
Our study insist on assessing the impacts of climate change on rice for some
reasons. Firstly, our study claim that indicate that rice is important for economic growth
and employment. Secondly, rice is important as it may be planted throughout the year.

Thirdly, in the locus of our study, our study find that temperature has been increased
over time, leading to possible negative impacts of temperature on rice yields.
In brief, there are three important points of this paper. Firstly, statistical models
may more capable of assessing the impacts of climate change on crop yield. Secondly,
the impacts of temperature may negatively affect crop yield if observed temperature is
higher than its threshold. Thirdly, climate may have different impacts to different
cultivated rice. For example, the impacts of rainfall on irrigated crop may not significant
while the impacts of rainfall on non-irrigated crop might be significant. Fourthly, we
agree

that

statistical

procedures

such

as

the

first

differencing

and

any

heteroscedasticity test should be induced prior to statistical analysis. Fifthly, as rice

highly contributes to economic development and it may be vulnerable to high
temperature, understanding the impacts of climate on rice should be encouraged
appropriately.