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The study of the impact of high temperature and drought on the yield of major staple crops can provide important scientific support for the decision-making of agricultural sustainable development. Based on the temperature and precipitation data of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) ERA 5 for northern China, this paper calculates three indexes, the standard precipitation index (SPI), standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) and the extreme degree-day (EDD), from 1979 to 2017. Monthly SPI and monthly SPEI were calculated at 1 – to – 12 month lags, and EDD was calculated per crop growth season. The yield of winter wheat, spring wheat and summer maize in each province of the study area from 1979 to 2017 was de-trended, and the relative fluctuation of the yield of the three crops was calculated. The change trends of SPI, SPEI and EDD were analysed using the Mann–Kendall test and Sen's slope. The single and interactive effects of high temperature and drought on crop yield were studied using multidimensional Copula function. The results show that: 1) Both high temperature and drought stress in northern China show an increasing trend. The drought trend in the study area detected based on SPEI was greater than the drought trend detected by SPI. The difference between SPEI and SPI in the winter wheat growing season was smaller than that in the spring wheat and maize growing seasons. 2) With the increase in EDD and the decrease of SPI/SPEI values, the probability of negative yield fluctuation gradually increased, and the probability of positive yield fluctuation gradually decreased. Under the same drought and high temperature conditions, the probability of yield fluctuation varies among different crops and different provinces. Drought has a greater impact on crop yield than high temperature. Both the single and interactive effects of drought and high temperature on yield are nonlinear. 3) Irrigation can effectively alleviate the impact of drought and high temperature on yield. In heavily irrigated provinces, the effects of both high temperature and drought on crop yield are not obvious. • The impact of high temperature and drought stress on yield is analysed by a probability model. • The effects of high temperature and drought on yield are non-linear. • Irrigation can offset some of the effects of high temperature and drought on yield. • SPEI may overestimate the impact of drought on yield while SPI may underestimate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Frequency and severity of droughts were projected to increase in many regions. However, their effects of temporal dynamics on the terrestrial carbon cycle remain uncertain, and hence deserve further investigation. In this paper, the droughts that occurred in China during 2001–2010 were identified by using the standardized precipitation index (SPI). Standardized anomaly index (SAI), which has been widely employed in reflecting precipitation, was extended to evaluate the anomalies of net primary productivity (NPP). In addition, influences of the droughts on vegetation were explored by examining the temporal dynamics of SAI–NPP along with area-weighted drought intensity at different time scales (1, 3, 6, 9 and 12 months). Year-to-year variability of NPP with several factors, including droughts, NDVI, radiation and temperature, was analyzed as well. Consequently, the droughts in the years 2001, 2006 and 2009 were well reconstructed. This indicates that SPI could be applied to the monitoring of the droughts in China during the past decade (2001–2010) effectively. Moreover, strongest correlations between droughts and NPP anomalies were found during or after the drought intensities reached their peak values. In addition, some droughts substantially reduced the countrywide NPP, whereas the others did not. These phenomena can be explained by the regional diversities of drought intensity, drought duration, areal extents of the droughts, as well as the cumulative and lag responses of vegetation to the precipitation deficits. Besides the drought conditions, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), radiation and temperature also contribute to the interannual variability of NPP. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]