Abstract: Based on the meteorological observation and winter wheat production data during 1981-2012 from 88 counties well spreading over the winter wheat growing regions of Sichuan Province, the sensitivity and vulnerability of winter wheat production to climatic factors and climate change were estimated by using the regression method. The results showed that the air temperature and diurnal temperature range increased in the entire growth period of winter wheat during 1981-2012, but the precipitation and solar radiation showed decreasing trends in some counties while showed increasing trends in others. With a 1 ℃ increase of air temperature in growing-season, 1 ℃ increase of diurnal temperature range, 100 mm decrease of precipitation and a 100 MJ·m^-2 decrease of radiation, the yield of winter wheat in some of these regions was sensitive to the changes. From sowing to maturity, the area of winter wheat that was sensitive to decreasing precipitation is the largest, which took 6.5% of the total sown area. As for vulnerability, the area vulnerable to decreasing radiation was the largest, which was 2.4%. As for different growth stages of winter wheat, the area of winter wheat that were sensitive and vulnerable to the decrease of radiation during sowing to jointing period were the largest, which were 9.4% and 7.9% respectively. Taking the four climatic variables together into consideration, the area of winter wheat that had significant change in yield was roughly 40.0%, and the yield changed -23.0%-9.5%, but the area showed vulnerability took about 14.0%. The region with yield vulnerability mainly located in the northwest plateau of Sichuan, and part of western basin, southern basin and southwest Sichuan.

Key words: climate change, sensitivity, Sichuan, vulnerability, yield of winter wheat