Abstract: Based on the measurements of rice growth and the ordinary meteorological observations from eight main agro-meteorological stations in Jiangsu Province in 1986-2007, this paper analyzed the characteristics of generation circulation corresponding to the abnormal strong and southern subtropica
l high pressure in 2003 (the year with a typically high temperature), the relationships between the abnormalities of subtropical high pressure and previous sea surface temperature, and the physiological responses of rice to the abnormal high temperature during its crucial development stages. In the meantime, a field correlation analysis was made on the relationships between the harm index of high temperature in the northern (Huaibei), middle (Jianghuai), and southern (Sunan)areas of Jiangsu and the sea surface temperature (SST) of Western Pacific. The results showed that the harm index of high temperature in the three areas was highly correlated with the SST of Nino area, northern area, and warm pool area of Western Pacific, respectively, but the significance and temporal evolution of the correlations varied among the areas. The transformation of SST was conducted tooptimize its correlation with the harm index of high temperature, and an increased reliability of SST acting as a predictor of high temperature harm was obtained. The simulation results of the established models in predicting high temperature harm to rice in Huaibei, Jianghuai and Sunan areas of Jiangsu Province were significant at 0.01 level.

Key words: high temperature harm to rice, prediction model, climate cause, air-sea interaction, overwintering ground, climate change, community pattern, diversity.