Abstract

The implications of weather and climate extremes on the viticulture and winemaking sector can be particularly detrimental and acquire more relevance under a climate change context. A four-member ensemble of the Regional Climate Model-Global Climate Model chain simulations is used to evaluate the potential impacts of climate change on indices of extreme temperature and precipitation, as well as on agroclimatic indices of viticultural suitability in the Douro Wine Region, Portugal, under current and future climate conditions, following the RCP8.5 anthropogenic radiative forcing scenario. Historical (1989–2005) and future (2051–2080) periods are considered for this purpose. Although model outputs are bias-corrected to improve the accuracy of the results, owing to the sensitivity of the climatic indicators to the specific bias correction method, the performance of the linear and quantile mapping methods are compared. The results hint at the importance of choosing the most accurate method (quantile mapping), not only in replicating extremes events but also in reproducing the accumulated agroclimatic indices. Significant differences between the bias correction methods are indeed found for the number of extremely warm days (maximum temperature > 35 °C), number of warm spells, number of warm spell days, number of consecutive dry days, the Dryness Index, and growing season precipitation. The Huglin Index reveals lower sensitivity, thus being more robust to the choice of the method. Hence, an unsuitable bias correction method may hinder the accuracy of climate change projections in studies heavily relying on derived extreme indices and agroclimatic indicators, such as in viticulture. Regarding the climate change signal, significant warming and drying trends are projected throughout the target region, which is supported by previous studies, but also accompanied by an increase of intensity, frequency, and duration of extreme events, namely heatwaves and dry spells. These findings thereby corroborate the need to adopt timely and effective adaptation strategies by the regional winemaking sector to warrant its future sustainability and enhance climate resilience.

Highlights

  • Climate change is considered a major threat to the whole Earth’s climate system, its components and interactions [1]

  • In terms of extreme temperatures, the results provided by several studies are much more consensual, evidencing that the number, duration, and intensity of heatwaves are expected to increase over the Iberian Peninsula [20,21,22,23]

  • The region is divided into three subregions, which is a clear manifestation of the east–west gradients in both temperature and precipitation, known as Baixo-Corgo, CimaCorgo, and Douro Superior

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Summary

Introduction

Climate change is considered a major threat to the whole Earth’s climate system, its components and interactions [1]. Has the mean temperature increased but the extremely high-temperature events have intensified [2,3,4,5,6]. Since the mid-20th century, changes in extreme events have been observed worldwide and have been extensively reported by the scientific community [1]. Among such events, temperature and precipitation extremes tend to be meaningful, owing to the critical role played by these two atmospheric elements on a wide spectrum of natural systems and socio-economic sectors. Changes in the extremes of minimum temperatures are expected to be more pronounced than in maximum temperatures [10]

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