Abstract
A comprehensive analysis of all the possible impacts of future climate change is crucial for strategic plans of adaptation for viticulture. Assessments of future climate are generally based on the ensemble mean of state-of-the-art climate model projections, which prefigures a gradual warming over Europe for the 21st century. However, a few models project single or multiple O(10) year temperature drops over the North Atlantic due to a collapsing subpolar gyre (SPG) oceanic convection. The occurrence of these decadal-scale “cold waves” may have strong repercussions over the continent, yet their actual impact is ruled out in a multi-model ensemble mean analysis. Here, we investigate these potential implications for viticulture over Europe by coupling dynamical downscaled EUR-CORDEX temperature projections for the representative concentration pathways (RCP)4.5 scenario from seven different climate models—including CSIRO-Mk3-6-0 exhibiting a SPG convection collapse—with three different phenological models simulating the main developmental stages of the grapevine. The 21st century temperature increase projected by all the models leads to an anticipation of all the developmental stages of the grapevine, shifting the optimal region for a given grapevine variety northward, and making climatic conditions suitable for high-quality wine production in some European regions that are currently not. However, in the CSIRO-Mk3-6-0 model, this long-term warming trend is suddenly interrupted by decadal-scale cold waves, abruptly pushing the suitability pattern back to conditions that are very similar to the present. These findings are crucial for winemakers in the evaluation of proper strategies to face climate change, and, overall, provide additional information for long-term plans of adaptation, which, so far, are mainly oriented towards the possibility of continuous warming conditions.
Highlights
The production of high-quality wine represents a valuable cultural and economic patrimony for many local communities all over Europe, notably in France, Italy, and Spain, which together account for about half of the world production [1]
We analyze different downscaled projections provided by the EURO-CORDEX exercise [44,45], and we mainly focus on the CSIRO-Mk6-3-0 model, which belongs to that cluster of CMIP5 models exhibiting a subpolar gyre (SPG) convection collapse during the 21st century [41]
In order to evaluate if these different temperature behaviors over the SPG propagates in the surrounding regions and penetrate over the continents, Figure 1 shows the maximum 10-year temperature drop throughout the 21st century over Europe, against the 100-year temperature trend for each available CMIP5 projection
Summary
The production of high-quality wine represents a valuable cultural and economic patrimony for many local communities all over Europe, notably in France, Italy, and Spain, which together account for about half of the world production [1]. Along with particular local soil compositions, typical grape varieties, and the expertise in vineyard management maturated and handed down over centuries, specific climatic conditions define the concept of terroir [3,4]. Agronomy 2019, 9, 397 wine production is, in this context, acknowledged by specific certifications in Europe and preserved by regional regulations, like, inter alia, the French AOC (Appellation d’Origine Controlee), the Italian DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita), and the Spanish DO (Denominación de Origen). Due to the ongoing climate change, earlier phenological events have been registered in the last decades over most of the traditional vineyards of Europe, e.g., in Bordeaux and Rhone Valley [7,8], northeast Spain [9], northeast Italy [10,11], and Piedmont [12]
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