Oh dear, another alarming press release from Stanford’s Noah Diffenbaugh. Apparently according to his super duper climate model, climate change is going to affect only premium wine grapes. So it appears Ripple, Franzia Box wine, and MD 20/20 are safe from climate change. Winos everywhere are rejoicing.
Diffenbaugh must not get his data from GISS, because they show the temperature as significantly higher in Napa, CA over 100 years ago and the last 7 years of data is downtrending sharply.
It seems the hottest annual temperature in Napa since 1900 was during the 1998 El Niño peak. Hmmm. Of course even that might be elevated a bit, since I found the USHCN station is sited next to an air conditioner vent and a large parking lot.
And in Walla Walla, Washington, another area studied, there appears to be no century scale trend in the data:
But what effect do observations have over the power of models and worrisome press releases sounding the alarm? Apparently none. Thank goodness we can safely exclude the last 110 years of data in favor of the model.
From Stanford University – Global warming could alter the US premium wine industry in 30 years, says Stanford study
Higher temperatures could significantly impact California and other premium winegrowing regions of the United States in the next 30 years, according to a new study led by Stanford University climate scientists.
Writing in the June 30 edition of Environmental Research Letters, the scientists report that by 2040, the amount of land suitable for cultivating premium wine grapes in high-value areas of northern California could shrink by 50 percent because of global warming. However, some cooler parts of Oregon and Washington State could see an increase in premium grape-growing acreage due to warming, according to the study.
These results come on the heels of the researchers’ 2006 climate study, which projected that as much as 81 percent of premium wine grape acreage in the U.S. could become unsuitable for some varietals by the end of the century.
“Our new study looks at climate change during the next 30 years – a timeframe over which people are actually considering the costs and benefits of making decisions on the ground,” said Noah Diffenbaugh, an assistant professor of environmental Earth system science and a center fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford, who co-authored both studies.
Climate change, from global to local
Most U.S. wine comes from the West Coast. California alone produces on average more than 5 million gallons per year, accounting for about 90 percent of the nation’s total wine production, according to the Wine Institute, a trade organization representing California winemakers. The institute estimated the retail value of the state’s wine industry in 2010 at $18.5 billion.
The new study focused on premium wines – the 25 percent most expensive wines on the market – and how global warming could affect growing conditions in four premium wine-producing counties by 2040: Napa and Santa Barbara counties in California, Yamhill County in Oregon’s Willamette Valley and Walla Walla County in Washington’s Columbia Valley.
“We focused on these counties because their mild climates have made them major sources of high-quality grapes, and because they represent both cool and warm growing conditions,” Diffenbaugh said.
But that could change, and soon.
“There will likely be significant localized temperature changes over the next three decades,” Diffenbaugh said. “One of our motivations for the study was to identify the potential impact of those changes, and also to identify the opportunities for growers to take action and adapt.”
Climate change for lovers of fine wine
The study was based on the assumption that there will be a 23 percent increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases by 2040, which could raise the average global temperature by about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) – a conservative scenario, according to Diffenbaugh. “World governments have said that to reduce the negative impacts of climate change, global warming should be limited to an increase of 1 degree Celsius,” he added.
To predict how much land area will be suitable for premium wine grape cultivation in coming decades, Diffenbaugh and his colleagues used a very high-resolution computer model that incorporated local, regional and global conditions, including factors such as coastal wind speeds and ocean temperatures. The researchers compared their simulations to actual weather data collected between 1960 and 2010 to see if their model could accurately “predict” past temperatures.
Using the climate model and the historical weather data, the researchers predicted that by 2040, all four counties are likely to experience higher average temperatures during growing seasons, along with an increase in the number of very hot days when the thermometer reaches 95 F (35 C) or above.
In the experiment, the scientists divided premium grape varieties into separate categories based on their tolerance to different temperature ranges. For example, Napa Valley – widely known for its pinot noir, cabernet sauvignon and other premium wines – has historically experienced growing seasons with an average temperature of less than 68 F (20 C) and fewer than 30 very hot days. Grapes that thrive in that climate have done well there.
According to the study, the average temperature in Napa Valley during the growing season could increase as much as 2 F (1.1 C), with the number of very hot days increasing by 10. As a result, the amount of land with historically hospitable growing conditions could shrink by half over the next three decades, the study found. In Santa Barbara County, the amount of suitable grape-growing acreage with similar climate conditions is projected to decline by more than 20 percent as temperatures rise.
“I was surprised that local temperature changes could have such a big impact on an important industry with only 1 degree Celsius of global warming.” Diffenbaugh said.
The study also predicted higher temperatures in Oregon and Washington by 2040, but with potentially different outcomes for winegrowers. Oregon’s Willamette Valley could see a slight increase in the amount of total suitable acreage and a large increase in area suitable for more valuable varieties, according to the study. But in Washington’s Columbia Valley, varietals that are sensitive to severely hot days could see a 30 percent reduction in suitable land area, the results showed.
Risky business
The researchers also looked at how much land could be available to growers who adapt to warmer conditions, such as by planting heat-tolerant vines or altering their cultivation practices. The study found that suitable acreage in Napa and Santa Barbara counties could actually be increased if growers are able to produce quality grapes that can tolerate up to 45 very hot days and average temperatures of 71 F (22 C) in the growing season. However, varieties currently grown in those conditions tend to produce considerably lower wine quality and value, the authors noted.
Winegrowers, with their knowledge of which cultivation techniques are most appropriate in a given climate, could benefit from the study’s forecasts of temperature conditions, Diffenbaugh said.
“Climate change over the next few decades is of particular relevance for the wine industry,” he said. “It’s a big investment to put plants in the ground. They’re slow to mature, and once they mature they’re productive for a long time.”
Some decisions growers make now could affect their vineyards in 30 years, he added, whether they consider the potential effects of local climate change or not. Moving a vineyard to a cooler location or planting different varietals could be costly for winegrowers, the study said. But in areas where less drastic temperature change is likely, growers may be able to maintain the quality of their grapes by using existing cultivation and winemaking techniques, Diffenbaugh said. Possible strategies include special trellis systems that shade vines, using irrigation to cool plants and adjusting fermentation processes in the winery.
“It’s risky for a grower to make decisions that consider climate change, because those decisions could be expensive and the climate may not change exactly as we expect,” Diffenbaugh said. “But there’s also risk in decisions that ignore global warming, because we’re finding that there are likely to be significant localized changes in the near term.”
“Humans are amazingly resilient, and individual growers will of course make decisions as they read the signs on the ground,” he added. “We’re trying to understand how the climate that works so well for growing great wine grapes right now might be affected by even modest global warming. We can’t know the future before it happens, but if we don’t ask the question, we may be surprised when reality unfolds.”
Other coauthors of the study are Michael White of Utah State University, Gregory Jones of Southern Oregon University and Moetasim Ashfaq of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a former postdoctoral researcher at Stanford.
The study was supported in part by a National Science Foundation CAREER award to Noah Diffenbaugh.
This article was written by Sascha Zubryd, a science-writing intern at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University.
It goes without saying that if one is going to undertake such a study, the outcome will likely have been predetermined.
The gentleman doesn’t know much about wine regions and grape growing.
“We focused on these counties because their mild climates have made them major sources of high-quality grapes, and because they represent both cool and warm growing conditions,” Diffenbaugh said.
Part A:
The Walla Walla area is mostly a case of “all bark and no bite” when it comes to wine grapes. While the wines made in the AVA are mostly considered “premium” it is a stretch to claim the region as a “major source” of such wines. In the following link (recent, but no date) it claims there are 100 wineries and 1,500 acres of grapes. You do the arithmetic! Most wine grapes in Washington State are from west of Walla Walla in the Tri-Cities to Yakima area and on the hills north of the Columbia River going west. For example, see this spot on Google Earth: 45.880883, -119.769913
With “Borders and Places” checked a small green symbol appears just beside the location indicator. This is a ridge, the top mostly rocks and unused but the slopes are all in grapes. It is called Canoe Ridge. There was a winery called Canoe Ridge – yup, in Walla Walla. The story is here:
http://www.avalonwine.com/canoe-ridge-vineyard.htm
Ownership changes have occurred but the point is that Walla Walla seems to be a good place from which to market wines, it is just not a good place to grow grapes.
Part B:
The Walla Walla area is topographically open to the north. Too frequent polar outbreaks bring bitterly cold air out of Canada and into the area. Wine grapes suffer. Deficient irrigation is used to harden off vines but there is often limited snow cover. See this:
http://www.yakima-herald.com/stories/2011/06/16/november-cold-spell-taking-its-toll-on-wine-grapes
To the northwest of Sunnyside (mentioned in the article) is the Rattlesnake Hills AVA. This area is protected from the cold by the high crest of the topography and the slopes themselves. See the look of the area by going here (between two of the named peaks): 46.489155, -120.217762
Zoom out until I-82 and the town of Yakima shows. That gives a good view. North of the interstate highway is an area of apples, cherries, apricots, and many other fruits – including wine grapes. See here:
http://www.rattlesnakehills.com/index.html
I know of this area because I helped write the proposal to the government for the AVA designation.
Conclusion: The author of the report considered in this posting fails to realize that Walla Walla would greatly benefit by a few degrees of warming.
“But in Washington’s Columbia Valley, varietals that are sensitive to severely hot days could see a 30 percent reduction in suitable land area, the results showed.”
Suitable land in Washington’s Columbia Valley is based on the availability of irrigation water – which, by the way, is used as mist for evaporative cooling on hot days. Grape growers, particularly in Walla Walla, will likely welcome global warming. They won’t have to buy so many grapes from other AVAs nor label their wine with the larger Columbia Valley AVA.
Now I’ll go back and read the comments of others.
So what, no-one can tell the difference anyway unless you’ve been endowed with some fantastic Gore-given intelligence- like how anthropogenic CO2 warms the Earth for instance.
From the home of the irascible Moonbat:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/apr/14/expensive-wine-cheap-plonk-taste
“It’s risky for a grower to make decisions that consider climate change, because those decisions could be expensive and the climate may not change exactly as we expect,” Diffenbaugh said. “But there’s also risk in decisions that ignore global warming, because we’re finding that there are likely to be significant localized changes in the near term.”
Say it isn’t so! Damned if you do, and damned if you don’t! That’s as perfect a business model as could be devised, Dr. Diffenbaugh. “Likely” to be localized changes in the near term? What in heaven’s name does that mean? Weather? Alcohol abuse? Sorry. I can’t swallow this claptrap. Ripple indeed. This is peer-reviewed garbage.
Climate variation is nothing new to the Yamhill area of Oregon. There was a time you could not grow grapes of any quality there. It was all a lake – a lake large enough and deep enough that the largest erratic in the state could drift in from Canada and settle on one of the highest elevations in the region.
http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/county/cpyamhillhome.html
And it wasn’t all that long ago, either.
Grapes, like most fruits, are a little tempermental. 2009 the grapes in the south-west part of South-East Queensland, places near Stanthorpe etc suffered a series of severe late October to early November frosts, causing loss of crops…. so unexpected cold causes crop loss. Then in October – January 2010-2011 excessive rain put paid to most of the crops in south-east Queensland as much of the fruit ‘split’. Historically though much of Queensland has a cool dry winter leading into a dry spring and a tropical wet Summer so increased temperatures shifting the growing season away from the tropical wet part of the year would be advantageous (I had heard a report on the radio a couple of years ago stating that as well) due in part to mildew issues etc.
Panic and loss of grape production is nothing new in the scheme of global warming misinformation tactics from Australia’s CSIRO…. http://www.csiro.au/news/ps2ei.html ‘research’ from 2006. Interestingly one of the names appearing on the list is Dr Penny Whetton, very much a product of the Climate Change Warmist set within government circles. In an exhange I had with her (very nice person to talk to I might add so not typically what we would expect from warmists) via chat after a replay of Insight on SBS that had Dr Schnieder against Skeptics (originally shown in Sept 2010) back in May this year, if you look in the chat log at 9:10 for my comment and 9:17 for her response, you can see she puts more emphasis in 15 years of dry (which featured the 3rd largest drought Victoria had over the past century) than the 50 years of above average rainfall from 1950-2000.
http://www.sbs.com.au/insight/episode/index/id/401/The-Sceptics#livechat
Harrah!
If they are right then Oregon and Washington (and Canada?) wines will increase in quality!!!
Not to mention that England would resume its rightful place as wine capital displacing those newbie French vineyards! (any wonder France doesn’t want it to warm up from the Little Ice Age?).
Bah!! My client, Ernest & Julio Gallo Winery, and I scoff at your fine, fruity pinot noir wines with their hints of blackberry, black cherry, and toasted caramel. We laugh as you drain your bank accounts to buy poofy wines with designer labels!!
When the climate changes, we’ll still be there, better than ever. If we can’t sell our wine, we’ll use it for biofuel.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ba7lj8a1Awo/Rwn52B19mlI/AAAAAAAACqk/utrlpsdsliQ/s1600-h/gallo+c.jpg
The temperature records for most of eastern WA and southern BC stations show that there was a warming between 1980 and 2000. Since then the temps have mostly dropped. Sunnyside in the Yakima Valley show a precipitous drop since 2000.
See for yourself here: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/findstation.py?datatype=gistemp&data_set=0&name=oroville%2C+wa&world_map.x=124&world_map.y=107
Granted its GISS, but that the tool we have available.
My comments above however do not endorse any particular cause for rising temps during the period when the wineries expanded. If asked I would say there’s not a lot of evidence currently that supports any specific cause.
Based on conversations with an old friend from Osooyoos, BC who was expanding her family’s vineyards during the 1980’s, the primarily reason for that expansion was economic rather than climatic. Rising temperatures were a bonus rather than the reason for the choice of crop. Prior to grapes, her dad mostly grew apricots and cherries. Grapes got a better price and cost a lot less to irrigate.
Why there is no decent red wine in Japan and East Asia? Because Oyashio doesn’t get far enough southwards. Look at the world map of oceanic currents, and it becomes obvious the best wines, especially red ones, come from areas where cold currents enter [sub]tropics. (Some smaller currents, like Falkland, are not shown on that map).
People have been planting grapes for many centuries without the help of Noah Diffenbaugh or other ‘climate experts’.
This study is just a plain waste of time and money and reflects badly on Stanford University. Have they nothing better to do? Maybe it involved lots of ‘research’ in premium Napa wineries and perhaps a trip or two to the CIA.
John F. Hultquist says:
July 2, 2011 at 10:04 am
A nice post!
I live right next to Rattlesnake MT. area.
Yes it is better to grow grapes in the “Columbia Basin” than in Walla Walla county.Desert Aire between Vantage and Richland on 1-80 freeway,is a more recent developing wine making area.
http://www.daoa.org/attractions.htm
Washington Wines and Wineries
Wine Country Map
http://www.gonorthwest.com/Washington/Wines/washington_wine_map.htm
My experience as a land owner in north central Washington state is that the growth of the wine industry is tied closer to the regional collapse of the apple and soft fruits industry than anything dished up by the weather.
Swedish Pete says:
July 2, 2011 at 8:32 am
Interesting link. It looks as if the quantities produced have been going up. I see that the figures also:
“Excludes substandard wine produced as distilling material for the production of brandy.”
Interesting topic.
I was cautionning an association of wine growers on the Saanich Peninsula north of Victoria BC not to assume that temperatures will continue to increase.
Their display at the Saanich Fair last year included a graph of a growing parameter, perhaps “degree days”. One artifact of interest was an anomalous year in the 1950s, that I have not researched. (That’s a problem with agriculture, of course – a bad year can hurt, both financially and kill perennial plants.)
The Saanich Peninsula has traditionally had much agriculture but is marginal for grapes. Temps are moderated by the ocean water on three sides. Conditions are somewhat better in the Cowichan Valley, but nothing like the wine grape areas of the Okanagan and Yakima Valleys on the mainland (both inland of mountains, much drier climate).
But people try, including to get the cachet of a name. On nearby Salt Spring Island two wineries have been established in what may be the only place suitable – a southerly facing slope in the middle of the island.
I for one fear not….
What’s the word?
Thunderbird!
What’s the Price?
Thirty Twice……
If you h8 others then U stab yourself, immediately.
Sounds like the result will be an increase in grape acreage for 2 buck chuck.
That should work out well. If the warmists get their way that’s all we will be able to afford!
You cant look at an annual GISS temp to understand the problem:
“According to the study, the average temperature in Napa Valley during the growing season could increase as much as 2 F (1.1 C), with the number of very hot days increasing by 10. As a result, the amount of land with historically hospitable growing conditions could shrink by half over the next three decades, the study found. ”
There is a very natural way of looking at this problem. If the average temperature during the growing season in NAPA changes, then grape product will be impacted. The real question is
how confident can one be about the predictions, and what can and should we do about it.
Thanks Doug. As you noted, the temperature records for the Eastern Washington drylands show a very similar pattern, rising from 1980 to 2000, falling since then.
We too have seen wine grapes displacing other fruit crops as the value of the grapes increases.
We have also seen labor intensive irrigated crops like asparagus being replaced by fiber farms where stands of fast-growing cottonwood trees are planted as a source of pulp fiber for paper and cardboard.
More profit, less maintenance and expense.
These fiber farms have also had a very substantial cooling effect on the microclimates immediately surrounding the fields where they are planted.
I grew up in Kenwood, in the Sonoma Valley, in the 1970’s. I also worked in a winery as a teenager. It is my recollection that temperatures were hotter at that time, and that they typically stayed hot into November (I ran cross-country in HS, so I was well aware).
What vintners feared most certainly wasn’t heat. It was early or late rain, and the resulting fungal issues. As anyone who lives in these regions will tell you, brix/must density/sugar content testing will inform you as to when to harvest. The longer you leave it on the vine, the higher will be the sugar content. Wait to long, however, and you risk rain or freezing.
If California gets too hot for grapes then of course Oregon and Washington could pick up the slack. The problem there recently is that the temperatures have not been that warm this year and especially the high temperatures are lagging.
http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/2011/06/regional-temperature-update-2011/
What’s interesting to note is that it is less any so called global warming that makes us in the northern north hemisphere grow all kinds of southern comfort produce like grape, but due to effective gene manipulation. Why is it that the average hippie have a problem with gene manipulated wheat that took less than ten years to manipulate but not gene manipulated wheat that took 30 years to make or wine from scandinavia from GMO grapes, or for that matter vodka from “GMO” sugar beats or “GMO” potatoes.
Blooy IDIOT. He didn’t even bother to look at the climate for one of the largest grape growing regions in the world, Bordeaux France. I live here. Temperature today 29°C, Temperature last week 39°C, temperature next week 32°C. Average for june, July , August ~ 26°C. Grapes grown. Pinot Noir, Cabinet, Sauvignon et lots of others.
The man is a complete, absolute, bloody idiot. Get a life numbscull. Mon dieu!!
It only means the geographic range within which grapes can be grown will move up slope or down slope, north or south, depending on whether the warmists or coolists are most accurate. Grapes are grown where they are because conditions are right for it. In the future that will be true also. Where, then, is conditional on climate. Same as it was 2000 years ago. As a population, “we” don’t do anything. It is not our problem. What vintners do is move with the climate. Vinyards always have moved with the climate.
It is the same for coffee trees – I have six of them growing here in Washington state where it is very unlikely for them to be, and they produce delicious beans. It is not commercially viable using my methods (a living room window for light, and a living room for climate control).