French wineries burning kerosene candles to drive back the frost. Source. President Macron

CNRS: “Global warming can lead to increased frost damage!”

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

According to Climate Scientists, Europe’s bitterly cold April would have been colder if it hadn’t been for climate change, so we must step up our effort to fight global warming.

Global Warming Is Increasing the Likelihood of Frost Damage in Vineyards

Late frosts are becoming less likely, but early growing seasons are leaving vines even more vulnerable.

By Mike Pomranz July 06, 2021

A common retort to global warming (and one of the reasons many people prefer the term “climate change”) is “If the Earth is warming, what’s up with this cold?” All intended snark aside, it’s a question scientists are genuinely interested in: Weather patterns are extremely complicated (just ask your weather app that’s never right) and determining how individual incidents tie into larger climate shifts is difficult.

For instance, this past April, France was hit with a devastating frost, affecting 80 percent of vineyards with estimated damages of around $2 billion: not the kind of outcome you’d expect from a warming planet. But new analysis from a team of European researchers suggests that this damage was ultimately tied to climate change — not because April was so cold, but because March was so warm.

“There is an apparent paradox: global warming can lead to increased frost damage!” Robert Vautard, senior scientist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and director of the Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace, stated, discussing the paper he co-authored. “Our results show that climate change is making both the growing season start earlier and frosts become warmer, but the former effect dominates over the latter. The consequence is that vineyards grow and mature faster now, but this leaves them more exposed to eventual colder snaps.”

Read more: https://www.foodandwine.com/news/wine-grape-frost-global-warming-climate-change-linked

I mean there is clearly only one solution – we need to cut CO2 emissions, to ensure the return of bitterly cold Little Ice Age winters, to save French winery vineyards.

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Scissor
July 7, 2021 10:19 am

What’s next? It leads to shrinkage?

Reply to  Scissor
July 7, 2021 10:32 am

Hey Scissor. Would you be referring to something akin to the Seinfeld episode on shrinkage?

Scissor
Reply to  David Kamakaris
July 7, 2021 10:55 am

Oh nuts, was it that obvious?

Reply to  Scissor
July 7, 2021 11:10 am

Yep! No worries, though. It’s only a matter of time before it’s added to the list of CAGW effects.

Bill Powers
Reply to  David Kamakaris
July 7, 2021 11:59 am

Just above hangnails and plantar warts.

Tom in Florida
Reply to  Bill Powers
July 7, 2021 1:47 pm

You can get rid of plantar warts by applying clear nail polish to them. It suffocates them and they die. Been there, done that.

Gregory F Lane
Reply to  Tom in Florida
July 7, 2021 1:49 pm

Hmmm, wondering if you could smear some on a Warmunista and get the same results?!

Sara
Reply to  Gregory F Lane
July 7, 2021 6:11 pm

If you find out, please let us know how it works! Thanks!

Reply to  David Kamakaris
July 8, 2021 8:06 am

A matter of time? You mean it’s HASN’T been already?

PaulH
Reply to  David Kamakaris
July 7, 2021 1:47 pm

There’s a Seinfeld episode for everything 😁

Forrest
Reply to  PaulH
July 7, 2021 8:52 pm

I was in the pool…

Streetcred
Reply to  David Kamakaris
July 7, 2021 3:30 pm

For many of them that would cause further brain damage 😉

Duane
Reply to  Streetcred
July 7, 2021 6:36 pm

How does one damage mush?

Reply to  Streetcred
July 8, 2021 1:34 am

Especially if they stay a long time under water (in the pool)…

David Blenkinsop
Reply to  Streetcred
July 8, 2021 3:41 pm

Sometimes, it’s hard not to consider that both alarmist “scientists” and credulous reporters *must* be suffering from some sort of brain damage — or else it’s really the result of an ideology so insidious it’s almost the same thing..

Reply to  Scissor
July 7, 2021 6:09 pm

What’s next? It leads to shrinkage?”

Yes. It leads to lots of frightened turtles!

Duane
Reply to  Scissor
July 7, 2021 6:22 pm

Global warming causes global cooling.

Reply to  Duane
July 8, 2021 1:14 am

Life imitates art…

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/07/04/global-warming-stalls-again-back-to-levels-seen-20-years-ago-and-no-warming-in-tokyo-this-century/#comment-3285353

The lying greens are now reduced to claiming that global warming causes cooling. “It’s like, y’know, sort of…”
 
It even sounds false and stupid when they say it fast. 🙂
 
CONCORD, NH JUST BUSTED A CENTURY-OLD LOW TEMPERATURE RECORD
July 6, 2021
Another cold front to forecast to move in Wednesday, one which will sweep the majority of the North American continent, felling hundreds of additional low temp records as it goes.

Reply to  Duane
July 8, 2021 1:37 am

Reminds me of Orwell’s “Ignorance is strength”…

oebele bruinsma
Reply to  Scissor
July 7, 2021 10:49 pm

Just have a look what “Global Warming” can do: https://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm

dk_
July 7, 2021 10:28 am

Is there an agronomist in the house? One must wonder if R.Vautard has had any access to (or concept of) near a thousand years of European viniculture history. I don’t think you’d have to go back more than 30 years to find similar incidents.

Reply to  dk_
July 7, 2021 10:53 am

According to experts, the wine harvest in France is expected to be the weakest since 1945. The reason for this, they say, was an unusually mild March in the spring, but this was followed by a frosty April that destroyed shoots and buds in large regions of the country.
Extreme weather conditions

The French Ministry of Agriculture expects a total of 37.2 million hectoliters of production this year – 18 percent less than in 2016 and 17 percent below the average of the last five years. Already in 2016, the harvest was one of the weakest in more than 30 years. The figures from the ministry are based on assessments carried out at the beginning of August – before the harvest, which in some regions of France started two weeks earlier than usual due to weather conditions. 2017

Worst wine harvest since 1945 German

At this point, vineyards in Switzerland, large parts of France and even Italy still had the worst ahead of them. The unusually late and, in its severity for the time of year, almost unprecedented onset of frost last week caused severe problems for vintners and fruit growers in all these countries.

Although there is still no reliable balance sheet after the temporary end of the bitterly cold nights, because the damage to shoots and blossoms is only gradually becoming apparent. But in southern Styria, which was worst hit, winegrowers are already talking about

vintners are already talking about losses of between 70 percent and total. This would be a catastrophe for the small wine country of Austria, which finally needed a large harvest again. The worst was apparently the night of April 27, when temperatures dropped to minus six degrees in some places; by then, all countermeasures were of no use.
Frost damage even reported from Puglia

Similar reports are coming in from Burgundy in France: Across the growing region, even sections that normally escape frost were affected – an “extremely rare phenomenon,” as the Professional Association of Burgundy Wines (BIVB) writes. The greatest damage was apparently in Chablis, in the north of the Cote de Beaune and on the Loire. But even in the Languedoc, much further south, and even from some Italian growing areas such as Campania and Puglia, frost damage was reported 2016

Fire for the vines German

Frost damage from the spring is causing serious problems for French winegrowers. Wine production is expected to fall by around 17 percent this year, making it “historically low”.
This year’s wine harvest is also causing problems for winegrowers in France.

This was announced by the Ministry of Agriculture on Friday in a first assessment. According to the report, production is expected to fall to 37 to 38.2 million hectoliters from 45.5 million in 2016. The average value of this range would be 17 percent below last year and 16 percent below average. 2018

France grape harvest threatens record low due to spring frost

Reply to  Krishna Gans
July 7, 2021 10:56 am

I’m sure there were earlier events, but couldn’t find them.

markl
July 7, 2021 10:40 am

Aha! It’s the paradox! That’ll do it every time.

Anon
Reply to  markl
July 8, 2021 9:12 am

It is even more paradoxical when you consider the symptoms/weather of Global Warming and Global Cooling are identical:

Medieval Witch Hunts Influenced by Climate Change

“Anno 1626 the 27th of May, all the vineyards were totally destroyed by frost […], the same with the precious grain which had already flourished.[…] Everything froze, [something] which had not happened as long as one could remember, causing a big rise in price.[…] As a result, pleading and begging began among the peasants, [who] questioned why the authorities continued to tolerate the witches and sorcerers destruction of the crops. Thus the prince-bishop punished these crimes, and the persecution began in this year…”

“1445, in this year was a very strong hail and wind, as never seen before, and it did great damage, […] and so many women, which it’s said to have made the hail and the wind, were burned according to the law.”

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/history-of-geology/medieval-witch-hunts-influenced-by-climate-change/

And heat waves and droughts:

How to survive a Little Ice Age

In February 1540 rainfall effectively ceased, falling only six times in London between then and September. It was not only exceptionally dry but warm:

“This year was a hot summer and dry, so that no rain fell from June till eight days after Michaelmas [29 September], so that in divers parts of this realm the people carried their cattle six or seven miles to water them, and also much cattle died; and also there reigned strange sickness among the people in this realm, as laskes [dysentery] and hot agues, and also pestilence, whereof many people died…”

Edward Hall noted that the drought dried up wells and small rivers, while the Thames was so shallow that “saltwater flowed above London Bridge”, polluting the water supply and contributing to the dysentery and cholera, which killed people in their thousands. In Rome, no rain fell in nine months; in Paris, the Seine ran dry. Grapes withered on the vine and fruit rotted on trees. Even the small respite of autumn and winter was followed by a second warm spring and another blisteringly hot summer. Forests began to die until, in late 1541, rain fell and fell. 1542 was a year of widespread flooding.

https://unherd.com/2021/03/how-to-survive-a-little-ice-age/

But scientists attribute all of these to warming now. (okey dokey)

ResourceGuy
July 7, 2021 10:42 am

It’s the new Climate Ouija board, with heavy-handed agendas of course and most steering toward the money.

Abolition Man
Reply to  ResourceGuy
July 7, 2021 2:00 pm

Ouija boards are too complicated for most alarmists; they rely on the Magic Climate 8-Ball! “All indications are CO2!”

July 7, 2021 10:43 am

A contradiction? And this is unexpected?

If it wasn’t for logical contradictions, the political left would have no support for any of its agenda.

Bill Powers
Reply to  co2isnotevil
July 7, 2021 12:02 pm

If we attempted to visualize the Warmista alarmist narrative it would look like a Salvador Dali painting.

Max P
Reply to  Bill Powers
July 8, 2021 10:17 am

It would be a choose your own adventure book where all the choices, eventually, lead to the same page.

Philo
July 7, 2021 11:03 am

There seems to be a problem attributing a few nice March days as the cause of a later cold spell.

Duane
Reply to  Philo
July 7, 2021 6:35 pm

In days past, it was commonly said that March was a month that either came in like a lion and left like a lamb … or else came in like a lamb and left like a lion. We called it “weather”.

Wharfplank
July 7, 2021 11:10 am

It clearly leads to a ridiculously persistent marine layer in SoCal…ZoomEarth don’t lie. It’s 11:00 am and gloomy, in July!

meab
Reply to  Wharfplank
July 7, 2021 1:04 pm

In the Pacific NW where we had a short hear wave a few days ago, I had to run my furnace today as we’re now having below average temperatures. Funny how the weather changes.

IAMPCBOB
Reply to  meab
July 7, 2021 1:42 pm

I saw somewhere the other day where this was predicted and EXPECTED, too!

fretslider
July 7, 2021 11:16 am

‘frosts become warmer’

But of course they do…

Reply to  fretslider
July 7, 2021 1:17 pm

…war is peace…freedom is slavery… warm is cold…

It’s all explicitly laid out in the lefts user manual.

Duane
Reply to  Climate believer
July 7, 2021 6:24 pm

1984

clarence.t
Reply to  fretslider
July 7, 2021 1:48 pm

yep . frosts now form when its 20ºC overnight

The world is weirding 😉

Sara
Reply to  clarence.t
July 7, 2021 6:14 pm

Yes, but it’s ONLY ending for the Warmiuans and the ecohippies.

The rest of us are just fine.

Reply to  fretslider
July 8, 2021 8:08 am

If it keeps up, frosts will be boiling!

Ed Zuiderwijk
July 7, 2021 11:18 am

A warmer world leads to more and colder colds. Yeah, and, incidently, pigs can fly.

Reply to  Ed Zuiderwijk
July 7, 2021 11:44 am

Pink Floyd told us already about flying pigs 😀

Reply to  Ed Zuiderwijk
July 7, 2021 2:09 pm

It’s cold because it’s warmer.
Another turkey claim from the “settled science” of CAGW!
(Wish I knew how to post a certain video clip from WKRP!)

Streetcred
Reply to  Ed Zuiderwijk
July 7, 2021 3:33 pm

Summer heat causes winter cold !

July 7, 2021 11:25 am

 “Our results show that climate change is making both the growing season start earlier and frosts become warmer, but the former effect dominates over the latter. The consequence is that vineyards grow and mature faster now, but this leaves them more exposed to eventual colder snaps.”

Sounds like he’s been sampling a little too much of the product.

Abolition Man
Reply to  Right-Handed Shark
July 7, 2021 2:06 pm

RHS,
Are you sure he wasn’t sampling some of that ergot derivative made popular for the CIA by Timothy Leary?

Bruce Ranta
Reply to  Right-Handed Shark
July 7, 2021 5:12 pm

‘frosts become warmer…’ wtf?

Sara
Reply to  Bruce Ranta
July 7, 2021 6:15 pm

Yes, I would like to have a complete explanation of how cold makes heat, and which dimension in the Twilight Zone is dispensing this information.

Thank you.

Reply to  Right-Handed Shark
July 8, 2021 8:09 am

I think he was sampling a different product.

July 7, 2021 11:30 am

Pomranz, apparently oblivious to the irony said, “just ask your weather app that’s never right.”

The climate is comparably unpredictable, so statements about future conditions are pure speculation. And the speculations are coming from people who have a long history of failed predictions.
https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-of-failed-eco-pocalyptic-predictions/

July 7, 2021 12:36 pm

Even if global temps fell by 2 degrees in the next decade, climate scammers will just say “see, we told you! If it wasn’t for global warming it would’ve fell 2.5 degrees! We were right, now pay us more.”

Scammers never cease their ways until justice is served to them.

July 7, 2021 12:50 pm

These alarmists think that those of us who dare to question their views are all eejits.

Nick B
July 7, 2021 12:51 pm

“WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”

John Boland
July 7, 2021 1:00 pm

So this is science? I should have stuck with Jerry Springer and the National Enquirer.

Reply to  John Boland
July 8, 2021 8:20 am

I think Enquirer is accurate more often than these prognosticators.

July 7, 2021 1:24 pm

Obesity leads to starvation.
Wealth leads to poverty
Blindness leads to 20-20 vision

All of these statements are true because I’m a scientist and I said so.

Abolition Man
Reply to  Doonman
July 7, 2021 2:11 pm

Sounds like you used to work at the same ranch I was at! If you piled the manure high enough and deep enough, you received a doctorate!

WXcycles
Reply to  Doonman
July 7, 2021 5:17 pm

If you have a consensus that’s good enough for me.

Duane
Reply to  Doonman
July 7, 2021 6:28 pm

The warmists believe that they are the Masters of Irony, while failing to recognize the irony of their constant self contradictions.

The irony of not realizing one’s own irony.

Now I’m confused! 😜

Jeff Labute
July 7, 2021 1:24 pm

Climate Claim: Climate change causes activists and woke corporations to donate large sums of money to skeptical scientists. Discovered by Cook University students in a parallel study with oddly behaving fish. This is an increasing phenomena which must be true.

David S
July 7, 2021 1:34 pm

This is why they changed the name to climate change. Now no matter what happens they can blame it on us. If it gets warmer it’s our fault. If it gets colder it’s our fault. If it stays the same maybe we’re off the hook. But staying the same is the one thing the climate never does.

Reply to  David S
July 7, 2021 2:13 pm

“Everybody complains about the weather but if you let us control you, we’ll do something about it.”

Duane
Reply to  Gunga Din
July 7, 2021 6:41 pm

When I lived in the Pacific Northwest a few decades ago, we had a common saying:

“If you don’t like the weather, just wait five minutes and it’ll change.”

Little did we know …

Duane
Reply to  David S
July 7, 2021 6:29 pm

Of course you know that if the climate somehow failed to change, that would obviously be due to climate change. 🤪

Ozonebust
July 7, 2021 1:37 pm

“Weather patterns are extremely complicated (just ask your weather app that’s never right) and determining how individual incidents tie into larger climate shifts is difficult”.

And yet the climate warming models that forecast out into the far future are more accurate. Go figure.

John Kelly
July 7, 2021 2:07 pm

I’ve got chilblains. Can I blame global warming?

July 7, 2021 2:34 pm

Gallic Humour is indeed a strange thing – are they trying to take the pi55 out of themselves or out of everybody else?

July 7, 2021 3:41 pm

Temperatures in the ENSO 3.4 have been falling like a rock for the last 5+ days. What happened 5 days ago? Sunspots in the southern hemisphere faded away, and at the same time sunspots in the northern hemisphere have greatly increased.

nino34 7 7 21++.png
Reply to  goldminor
July 11, 2021 1:19 pm

The next day a sunspot in the south came around the corner. The 3.4 trend then stopped falling and moved sideways. Temps in the 3.4 then rose for several days until a sunspot in the north came around the corner yesterday. Temps then stopped rising, and moved sideways over the last 12 hours. Let’s see what happens next.

nino34 7 11 21+.png
JON SALMI
July 7, 2021 3:47 pm

After winter it warms up early and then it gets cold again fooling the vines or trees. I’ve been hearing orchardists and grape growers complaining about this for the last 60-70 years here in Central California. Put out smudge pots, sprinkle the leaves with water or whatever. Nearly every year the local TV news trots out a couple of growers to complain about this phenomenon (AKA the weather). Get over it everybody, it’s just Nature at work.

2hotel9
July 7, 2021 3:47 pm

“Climate Scientists, Europe’s bitterly cold April would have been colder if it hadn’t been for climate change” Mental retards say what? They don’t know and no one who matters cares.

To bed B
July 7, 2021 4:25 pm

These extreme cold weather events are just weather, not climate. But they do raise questions. According to my local weather station just two miles down the road on a plain, in the airport fields, the air temperature barely dropped below 0 C and only for short periods just before sunrise.

There can be a large difference between ground and 6 ft up but I would walk the dog seeing cars covered in frost. This is in built up suburbs with the cars parked near houses. There was a day when it supposedly only dropped to half a degree below zero for half an hour and a couple of houses had frost on on their rooves. One was uninhabited while the other was recently renovated and must have had excellent insulation.

And as everyone knows, everywhere is warming at twice the global average.

WXcycles
July 7, 2021 5:13 pm

CNRS: “Global warming can lead to increased frost damage!”
Should be …
CNRS: “Global warming can lead to increased irrationality!”

fify

Sara
July 7, 2021 6:10 pm

“I mean there is clearly only one solution – we need to cut CO2 emissions….” article

Oh, heck, Erick, it is so much simpler to herd those fractious climate science goaties and cowies and bull splitters into large, and very chilly, buildings with a lot of loose boards and cracks in the siding and tell them to not emerge until November. They all need therapy, cookies and hot chocolate (with no sweetener) and blankets, and daily quiet time.

Thank you for posting that. I know they are dumber than a box of bent screws but for Pete’s sake, do they have to let the ENTIRE WORLD know just how dumb they really are?????

July 7, 2021 6:24 pm

The arguments in favour of Global Warming – Climate Change as the cause for any weather event are becoming so convoluted that the insanity behind them is becoming absolutely transparent. The agenda is always to assure money harvesting approval of authority.

July 7, 2021 6:33 pm

“The results show that while global warming made the cold wave less likely, it also made bud burst happen earlier in the year.”

The cold event was going to happen regardless of the global temperature because it was due to weak solar wind states causing negative North Atlantic Oscillation conditions. It was on my long range forecast from months back. I had also predicted the strong warm up from mid February. Climate change has diddly squat to do with any of that variability.

https://solen.info/solar/coronal_holes.html

“The lowest temperatures between April and July have increased by 1.2ºC in the region studied due to human-caused climate change. And cold frost episodes, which would happen once every 10 years without climate change, now have a return period of approximately 160 years.”

If they could understand how solar variability drives the weather variability, they could have a much better understanding of climate change

“Our results show that climate change is making both the growing season start earlier and frosts become warmer”

The UK had the lowest mean minimum April temperatures since 1922 this April, the reality is that global warming makes no meaningful difference to cold events. December 2010 is a great example, the second coldest in over 360 years for Central England, and March 2013, like a Maunder Minimum March.
This fake weather attribution business drives the spin about climate change impacts, and is being used in litigation, by people like

Reply to  Ulric Lyons
July 7, 2021 6:35 pm

Oops, accidentally clicked post before finishing, but I’ll leave it there.

July 8, 2021 1:33 am

That reminds me of the molecular calculation hype. A certain phenomena was observed experimentally. Then calculations were done to find an explanation. The material was then published with the claim that the calculations predicted the phenomena which was then confirmed by actual experiment… “A posteriori” instead of “a priori“…. It’s always much easier to find reasons afterwards, than to actually foresee things…