The impact of climate change on viticulture

[Matilda]

I am new to viticulture, and since I started my studies I have been hearing about the potential impact that global warming will have on grape growing; for most irrigation dependant regions, the news was all bad. So if this is the case has anyone been planning for the changes?
I get the feeling we just focus on each season and its issues.... no rain when we want it, rain when we dont, prices down, costs up, good labour scarce etc. No one I have come across seems to be planning for the potential contingencies that will/ may arise from global warming. What type of planning are you donig with respect to climate change and its impact on your capacity to grow grapes profitably?

CHEERS

Matilda

[pstarr]

For me, adding tempranillo and albarino to the cool-climate plantings of pinot noir, sauvignon blanc and shiraz is part of the planning answer. Also building up levels of soil organic matter to try and increase the capacity of our thin soils to hold moisture. Being more fussy about vine balance and aggressive shoot thinning, in pinot and shiraz, to try and reduce crop loads and shoot numbers to manage and heatwave, hot, dry and windy conditions. We have excellent air movement and frost drainage from our steeply-sloping site, but I'm thinking some additional shelter belts and a more diverse permanent sward might also reduce some of the drying out and dust issues we are getting. If it comes down to it, it might be we source some fruit from Tumbarumba, but so far that hasn't been required.

[Grey Ghost]

An interesting post Matilda - the simple answer to your fundemental question is - no, no one (or at least few, pstarr!), have done much planning.

You might well ask "Why not?" - but it is not simple to plan for something as nebulous as climate change. By way of illustration what do you do if you are someone like say Yalumba or Tahbilk? You have established vineyards - some well over 100 years. There is no imaginable replacement for these vineyards - they are the epitome of your brand and style.

On a broader scope, what will happen to the driest continent in the event of further climate warming?

In the West the pattern is a westerly movement of presure systems off the Indian Ocean. Will increasing temperatures cause greater evaporation from that huge mass of water? What happens when this mass of warm, moist air strikes the Australian coast?

Another major infuence is the movement of the Australian High Pressure Zone. Traditionally this moves south in summer creating a column of cold, very dry, clear air over central Australia and South Australia; also forming a major blocking formation to the movement of the westerly patterns from the Indian Ocean. In winter this moves north and in part creates the "Wet" with its influence on the tropical patterns moving in from the NW coast, and SW Pacific. So, what then happens if this pressure system decays? Does the moist air from the Indian Ocean sweep across and into the interior?

Has this happened before? Where did all those salt-pans come from?

Another thought, should the central high pattern move north permanently, how will this affect the sub-Antarctic pressure patterns? In winter these bring the rain to South Australia - would this happen even further north?

Finally, if there is greater heating, leading to greater evaporation will the resulting cloud-cover increase the albedo effect. If it does, what then happens to the warming - or the decreased inflow of solar heat?

GG

[pstarr]

Yalumba are doing quite a bit to understand the implications of climate change (especially water scarcity and higher temperatures) for vineyard management. One big project was announced earlier this month - a partnership between Yalumba and SARDI (Sth Aus govt body). Details follow from the media release (pulled from SARDI's website):

Pushing grapevines to the edge


Minister for Water Security Minister Karlene Maywald today ‘flicked the switch’ on Australia’s – and perhaps the world’s – largest irrigation trial to test the extremes under which grapevines can survive.

Speaking at the launch, Minister Maywald said information gathered from the trial is expected to provide a crucial body of knowledge to enable the viticulture industry to protect its assets during times of low water availability.

“This important research will gather information and tools about the absolute minimum water needed to grow commercial crops,” Minister Maywald said.

“It will also provide information about how long it takes to restore yields and ensure vineyards are not lost as a critical asset if production has to be shut down.

“This information will then assist vignerons to allow them to make key planning decisions.“

Yalumba Agribusiness and Technical Manager - Viticulture, Ashley Ratcliff, says the severe irrigation trials will push the boundaries beyond what is considered commercially possible.

The trials, which have grown out previous work undertaken by Yalumba and the State Government’s Drought Response Program, are being conducted over four hectares at Oxford Landing Estate near Waikerie in the Riverland.

The project has been designed and planned by Yalumba Nursery staff and SARDI research scientists.

“This new research will give us the information and tools we need to manage a crop using the absolute minimum amount of water,” Mr Ratcliff said.

“It will also tell us, if we have to stop production for a period due to a lack of water, how long it will take to bring those vines back from survival to commercial mode”

SARDI scientist, Dr Michael McCarthy, says a mature vineyard of Chardonnay grapevines grafted onto Ramsey rootstock will be subjected to severe irrigation cutbacks - as low as 10% of Yalumba’s normal water usage - during up to three irrigation seasons, and then subsequently assessed for grapevine recovery when irrigation is restored to normal levels.

The recovery period will continue for up to four irrigation seasons.

“These trials will produce a drought survival strategy for vignerons establishing critical levels of irrigation to keep vineyards alive, and protect the asset for recovery,” Dr McCarthy said.

“During the trials we will be measuring irrigation volumes and salinity, ground water levels and salinity, soil moisture, grapevine canopy area, soil and plant salinity, plant water stress indicators and yield, fruit and wine quality.”

Minister Maywald acknowledged Yalumba’s involvement in the project, which includes much in-kind and financial support, and assistance from Mr Ratcliff, Oxford Landing Estate Manager, Fred Strachan and Riverland Technical Officer/ Grower Liaison, Adam Hall, in planning and establishing the trials.

[Grey Ghost]

Hi Paul,

I was using Yalumba as an example - not saying that they were not doing research. However is their research into "severe water restriction" to do with GHG emissions (causing climate change), or the more immediate shortage of irrigation water in the Murray-Darling river system? A shortage that paleontologists tell us has happened many times before.

Matilda is working through a degree - a science degree. I was brought up to believe Science was about challenging the status quo - so I was presenting a challenge to the current perceived truths.

I have an old school friend (now a senior government climate scientist), who is a fanatic global warming advocate. Now I don't have the science to refute that theory but when I pose to him (and other scientists), similar questions to those above I rarely get clear answers.

My personal beliefs? I believe that there is significant global warming - for the first time in recorded history the northern ice-cap is melting and there are significant shifts in several other indicators. However, recorded history is but 4,000 years old, a mere blip in geologic time. Other research (ice cores etc) seem to reveal that the Earth has been through several cycles of heating - indeed heating much greater than that that is projected.

Should we do something about the burning of fossil fuels? IMO, yes, but also, that we do so in the clear understanding that it is unlikely to be truly effective. Oil is not short if used for different purposes than individual transport; indeed hydrocarbon energy for all purposes is available for many hundreds of years if used sensibly (conversion of brown coal as an example - rather than simply burning it directly).

This still releases hydrocarbons into the atmosphere - but try to do without plastics totally, without diesel to fuel trucks and ships. To achieve the changes required to effect GHG etc would be to create a new dark age and this would come with privation for billions of humans. Perhaps this might not be a bad thing?

Something to consider. In 1800 there were an estimated 1 billion people on Earth; they lived organically on less than the full quota of arable land - they ate organic food and burned minor volumes of fossil fuels as only human, physical muscle was available to extract it, or to develop the arable.

To move to today, we have 7 billion humans, but no further arable land than 1800 (arguably, less). To feed this increase we need to utilise ALL the arable available as efficiently as possible. This would seem to mean the addition of synthetic soil nutrients to enable the volume of food required. To do this organically, appears on the surface, to be impossible; energy in = energy out so farming inputs have to increase proportionately to the increase in required production. However to do this with organic materials means that approximately 50% of the arable area would have to be committed to producing the inputs to just maintain the level of production of 1950.

Composting is the "in" word - yet composting releases huge volumes of methane - a far more damaging GHG than simple carbon dioxide.

Life is full of conundrums.

The Earth will survive, Global Warming, Ice Ages etc are nothing new. The human organism may well become extinct.

[DaveB]

Yalumba is doing a lot of work into rootstocks also.

I'm about to start on an article on climate change and its implications on the Australian wine industry over the next week so hopefully I can add something to this thread shortly.....I have interviews with Richard Smart, Snow Barlow, Kym Anderson, Simon Robinson from the Wine Innovation Cluster and hopefully Ashley and Tim from the Yalumba nursery this week.

[Nayan]

I'm about to start on an article on climate change and its implications on the Australian wine industry over the next week...

Very much looking at the short term impact then...

[DaveB]

I'm about to start on an article on climate change and its implications on the Australian wine industry over the next week...

Very much looking at the short term impact then...

When are you back in town?

[Nayan]

Be back for a couple of weeks around Womad. I realise it will be a busy time for you, but hope we can catch up over a bevvy.

May or may not have David Wainwright in tow.

[DaveB]

Be back for a couple of weeks around Womad. I realise it will be a busy time for you, but hope we can catch up over a bevvy.

May or may not have David Wainwright in tow.

Nice one.....I'm sure we can fit in a boozy dinner up in the Barossa while your here mate

[Grey Ghost]

DaveB

While you're talking to Ashley and Tim could you query them about 44-53 and 106-8 stocks please?

Both Riparia X (Rupestris X Cordifolia) crosses and reputedly drought tolerant as well as phylloxera tolerant.

Say g'day to Dick from me too.

GG

[DaveB]

DaveB

While you're talking to Ashley and Tim could you query them about 44-53 and 106-8 stocks please?

Both Riparia X (Rupestris X Cordifolia) crosses and reputedly drought tolerant as well as phylloxera tolerant.

Say g'day to Dick from me too.

GG

Can do GG.....I'm having a beer with Ashley, Tim and Nick Dry on Monday night.....going to see if I can nick a copy of Nicks rootstock book

[paul rossetto]

hi matilda,
For me climate change is just another 'straw that breaks my back', as a 30 yr veteran grapegrower I am seeing the 'writing on the wall' as far as the australian wine industry is going. we are all in for 'declining terms of trade' as the Australian Wine Industry enters the 'mature phase of investment'.
Changes , well i have already sold a large vineyard - all development debts paid off & surplus capital waiting in cash for some buying opportunities on the ASX. (Australian Stock Exchange)
I still have 3 smaller vineyards to sell 'sooner rather than later' as the USA economic situation has me worried. I have heard predictions of US/A $ 1:2 (that's right US 50c) as the world finishes deleveraging and everyone realises the US is broken. This will have huge impacts for Australian Wine Industry & especially large US exporting wineries I which i will not name but there is a very large one in my area. So you can see changes are upon us but not from where you may think.
cheers paul

[Matilda]

Paul
Climate change may be the final straw that breaks your back, and my optimism for this industry as a viable career.
Sometimes I think I should have listened to my mum and studied to become an accountant.
But I am hopeful that it (climate change) may act as a glue which will bind the different segments of the wine industry (grower, maker, seller, buyer) to cooperate in their response for the long term sustainablity of this vibrant component of Australian culture.
Hopeful
Matilda

[Grey Ghost]

Matilda, what makes me a sceptic in all this global warming furore is that it has all happened before and all within human documented history.

Yes, we are burning fossil fuels etc and we are polluting and all those things. However Global Warming is nothing new.

In the period known as "The Little Optimum" the temperatures were fully 1 degree celsius warmer than they are today. This about 800 to 1300.

The doom merchants threaten us with death and destruction if we warm by this amount - yet there were viable vineyards in northern England at that time (at Ely, 120km north of London). To give you some idea of the extent, this is like moving Cornwall's climate to Edinburgh; or San Fransisco to Seattle; or the Loire/Bordeaux to London.

The ice pack had retreated sufficiently that the Vikings could sail the northern great circle route to Newfoundland, where grapes grew - and settle and farm in Greenland. No one was there to record it, but if this could happen, where was the Arctic Icecap? Why was there no biblical sized flood (though there were significant floods)?

That this was followed rapidly by the "Little Ice Age" should give us pause for thought. Perhaps you might read up on this phenomenon and challenge your lecturers' ukases?

Whatever happens, the Earth will survive - though human beings may become extinct.

[pstarr]

Two points in reply:

1. The "medieval warm period" was a local-to-regional phenomenon, but was not warmer than today at hemispheric or global scales. It was not a globally-warm period either.

2. The presence of viticulture and winemaking is a very poor proxy measure for global temperature trends over the long term.

Lots of sources, but a useful look at these issues is at:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... lish-wine/

[Grey Ghost]

Ha! Good link,

but, woe is me, what an almost rude commentary! This is not scientific rigour, this is someone challenged and reacting emotionally ("gavin"). The denigration of other people who disagree (quote)
"... from many of the usual suspects (my emphasis, GG) e.g. Singer (2005), and Baliunas (in 2003)." (unquote), was certainly not what I was taught as "scientific". I take it that "gavin" disagrees?

"gavin" enters several non sequiturs - what Henry VIII in 1500 + has to do with 800 to 1300 I'm not quite sure; nor do the Black Death and the working class preference for beer have the least bearing on the issue. It is persiflage.

We all have our blind-spots. Gavin has his opinion and is utterly convinced of its veracity, this appears (from that link) to exclude even the vaguest doubt that there may be other opinions. That, is not scientific rigour, again.

My personal position is that we DO have Global Warming; that this may be caused by the burning of fossil fuels since 1850 (say); I do know, having sailed mid-ocean, that we are polluting our environment willfully. I do note that this has all happened before - albeit from different causes.

However I am willing to play Devil's Advocate - to see if Matilda can perhaps question the shibboleths. My old viti' lecturer (Max Loder at Wagga in the 70s), would ask that his students "thought" about grape vines and would award high marks to original thought - even though he thought it - or even knew it - to be wrong.

"Vineyards are not a proxy for warm periods."

No, I would hesitate to align them completely, however, we know that vines will not grow and fruit below a certain level of accumulated temperature. The vines growing in what is now Newfoundland (aka "Vineland") were in all likelihood Vitis riparia which will survive winter chilling to minus 30 C. In addition, vines "don't care" if they don't set fruit every year - this is a function they have to complete only once in what may be a lifetime of some 100s of years.

So we have two examples. That vines grew at Ely and in Newfoundland. The latter don't grow there now - but let us exclude this as an example due to the variety; this leaves Ely - and it has to be Vitis vinifera because young Eric the Red did not choose to bring botanical samples back home. Thus the European grape.

Modern scientific research has basically established what we term Growth Degree Days and the level of all except some very specialised (and of modern breeding), varieties seem to need in excess of 900 GDD to ripen fruit on traditional Vitis vinifera. Currently, London has a modal GDD of <850 - Ely being significantly further north, will have fewer. Yet the monastic gardens at Ely cropped their grapes, we have written history (of that time) to verify this.

Then we enter into a paragraph that quotes the only reliable lay source (the Doomsday Book) and we have 46 vineyards. This confirms Bede and others and concurs with a line drawn at Ely. The factor that there are now 400 (and counting) English vineyards begs the simple point I made above and that is almost all in the northern parts are planted in Mueller Thurgau (bred, 19th/20th century, bred for short cycle and cold climates), and similar varieties all short cycle plants e.g. Breidecker, bursts roughly with Cabernet, harvest before Pinot noir, or Scheurebe etc. These were not available to our monkish forebears.

It is only really the final two paragraphs of that link that really have good weight (IMO).

To your first point:

I agree and there is a huge volume of scientific data available that supports your contention.

In broad-brush terms - a warm N hemisphere appears to cool the S hemisphere. These are sedimentary cores take from Sptizbergen, Canada, Antarctica and many other places. One may be in error, several may be, but not dozens.

Thus I feel that we can be confident that the "Little Optimum" (aka Medieval Warm Period) was indeed one degree celsius warmer than 2005 (source of data), the temperature predicted for 2050/60.

Some papers:-
1.
^ Khim, B-K; Yoon H.; Kang C.Y.; Bahk J.J. (November 2002). "Unstable Climate Oscillations during the Late Holocene in the Eastern Bransfield Basin, Antarctic Peninsula". Quaternary Research 58 (3): 234–245(12). doi:10.1006/qres.2002.2371. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/a ... 3/art02371.

2.
^ Cobb, Kim M.; Chris Charles, Hai Cheng, R. Lawrence Edwards (July 8, 2003). "The Medieval Cool Period And The Little Warm Age In The Central Tropical Pacific? Fossil Coral Climate Records Of The Last Millennium". The Climate of the Holocene (ICCI) 2003.

Both of which illustrate your point of considerable temperature variance from N to S hemispheres (1) and even from coast to coast in N. American continent (2).

This still only adds intrigue to what is indisputable - they farmed in Greenland at this time ... arable farming. They don't do that currently.

Of general interest:-
^ "Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age and 20th Century Temperature Variability from Chesapeake Bay". USGS. http://geology.er.usgs.gov/eespteam/Atlantic/GPCabs.htm

For Australia: # ^ Allen, Robert J.; The Australasian Summer Monsoon, Teleconnections, and Flooding in the Lake Eyre Basin; published 1985 by Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, S.A. Branch; ISBN 0909112096

The continental Antarctic ice-sheet is currently thickening (Weddel and Ross sea ice shelves are calving rapidly as more weight is exerted from the pressure of the continental sheet. This is indicative of a regional cooling.

For us, in Australia and NZ there are four major sources of our weather
1. Central Brazil; 2. Equatorial Africa; 3. Antarctica; 4. Equatorial Indonesia/Malaya - and the inter-relationships of these. Of course the Indian, and sub Antarctic Oceans have a bearing too - as collectors of the weather patterns.

Here is a fascinating (active) recent weather link:-

http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/data/comp/cmol ... _mpeg.html

and you can see the recent cloud forming in Brazil/Congo and moving down over Aust and NZ. You can also see it streaming north (an aerial Gulf Stream), and dumping on Canada, the northern states, UK and Europe. Yep, they got a bit of snow.

Also note that it has been deep overcast and raining over the Sahara.

GG

[kirragc]

As an aside there was a glaciaologist onthe radio the other day, he was talking about a few things however he did say that the existance of ice on earth is very short in geological terms, something like 7% (?) of the earths age. Now we know that the ice ages occured and could cover up to 70 % of the earths surface but we have no idea why. Not why they came or why they disappeared.
His position was that if we cant identify this macro cycle how can we categorically identify the small variations currently cited as global warming with any certainty. That was his position.

Personally I think its this decades Millenium bug, ozone hole, rogue asteroid, disease etc.
A combination of human arrogance that we can change the world and technology that lets us measure things quite finely, extrapolate a little and disaster ensues.


I still cant buy it. We sit on the crust of a molten ball of rock kept liquid by atomic decay, we bathe in the glow of a fusion reactor the size of 10000 earths but we are sure that we can fix the earths climate. Even if man disappeared tommorrow the earth would get hotter and cooler when ever it wanted

[James Douglas Hook]

Vineyard Records Link Early Grape Ripening to Climate Change

By using decades of vineyard records, scientists have for the first time been able to attribute early ripening of wine grapes to climate warming and declines in soil water content. The study reveals that management factors has also influenced the shift, offering hope for growers to develop adaptation strategies.

Nature Paper - http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/ ... e1417.html