Analysis of climate change indices in relation to wine production: A case study in the Douro region (Portugal)

Abstract

Climate change is of major relevance to wine production as most of the wine-growing regions of the world, in particular the Douro region, are located within relatively narrow latitudinal bands with average growing season temperatures limited to 13-21 • C. This study focuses on the incidence of climate variables and indices that are relevant both for climate change detection and for grape production with particular emphasis on extreme events (e.g. cold waves, storms, heat waves). Dynamical downscaling of MPI-ESM-LR global data forced with RCP8.5 climatic scenario is performed with the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model to a regional scale including the Douro valley of Portugal for recent-past (1986-2005) and future periods (2046-2065; 2081-2100). The number, duration and intensity of events are superimposed over critical phenological phases of the vine (dormancy, bud burst, flowering, véraison, and maturity) in order to assess their positive or negative implications on wine production in the region. An assessment on the statistical significance of climatic indices, their differences between the recent-past and the future scenarios and the potential impact on wine production is performed. Preliminary results indicate increased climatic stress on the Douro region wine production and increased vulnerability of its vine varieties. These results will provide evidence for future strategies aimed to preserve the high-quality wines in the region and their typicality in a sustainable way.

The role of teleconnection patterns in the variability and trends of growing season indices across Europe

“…Here, we focus on ta_o to maintain a consistent timespan with gsr. So far, there have been few studies using the mean growing season temperature for Europe and, like gsr, they are linked to viticulture in France (Neethling et al, 2012), England (Nesbitt et al, 2016) and Portugal (Blanco-Ward et al, 2017).…”

“…For example, Ylhäisi et al (2010) and Irannezhad and Kløve (2015) looked at growing season parameters across Finland, Tomcyzk et al (2019) and Tomczyk and Szyga-Pluta (2019) focused on Poland and Popotova et al (2015) examined a specific region of the Czech Republic which produces a large amount of farmed vegetables. There have also been several studies applying growing season precipitation and mean growing season temperature to viticulture (wine production) in parts of Europe: the Iberian Peninsula (Blanco-Ward et al, 2007;Ramos et al, 2008;Santos et al, 2012;Moral et al, 2015;Blanco-Ward et al, 2017;Blanco-Ward et al, 2019), France (Neethling et al, 2012), England (Nesbitt et al, 2016) and Hungary (Kovacs et al, 2017). Only Santos et al (2012), Irannezhad and Kløve (2015) and Tomcyzk et al (2019) have linked the growing season indices to teleconnection patterns, although Cornes et al (2019) The aim of this study is to assess the role of four teleconnection patterns relevant to European climate in the interannual variability of three growing season indices and their contribution to trends in the indices since 1950 compared to the residual climate change trend.…”

An integration of bioclimatic, soil, and topographic indicators for viticulture suitability using multi-criteria evaluation: a case study in the Western slopes of Jabal Al Arab—Syria

“…In addition to the above five climate-viticulture indices, the heat waves and the cold waves (the number of days below 15°C during the flowering period (NDb15), and the number of days over 35°C during the ripening period (NDh35)) have been computed and estimated based on the daily minimum temperature of May for cold waves, and the daily maximum temperature of July and August for heat waves, using cubic equations and nonlinear regressions to estimate these climatic parameters for the study area, as shown in Table 2. The frequency of heat waves during the ripening stage has a negative effect on vineyard vegetation and grapes, and on wine production, particularly when the temperature is above 35 °C (Mesterházy et al 2013;Alsafadi 2016;Blanco-ward, et al 2017). In addition, the frequency of cold waves during the flowering stage has a direct effect (Alsafadi, 2016); when the mean daily temperature was 15°C or below, no inflorescences were produced (Vasconcelos 2009).…”

“…As an example, cooler climates, with a mean pre-harvest temperature below 15°C have a significant impact on -and are a clear challenge for -wine grape growth and its maturity on appropriate dates; this climate condition produces grapes and wines with lower sugar, higher acid, high pH, and lower yields per land unit (Jackson 2000). Hotter climates with a mean temperature high than 35°C during grape growth also have a negative impact (Blanco-ward, et al 2017). Due to the importance of temperature, a wide range of climate-viticulture indices have been proposed which use the temperature element as the most relevant variable for growing grapes and one essential for determining vineyard site suitability (Winkler et al 1974;Huglin 1978;Gladstones 1992;Barans et al 1946;Tonietto and Carbonneau 2004).…”

“…Some of the indices which have been proposed use interaction between the number of actual sunlight hours, accumulated temperature, and the amount of precipitation in the growing season (Barans et al 1974;Barans et al 1946). These indices have been applied to define vinicultural regions on both a global and a local scale (Anderson et al 2012;Mills-Novoa et al 2016;Fraga et al 2014;Jones et al 2010;MacCracken and Houser, 2016;Köse 2014;Lorenzo et al 2013;Mesterházy et al 2013;Hunter and Bonnardot 2011;Blanco-ward, et al 2017). This was the case with Jabal Al Arab in Syria, and was based on 1984-2014 MRm.30-meter resolution grids dataset of climatic variables for the Al-Sweidaa governorate (Alsafadi 2016), and showed elements such as the average of A c c e p t e d M a n u s c r i p t minimum and maximum temperature, precipitation, the number of actual sunlight hours, and the extreme temperature events through the vineyards' growing season.…”