Areas suitable for viticulture may decline from Bordeaux to Australia as climate change prompts a shift in wine production to higher latitudes and elevations in New Zealand and the Northern Hemisphere, researchers said.
Suitable grape-growing areas may drop 68 percent in Mediterranean Europe by 2050 and fall 73 percent in regions of Australia with a so-called Mediterranean climate, according to a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. New Zealand’s suitable area will more than double and it will also surge in northern Europe and western North America, it said.
A warming of 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade is projected for the next 20 years in a range of greenhouse gas emission scenarios, says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Continued greenhouse gas emissions at or above current rates would cause further warming and induce many changes in the global climate during this century, says the United Nations.
“Redistribution in wine production may occur within continents, moving from declining traditional wine-growing regions to areas of novel suitability,” the authors wrote. “At higher latitudes and elevations, areas not currently suitable for viticulture are projected to become more suitable.”
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