A story published by National Public Radio (NPR) on September 9 asked the question: Can America’s Most Popular Red Wine Stand Up to Climate Change? The answer is yes, although the story falsely suggests otherwise. Data shows that Napa Valley grapes have survived higher temperatures in the past, and despite more than 30 years of modest global warming, grape yields have actually increased in the region.
Here are some excerpts from the article:
But increasingly severe heat waves are taking their toll on the grape, especially in late summer during the ripening period. As temperatures continue to rise, the wine industry is coming to terms with a future where Napa may no longer be the prime cabernet-growing region it once was.
…
The vineyard is already in the hotter northern end of Napa Valley, but the extreme heat of recent years has been a wake-up call. A heat wave in late summer 2022 dropped temperatures at the vineyard to just below 120 degrees, she said.
“When it gets that hot, the vines die,” she said. “They go dormant, and when that happens, they don’t ripen anymore.”
First, the author Lauren Sommer are conflating a short-term heat wave with long-term climate change. Second, according to temperature records, while Napa Valley set a new high temperature record of 114°F on September 6th In 2022, the temperature will be just one degree hotter than The previous high temperature record was 113°F, set 61 years ago in global warming, in 1961..
A one-degree difference in a day over 61 years is not a sign of climate change but simply a natural change in weather. Weather inactive for the same period of time as climate. Figure 1 below, outlined by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)), showing the average monthly high temperatures for September. It’s clear that NAPA County has had some hot Septembers throughout its history. Some are even higher than September 2022 when the entire month is averaged out:
Note that many past Septembers have had monthly average temperatures greater than or equal to September 2022.
In the table NOAA provided along with the chart, they point out that September 2022 was nothing short of an anomaly, ranking 121 out of 129 years in maximum temperature, showing that the previous eight Septembers were hotter:
Additionally, red grape production figures show that their yields have not been affected by recent temperatures. Figure 3 below, which tracks grape yields in California, with Napa in green, shows a steady increase in harvest volume, not just in Napa, but across all regions:
If long-term climate change were truly detrimental to wine grape production, it would certainly show up in the data for Figure 3, but it doesn’t. Climate change doesn’t show up as hot temperatures on a single day, as NPR is lumping it in, but rather as a steady increase over time.
Data shows NPR Lauren Sommer She may have had too much to drink when she wrote that story, or more likely she didn’t look at the actual data on temperatures and grape yields before starting to write a story that follows the “climate change causes everything bad” narrative; choosing her anecdotes to fit the narrative.
We can add this little-studied story to the dozens of similar stories Climate realism took the media to task Misinformation or selective reporting. Clearly, wine grapes can and do withstand climate change, and the media is only reporting on unsubstantiated scare stories. NPR’s coverage of grapes seems to be a way of expressing “sour grapes” when so many climate change scare stories have been debunked, rather than reporting on any real dangers to grape and wine production.
Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for climate and environment at the Heartland Institute. Watts has worked in the weather industry in front of and behind the camera as a broadcast meteorologist since 1978, and currently does daily radio forecasting. He has created graphic weather presentation systems for television, specialized weather measuring equipment, and co-authored peer-reviewed articles on climate issues. He runs the world’s most viewed climate website, the award-winning wattsupwiththat.com.
Originally posted on ClimateREALISM
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