Heavy Precipitation Over the US: Has it Increased as Some have Predicted it Should?

[skookerasbil]

Who knew that when this great actor struck this pose, he was singlehandedly shooting the environmental movement square in the face??

 

[daveman]

Yes, fair enough. Here it is:

MELBOURNE — Australian grape growers believe that they are the canary in the coal mine of global warming, as a long drought forces wine makers to rethink the styles of wine they can produce and the regions they can grow in.

The three largest grape-growing regions in Australia, the driest inhabited continent, all depend on irrigation to survive. The high cost of water has made life tough for growers.

Industry groups estimate that of the 7,000 or so wine growers, as many as 1,000 may be forced to leave the industry this year because their vineyards are no longer financially viable.

"Climate change is the biggest issue we face," said Stephen Strachan, chief executive of the Winemakers' Federation of Australia. "Relatively small changes in temperature and precipitation do have reasonably large impacts in terms of wine style.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/business/worldbusiness/25iht-wine.1.11395929.html?pagewanted=all


There are stories like this happening in a dozen countries around the world right now. Spain I mentioned earlier, but there are several others as well.

That article does not prove your claim that growers are plowing their vines under due to global warming.

The word "plow" is not in the article at all.

Try again.

Daveman -

Let's face it man - you simply lack the basic honesty to debate this topic.

You asked for proof - I gave you that proof. You ran away.

I give up on you.

WTF? You did NOT prove your claim. This is undeniable.

 

[daveman]

Crusader Frank -

Then by all means read the article, come back and present a serious case.

I'll definitely read it and respond to it.

That is how debate works, no?


If both you and Daveman have conceded defeat on this topic - which is how it looks to me - why are you even commenting?

Either man up and discuss the topic, or leave it alone.

In summary:

You make a claim about vineyard owners plowing their grapes under due to global warming.

When asked for proof, you post a link to an article that never mentions anyone plowing their vineyards under.

When this is pointed out, you claim you won.

That about cover it?

 

[daveman]

The FACT is that grapes have been produced in NSW and Victoria for more than a century, and are now being ploughed under because climate change and drought have made the industry economically unsustainable in some areas.

You've had days to prove this claim. And you haven't proven it.

I couldn't find anything in ten pages of Google results.

This claim is false.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Saigon says he won, so the debate is over!

Science = Settled!

 

[daveman]

NOAA and NASA need to explain why they each support the false notion of "Ocean acidification"

Because they understand the issue more than you do.

Would you like to man up and actually discuss the issue, or are you going to just concede this debate, too?

Point of order:

"Concede the debate" does NOT mean "point out I cannot back up my claims".

Just so's you know.

 

[daveman]

- some winemakers ploughed their grapes under as a result of the drought

You keep claiming this is fact -- but you've NEVER proven it.

Your say-so may be sufficient for your fellow cultists, but normal people need proof.

 

[daveman]

Saigon says he won, so the debate is over!

Science = Settled!

Just like all the other cultists.

 

[Saigon]

Daveman -

If you do wish to actually read and discuss the issue of winemakers abandoning wine production because of the impact of climate change, do let me know.

I think we both know you won't discuss it.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Dave, Saigon is TELLING us the winemakers cursed the Gods of AGW as they buried their wines. Who are we to argue?

Science = settled

 

[CrusaderFrank]

This is unprecedented, no other word describes it.

This is the first time ever that the climate has affect wine production.

Saigon, you're not only a scientific genius, have you considered a career as a sommelier? Do you believe that variations in climate might affect the very taste of the wines as well? Cause that fucking radical!

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Saigon, just read me the riot act in a neg rep, either admit he's correct by addressing the non-issues completely off topic he alleges or stay out of the thread

 

[Saigon]

Frank -

Would you like to discuss the issue of how climate change has impacted the Australian wine industry?

Or perhaps look at the droughts effecting Spain or Mexico?

They've all been linked, but all we see from you are dumb one liners.


Read the material, think about it, post your point of view and I'll show you the same respect.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Frank -

Would you like to discuss the issue of how climate change has impacted the Australian wine industry?

Or perhaps look at the droughts effecting Spain or Mexico?

They've all been linked, but all we see from you are dumb one liners.


Read the material, think about it, post your point of view and I'll show you the same respect.

You're a fucking moron.

Climate has been affecting the wine industry since inception.

And yes, you're a fucking moron for trying to pass this off as "evidence" of Manmade Globalwarmercoolering Climate Change Disaster.

I take that back, you're just a fucking moron

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Pulling items from the Weather Channel and passing them off as AGW is a fraud, it's not linkage

It's certainly not science

 

[Saigon]

Ok, so you won't debate the issue.

Not really surprising, is it?

I do one thing mindless one liners are you strength, so I can understand you prefer to limit yourself to those.

 

[flacaltenn]

Daveman -

If you do wish to actually read and discuss the issue of winemakers abandoning wine production because of the impact of climate change, do let me know.

I think we both know you won't discuss it.

Hey man...

You were presented with SEVERAL FACTS and graphs that contradict your assertion.. You provided ONE article from the NYTimes in 2008 prior to the 2008 grape harvest in Aus. that yielded 37% MORE wine grapes than the year before.. You ignored all that.. You also ignored that..

1) Land under grape cultivation in Victoria has MORE THAN DOUBLED since the mid 90s (the period of GREATEST WARMING) and has INCREASED since that NYTimes article was published.

2) The NYTimes article contains nothing but SPECULATION about the 2008 harvest which by my calculations occured 30 to 60 days after the date of that article -- and showed NO SIGNS of being extraordinarly damaged by Global Warming.

3) You have not proven a TREND in climate for those regions in Australia that supports ANY CLAIM of being due to Global Warming. In fact, most of what I could find shows evidence of more damage occuring from cold snaps and wet weather.

I also provided another half dozen observations based on fact that you did not address.

You have provided NOTHING to address all those contradictory facts. And the farce that you THINK you've proven ANYTHING worries me greatly.. Because if that's your level of understanding of what proof and logic is -- any discussion with you under technical forums is absolutely pointless..

So PERSONALLY -- I've spent too much time and effort researching your little phoney assertion.. Folks get ANGRY when they work to find NOTHING and THEN get mocked by some silly fool who sent them on that goose chase. So until you provide PROOF of damage to the Aussy grape biz in 2008 or any other (preferably MULTIYEAR) period --- consider yourself ignored..

 

[Saigon]

Flac -

I think some of these points I addressed earlier, but I am happy to add them in again.

1) Wine production in Australia has risen dramatically since the 1970s, and may continue to do so. New land has been developed in NSW, Vic, SA and Tasmania.

This does not mean that some land which had supported grapes for the best part of a century can not be farmed economically because of droughts associated with climate change.

The droughts 2008-09 were crippling - and not only to wine production.

2) The NY Times speculation on the final harvest is not the sailent point - the salient point is that climate change is impacting farming all over the world right now.

I produced 3 other articles from other countries all presenting the same point.

3) I have not presented any trends or graphs for drought or climate in Australia - that's true. I'll see what I can find, but there may not be much available that is relevent to this discussion. I often find global material is more useful, but let's see.

I did read and address our assertions - some of which were wildly off course. You claimed, for instance, that the wine industry in Australia was new (it is 50 years old) and that the plantations may have been experimental (they were 50 years old).

 

[RollingThunder]

Perhaps this might shed some light......except in darkened minds so closed that nothing can penetrate.....

(good article, BTW, I recommend reading all of it.)

What Climate Change Means for Wine Industry
WIRED SCIENCE
By Mark Hertsgaard
April 26, 2010
(excerpts)
Because wine grapes are extraordinarily sensitive to temperature, the industry amounts to an early-warning system for problems that all food crops — and all industries — will confront as global warming intensifies. In vino veritas, the Romans said: In wine there is truth. The truth now is that Earth’s climate is changing much faster than the wine business, and virtually every other business on earth, is preparing for. All crops need favorable climates, but few are as vulnerable to temperature and other extremes as wine grapes. “There is a 15-fold difference in the price of cabernet sauvignon grapes that are grown in Napa Valley and cabernet sauvignon grapes grown in Fresno” in California’s hot Central Valley, says Kim Cahill, a consultant to the Napa Valley Vintners’ Association. “Cab grapes grown in Napa sold [in 2006] for $4,100 a ton. In Fresno the price was $260 a ton. The difference in average temperature between Napa and Fresno was 5 degrees Fahrenheit.”

Numbers like that help explain why climate change is poised to clobber the global wine industry, a multibillion-dollar business whose decline would also damage the much larger industries of food, restaurants, and tourism. Every business on earth will feel the effects of global warming, but only the ski industry — which appears doomed in its current form — is more visibly targeted by the hot, erratic weather that lies in store over the next 50 years. In France, the rise in temperatures may render the Champagne region too hot to produce fine champagne. The same is true for the legendary reds of Châteauneuf du Pape, where the stony white soil’s ability to retain heat, once considered a virtue, may now become a curse. The world’s other major wine-producing regions — California, Italy, Spain, Australia — are also at risk. If current trends continue, the “premium-wine-grape production area [in the United States] … could decline by up to 81 percent by the late 21st century,” a team of scientists wrote in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2006. The culprit was not so much the rise in average temperatures but an increased frequency of extremely hot days, defined as above 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit). If no adaptation measures were taken, these increased heat spikes would “eliminate wine-grape production in many areas of the United States,” the scientists wrote.

 

[Saigon]

That is interesting, RT.

This section seems to be quite similar to what is happening in Australia:

"If current trends continue, the “premium-wine-grape production area [in the United States] … could decline by up to 81 percent by the late 21st century,” a team of scientists wrote in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2006. The culprit was not so much the rise in average temperatures but an increased frequency of extremely hot days, defined as above 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit). If no adaptation measures were taken, these increased heat spikes would “eliminate wine-grape production in many areas of the United States,” the scientists wrote."

And again, this is happening right now.