- Late frost threatens French vineyards, fruit crops
- Frost strikes France again
- French fruit, vineyards endure coldest April day in 75 years
Well, let me tell you, here in Sweden this happens every year. Year after year after year. It is situation normal for us. We call it Aprilväder (April Weather) — for example, our weather forecasters cannot yet make a consistent prognosis for Easter (the end of this week). Wikipedia describes the situation like this:
April weather is a changeable weather, where it can be sunshine and summer temperatures one day, and snow, rain, hail and cold the next. This type of uncertain weather is common in the spring, in the northern hemisphere, especially in April, the month when temperatures rise fastest. The sun warms the ground, the heated air rises and forms cumulus clouds. Higher up, however, it is still cold, and the upper part of the cumulus clouds become icy and thus cumulonimbus, which give off rain, snow or hail/snow (which is softer than ordinary hail, but harder than snowflakes).The current issue for Sweden is that April Weather now turns up in March, as well. This year, in my town, "official" spring was 2 weeks earlier than average (6th March 2022), and at the end of the month (29th) the winter weather returned. We have been dealing with it since then, with the last expected snowfall yesterday and the last freezing temperature later this week (ie. a fortnight of winter, after 3 weeks of spring). **
Mind you, the Wikipedia author does not suggest much in the way of biological consequences for Swedes:
April weather can lead to problems as people have a hard time knowing how to dress best — some people are wearing shorts and a t-shirt while others are still wearing thick winter clothes. In addition, it can cause traffic difficulties if there is snowfall and ice after motorists change to summer tires.Well, let me tell you that I have the same problems in my garden as the grape-growers do in their vineyards. New buds and shoots on the early plants may be killed, and the growth / flowering / fruiting of these plants can be affected for the rest of the year. My roses and hedge, which are among the earliest parts of my garden to start growing each year, eventually recover; but that is only because I do not expect fruit from them. Fortunately, my two grapevines are protected, because I grow them on my house and garage, where frost cannot get at them.
It is now occurring to the French that this situation might no longer be unusual for them, either:
- Chablis — the threat from recurring frosts should not be ignored
- In Chablis vineyards, fear grows that destructive frosts may become the norm
If these recent spring frosts are, as we expect, a result of global climate change, then we have every reason to ask: Why have we left it so late to deal with climate change in the wine industry? The fires in California (Threats to biodiversity when controlling wildfires), the drought in the western USA (Another drought year in California), and the frosts in Europe ... The list will keep getting longer.
For those of you who have not noticed, the United Nations has just released the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It notes that governments worldwide have not been meeting their pledges on limits to global warming. That means that none of the anticipated consequences are yet being avoided (Climate report offers some hope, but the need for action is urgent). In short: Get used to it, from now on, because we (globally) are not doing anything like enough to stop it.
The Americans have a thing called (politically incorrectly) Indian Summer. This is a period of warm, dry weather in late autumn (in temperate regions of the northern hemisphere), after the first frost, or more specifically the first “killing” frost. This is thus the inverse of April Weather. From now on, vineyard growing seasons are going to be book-ended by these two weather patterns, at least for the foreseeable future.
There are several possible reactions here, of course. For example, vine pruning can be adjusted to try to delay bud-break, or frost-protection netting could be used (Should frost nets be used more widely in vineyards?) — the latter works quite well in Sweden. As has been suggested on other grounds (Resistant varieties: the next step toward sustainability), some serious thinking might also be done about which varieties or clones are grown where — late-budding clones are going to be in particular demand, I guess. Otherwise, candle sales are going to boom (as shown in the top photo).
Update:
Interestingly, the day after I posted this, the chairman of the French Independent Winegrowers’ Association (Jean-Marie Fabre), announced the same thing (Adverse weather the new normal, claims chair of French wine trade body):
The series of frost episodes shows that these are not isolated, one-off weather incidents over a decade. I am convinced that weather hazards will become increasingly frequent. Freak years will no longer be those where there is adverse weather, but rather those without adverse weather.
* The current news even made it into my local newspaper:
In the champagne region, the winegrowers woke up to minus nine degrees and in Burgundy the thermometer showed -5. And with the drop in temperature came fears of a harvest like last year's, when similar weather cost the country's winegrowers the equivalent of 20 billion kronor.** Yes, this has created havoc with changing to summer tires — studded (winter) tires are officially supposed to be changed by April 15, but since most people in my town have (quite rightly) not changed to summer tires yet, there are soon going to be very long last-minute queues at the changing stations.
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