Climate Change

weather and climate present three distinct spatial/temporal scales of risks and challenges to viticulture and wine production: first, individual weather events, which are mostly short term and localized (e.g. hail, winter freezes, frost, and heavy rain); second, climate variability, which is measured on seasonal to decadal timescales and typically regionalized (e.g. drought or wet periods, warm or cold periods); third, climate change, which is recognized as long term and regional to global in scale (e.g. warming, cooling, changes in moisture regimes). In addition, one factor often influences and/or changes another—climate variability can change the frequency of individual weather events, or climate change can alter the nature of climate variability.