Modeling Climatic Change Impacts on temperature extremes in the Argentine Wine Regions

JOSE A. BONINSEGNA

Tilcara, Jujuy

Encuentro; IAI CRN 2047: Documenting, understanding and projecting changes in the hydrological cycle in the American Cordillera. Final Science Meeting,; 2011

IANIGLA - CONICET

The wine industry is a growing activity in Argentina, with an economic value of 700 millionUS dollars in exported wines, plus an important associated tourist activity.As the industry needs relatively high capital investment, competition between the wineries ishigh and more and more sophisticated measures are taken to maintain or ensure the increasingquality of the final product.Grapevines are rather drought tolerant; they need calcareous soil, and a temperate-warmclimate, with high heliophany2 and elevated day – night thermal amplitude. However, longexposure to high temperatures during grape formation and especially during grape ripening isdetrimental to the quality of wines. Each grape variety has different temperature thresholds.The aim of this study is to compare the temperature extremes reached during a base lineperiod (1961-1990) with those projected by the A2 scenario (2071 - 2100) of IPCC using thePRECIS model for the Argentine viticulture regions (26 -40°S; 66-71°W). Temperatureextremes were calculated using the RClimDex software, recommended by the IPCC AR4.Results clearly show that vineyards below 900m a.s.l. could experience high maximumtemperatures (> 35°C) quite often, and that probably the grapes could suffer detrimentaleffects. More studies along similar lines are needed to minimize possible model errors bycombining the estimated results from several different models. Also, more physiologicalstudies of grape varieties are needed to better evaluate the critical high temperature thresholdfor detrimental effects.