Winemakers and wine academics have been concerned about the role climate change might play in their industry. A new study suggests that global warming may drastically affect the world's greatest wine-producing regions.
The study, from Stanford University, says vineyards in California could shrink by 50 percent over the next 30 years. California wine is currently a $16.5 billion industry. Other famous regions could be affected, as well.
But climate change may be shifting that landscape."We could find that certain wine regions in France and Spain and Italy that historically have produced wines are going to be effectively desert," one researcher said. There are now even award-winning Vineyards in England, never before known as a wine region.
In America, temperatures in the Napa Valley could rise by 2 degrees in the next 30 years, according to the new study, by Stanford's Noah Diffenbaugh, an assistant professor of environmental earth science. "This can be" he says, "very damaging to the delicate balances that are so important for making the best wines."
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