Australia's Wine Future - A Climate Atlas

Over the last century, Australia's climate has warmed by 1°C, and few regions have been unaffected (CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology, 2018). Hotter average temperatures, hotter summers, longer heatwaves, more frequent bushfires and changes to rainfall intensity and seasonality have already had impacts across the country, and these trends are expected to continue. Rapid and ongoing climate change has the potential to affect all aspects of the wine industry, including vineyard performance, pest and disease incidence, wine quality and market competitiveness. In recognition of these challenges, Wine Australia funded a collaborative research project to consider the impact of climate variability and longer-term trends in climate on the wine industry. Australia's wine future (2016 - 2019) was a collaborative research project that brought together researchers from a range of disciplines, including climate scientists, viticulturalists and adaptation specialists. The project was led by the Antarctic Climate Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (ACE CRC, University of Tasmania) in partnership with the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI), the Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI), CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research and the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture (TIA). The Australian wine sector is likely to face challenges as the climate continues to warm, but, in general, grape growers are experienced in responding to short-term climate surprises. In the short- to medium-term, adaptation approaches may be learnt from the regions that are currently experiencing the climate conditions that Australia is predicted to see in the future. Fine-scaled climate information tailored for particular sector applications is vital for identifying such adaptation needs. Australia's wine future generated the finest available climate projections for South-eastern Australia and provided detailed information about how the climate may change in the near, mid and long-term time horizons. In addition to providing climate information, the project focused on how climate information can be used to inform adaptation decisions and identify lessons that might be transferable across regions already managing a range of climate challenges. The main legacy of the project is this atlas of climate information for all Australian wine regions, providing information to grape growers and wine makers about climate trends for the near, mid- and long-term horizons. The atlas showcases the most up-to-date climate information at the finest resolution available in Australia, based on the CSIRO's Conformal Cubic Atmospheric Model (CCAM). Viticultural indices are presented that describe temperature, heat accumulation, heatwaves, rainfall, and moisture indices. Future trends in mean climate conditions, variability and extremes are visualised with reference to the current and historical climate. High resolution maps and time series for each region are presented to show the projected change in climate indices over time, highlighting the variability within and across the wine regions of Australia. The new atlas will help to answer the question { What will my region's climate look like in the future? This is essential knowledge for making good management decisions and supporting strategic decisions over the longer term such as changing varieties or vineyard sites both within and between regions. The atlas is an important resource that will help the wine industry understand how climate change could affect grape yield, profitability and wine styles across Australia into the future.