High-resolution Probabilistic Climate Scenarios: An Application to Québec's Wine-Making Potential

English Abstract:

The CMIP5 simulations ensemble is used to estimate the wine-making potential (WMP) for the province of Québec through high-resolution probabilistic climate scenarios (PCS). Two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs 4.5 and 8.5) are used, for a total of 26 models and 94 simulations covering the 1961-2070 period. Long term planning usually needs information at the local and regional scale. To that end, climate scenarios are designed by interpolating on a high resolution observed gridded dataset over Quebec's agricultural region followed by a quantile-quantile mapping statistical adjustment applied to the simulations. WMP is assessed by three annual climate indices describing the relevant conditions for wine-making in cold conditions: the growing degree-days (DDB10), the number of consecutive days with minimal temperature over -2 <span" serif"="serif"">°C (CNFD) and the annual minimum temperature (AnnTasmin). Results shows a poleward migration of the suitability of wine-making in the next decades. By 2040-2050, strictly from a climatic perspective, most of the southern part of Québec (Cantons-de-l'est, Montérégie) can expect favorable conditions, as well as the southern shore of the St-Lawrence River. Over those regions, the probability that the climatic indices exceed a suitable threshold for wine-making is over 80%. With respect to the methodology used, we note that the quantile-quantile statistical adjustment is modifying the climate change (CC) signal of the annual minimum value. To what extent this modification of the CC signal is affecting the conclusions related to Anntasmin needs to be determined in future work. The proposed methodology is an example of probabilistic regional climate scenarios that can be produced by large climate simulations ensembles which can be used by the local, regional and national stakeholders.