Studying the impacts of changing climate on the Finger Lakes wine industry

Abstract

We report the results of a project with Six Mile Creek Winery in Ithaca, NY, in which we investigate possible climate impacts on the area wine industry. Specifically, we examine winter minimum temperatures in Ithaca since temperatures below $-15^{\circ }$F damage buds of French-American hybrid grapes and temperatures below $-5^{\circ }$F affect Vinifera grape varieties. We used the generalized extreme value distribution to model the winter minimum and adjusted this model based on climate simulation data.