This is what happens during Grand Solar Minimums
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Collapse in wine production was to be expected
By. J.H. Walker
Grape vines are incredibly intolerant of harsh spring frosts during the budding season. Without buds, no flowers, and then no grapes.
Major cooling events, such as those which accompany a Grand Solar Minimum can be seen throughout history.
For example, prior to the Late Antique Little Ice Age, 585-640AD and after 50AD, it was sufficiently warm to grow grapes and harvest on south facing slopes in the English Roman province.
Equally, during the Medieval Warm period between the Oort Grand Solar Minimum (GSM) and the Wolf GSM, the grape was able to be cultivated in the central midlands of Scotland.
During the Little Ice Age period covering the GSMs from Wolf to Dalton, English grape cultivation on a commercial basis retreated to the South East Coast of England.
During the recent modern warm period English grape cultivation has been re-established as far North as Birmingham in the English Midlands, again on South-facing slopes.
With the effects of the modern Grand Solar Minimum only just starting, and with 30 to 70 years of climate effects to experience, the English grape industry may well once again shrink back to the English South East coast, with significant losses to commercial investors.
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Editor’s note:
The Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA) was a long-lasting Northern Hemisphere cooling period lasting from 536 to about 660 AD.[1] This period followed three immense volcanic eruptions in 536, 540 and 547.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Antique_Little_Ice_Age
Late Antique Little Ice Age linked to the plague and fall of empires
“In AD 536, the first of three massive volcanic eruptions ushered in a mini ice age,” writes Penny Sarchet in New Scientist. “It coincided with an epidemic of the plague, the decline of the eastern Roman Empire, and sweeping upheavals across Eurasia.”
“It wasn’t just the Romans who suffered,” says Sarchet. “The eastern Türk empire around modern-day Mongolia and the Northern Wei and Sui dynasties in China also fell during this time.”
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April 28, 2018 at 02:00PM
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