As if a late April freeze, damaging and destroying vines, wasn’t enough of a challenge for Sonoita vintners, now many have been impacted by severe thunderstorms with drenching rain, wind and destructive hail.  The recent storms hit many vineyards such as Dos Cabezas and Callaghan Vineyards, stripping vines of their canopy of leaves and grapes, leaving precious little to work with, in some cases.  While the storms have been inconsistent this summer in numbers, what has developed has been intense.

The pattern of weather extremes seems to be a common theme around the globe this summer with century temperatures in Moscow and flooding rains in China and Pakistan and Iowa.  Scientists question whether such extremes may become increasingly common in the decades ahead, the result of global warming.  NOAA measurements indicate that June  2010 is the warmest on record and measurements from ice cores, geologic records and sediment cores from oceanic cores all support a carbon dioxide level in our atmosphere that is higher than at any other time in the last 650,000 years.  How and whether this plays into our weather extremes is the big unknown.

Tags: global warming