In vino veritas

From Open Mind (Tamino):

In truly fascinating new research, scientists have searched historical records to collect data about when the grape harvest began each year. Their research wasn’t published in the Journal of French Wine (I don’t know if there even is one), it was published in the journal Climate of the Past. That’s because the date when the grape harvest begins is a clue to temperature.

The importance of clues like this is that they extend farther back in time than thermometer records. The grape harvest dates (GHD) start in the year 1354 — centuries before the thermometer was even invented. Also quite important: they are all for the same location: Beaune, France.

When the temperature is hotter, the grapes are ready to harvest earlier. When it’s colder, they harvest later. If climate is really heating up, the grape harvest should be getting earlier. And what did they find? This:

I can also estimate the trend with a smoothing function, and regular readers know I’m fond of the lowess smooth (but different methods give essentially the same result):

It fluctuated before 1978 — real data does that — but since 1978 it has been declining precipitously [by about half a day a year]. This is not natural. It’s because of man-made climate change.

We can get an “image” of how this indicates temperature has changed throughout the years, simply by turning the graph upside down:

That is one steep rise since 1978. Just as obvious as the recent steep rise, is the lack of such things in the previous 600 years. This is not natural. It’s man-made climate change. Does the shape of this graph remind you of anything? Maybe … something like … a hockey stick?

Whenever new evidence of climate change emerges, climate deniers try to dispute it by any means necessary. They especially hate anything that looks like a hockey stick because it shows so clearly how what’s happening today is not like what we’ve seen before. It’s not natural. Perhaps they’ll claim that French wine-grapes are communists who want to destroy our freedom and impose world government.