Warm Winter Risk: Multiple agricultural risks induced by elevated winter temperatures

Context and challenges

The risks of summer drought are well identified and have already been the subject of numerous studies (Beillouin et al., 2020), while other types of climate risk have so far been relatively less studied. Among these, the risks induced by mild winters (high winter temperatures) deserve particular attention because of:

1. their multiple and partly antagonistic impacts on agricultural production;
2. the major socio-economic issues associated with these impacts in terms of producers’ incomes, the environment,
3. Europe’s self-sufficiency in agricultural products, and the viability of the agricultural insurance sector.

The impact of elevated winter temperatures is a complex phenomenon to analyze, as this type of event has both potentially positive and negative effects on agricultural production. High winter temperatures reduce the number of frost days, but increase crop susceptibility to late frost and can reduce water resources.

The occurrence of high winter temperatures can therefore generate multiple risks, with cascading repercussions throughout the growing season and economic and environmental consequences for many actors. 

Goals

The overall aim of the WWR project is to define and test a probabilistic modeling framework for evaluating the impact of mild winters on agricultural production in France and Europe. It will bring together scientists with complementary skills in agronomy, economics, statistics, spatio-temporal modeling and climate science. The methodology will be applied to three case studies: vines, wheat and maize, in several European countries. The scientists involved in this project will also study the possibility of extending this approach to other agricultural systems in Europe. 

INRAE structures

Non-INRAE partners