The fight for Europe's fruit: How orchards are adapting to warmer winters

In this episode of Climate Now we review the latest Copernicus Climate Change Service data showing warm temperature anomalies for January and highlighting the figures for sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic. Our report focuses on the search to find fruit trees better adapted to Europe's warmer winters.

Warmer winters are a growing problem for fruit producers. Many European varieties need a long cold winter to produce good fruit in summer, and climate change is disrupting their natural cycles.

In one orchard near Bordeaux in southwest France, plant biologist at the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment, Bénédicte Wenden, has been searching for varieties of apple, cherry, apricot, and peach that are able to thrive in a warmer world.

Her long-term goal is to identify the traits in different trees that can allow us to create varieties for the year 2050 and beyond.

"The problem we have now is that with the increase in winter temperatures, the fruit trees' requirements for cold are no longer met," Bénédicte told Climate Now. "This means that there is no longer enough cold in winter, and so flowering is irregular, with major problems in production."

This is a long-term issue. Average winter temperatures in Europe have risen since the 1950s, and the average is projected to rise for the decades to come. 

The latest figures would appear to be in line with that trend. Data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service shows that Europe has just had its third warmest January on record, with temperatures for the month 2.2 degrees Celsius above the 1991-2020 average.

On a global scale, there was a lot of variability in January. In northern Russia, Afghanistan and Pakistan were colder than average,