Sensitivity of Climate Analogues to Problem-Specific Adjustments

As climate change reshapes environmental and human systems, climate analogues — present-day locations whose climate resembles projected future conditions¹ — are increasingly used to support climate mitigation or adaptation. However, most existing applications rely on coarse climate model outputs and raw variables, often neglecting microclimatic variability and sector-specific climatic constraints.

Using European vineyards as a case study², we investigate how incorporating problem-specific refinements affects climate analogue identification. We enhance the classical analogue framework by introducing bioclimatic indices tailored to vine growth and pathogen development, applying sub-grid temperature corrections based on elevation, slope, and aspect, and using Principal Component Analysis to weight their contributions and thereby reduce redundancy among indices. A systematic sensitivity analysis quantifies the individual impact of each refinement on the spatial distribution of the selected analogues.

All three refinements exert a significant impact on analogue identification with similar magnitude. While the generalized distance statistics between reference sites and their analogues remain relatively stable when changing parametrizations, the geographic location of analogues can shift by several hundred to over a thousand kilometres, in some cases altering matches at the continental scale. These results emphasise the significant impact of variable selection, their interdependence, and the local climate variability on climate analogue outcomes. Consequently, problem-specific considerations are essential to ensure that the identified analogues are truly relevant to the application of interest³. While developed for viticulture, the proposed framework is readily transferable to other climate-sensitive systems, including agriculture, ecosystem management, and urban planning, underscoring the need for problem-specific climate analogue methodologies.

¹ G. Rohat, S. Goyette, J. Flacke, Characterization of European cities’ climate shift– an exploratory study based on climate analogues, International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management (2017) 
² H. Allaman, S. Goyette, P.-H. Dubuis, J. Kasparian, Future viability of European vineyards using bioclimatic climate analogues, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology (2026)
³ H. Allaman, S. Goyette, P.-H. Dubuis, J. Kasparian, Sensitivity of Climate Analogues to Problem-Specific Adjustments: A Case Study, Manuscript submitted for publication, Under review