Weiss believes this climate change initiated a mass migration away from dry-land farming to the creation of irrigated fields along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, allowing the people to build some of the earliest institutions of civilization.

CNN: Past may hold clues to climate's future

Both countries have big-league wine industries (Argentina's is the world's fifth-largest), nearly 500 years of vintages, and growing areas with Eden-like climates for farming wine grapes--so warm and dry that grapes easily ripen and pesticides, fungicides, and anti-rot measures are often unnecessary.

FORBES: Making a Case for South America