ISU Climate Science Initiative

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ISU Climate Science Initiative

• Eugene S. Takle
• Professor of Atmospheric Science
• Department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences
• Professor of Agricultural Meteorology
• Department of Agronomy
• Iowa State University
• Ames, Iowa 50011
• gstakle_at_iastate.edu

Combined Faculty Meeting Agronomy and GEAT 24
January 2008
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Outline

• Status of climate science
• Climate change and climate variability
• Understanding and prediction regional-scale
  climate change and variability and their impacts
• Time scales for future climate scenarios
• What do we do now? ISUs role
• NARCCAP
• MiCCA
• MRED
• Climate Science Initiative
• Brief history
• Current status
• Developing linkages, faculty engagement
• Future visions

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Carbon Dioxide and Temperature
Business as Usual 950 ppm
?
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Energy intensive
Reduced Consumption
Energy conserving
IPCC Fourth Assessment Report Summary for Policy
Makers
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Energy intensive
Reduced Consumption
Energy conserving
The planet is committed to a warming over the
next 50 years regardless of political decisions
IPCC Fourth Assessment Report Summary for Policy
Makers
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Energy intensive
Reduced Consumption
Energy conserving
The planet is committed to a warming over the
next 50 years regardless of political decisions
IPCC Fourth Assessment Report Summary for Policy
Makers
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Energy intensive
Reduced Consumption
Energy conserving
The planet is committed to a warming over the
next 50 years regardless of political decisions
IPCC Fourth Assessment Report Summary for Policy
Makers
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Energy intensive
Reduced Consumption
Energy conserving
Mitigation Possible
Adaptation Necessary
IPCC Fourth Assessment Report Summary for Policy
Makers
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IPCC Fourth Assessment Report Summary for Policy
Makers
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IPCC Fourth Assessment Report Summary for Policy
Makers
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Observed summer (June-July-August) daily maximum
temperature changes (K) between 1976-2000
(Adapted from Folland et al. 2001).
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D. Herzmann, Iowa Environmental Mesonet
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What To Do Now?

• North American Regional Climate Change Assessment
  Program
• Midwest Consortium for Climate Assessment (MiCCA)
  (proposed to NOAA)
• Multi-RCM Downscaling of CFS Seasonal Forecasts
  (MRED) (proposed to NOAA)
• ISU Climate Science Initiative

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What To Do Now?

• North American Regional Climate Change Assessment
  Program (WJG lead)
• Midwest Consortium for Climate Assessment (MiCCA)
  (proposed to NOAA)
• Multi-RCM Downscaling of CFS Seasonal Forecasts
  (MRED) (proposed to NOAA)
• ISU Climate Science Initiative

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North America Regional Climate Change Assessment
Program

• Global models do not have sufficient spatial
  resolution to provide climate information at
  scales needed for decision-making on adapting to
  climate change
• Use results of global climate models of future
  scenario climates as boundary conditions for
  regional climate models
• Develop scenarios of contemporary and future
  climate at spatial scales of 50 km for use in
  assessing impacts of climate change

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Terrain and land-sea boundaries in the Hadley
Centre global climate model
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Example Regional Model Domain
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North America Regional Climate Change Assessment
Program Participants

• Lead agency NSF, with contributions from NOAA
  and DOE
• R. Arritt, D. Flory, W. Gutowski, E. Takle, Iowa
  State University, USA
• R. Jones, E. Buonomo, W. Moufouma-Okia, Hadley
  Centre, UK
• D. Caya, S. Biner, OURANOS, Canada
• D. Bader, P. Duffy, Lawrence Livermore National
  Laboratories, USA
• F. Giorgi, ICTP, Italy
• I. Held, NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics
  Laboratory, USA
• R. Leung, Y. Qian, Pacific Northwest National
  Laboratories, USA
• L. Mearns, D. Middleton, D. Nychka, S. McInnes,
  NCAR, USA
• A. Nunes, John Roads, Scripps Institution of
  Oceanography, USA
• S. Sain, Univ. of Colorado at Denver, USA
• L. Sloan, M. Snyder, Univ. of California at Santa
  Cruz, USA

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What To Do Now?

• North American Regional Climate Change Assessment
  Program
• Midwest Consortium for Climate Assessment (MiCCA)
  (proposed to NOAA) (EST lead)
• Multi-RCM Downscaling of CFS Seasonal Forecasts
  (MRED) (proposed to NOAA)
• ISU Climate Science Initiative

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How Will New Trends and Variability of Regional
Climate Change Affect

• Crop horticulture production
• Soil erosion
• Conservation practices
• Water supplies
• Streamflow
• Water quality
• Beef and pork daily gains
• Livestock breeding success
• Milk and egg production
• Crop and livestock pests and pathogens

• Agricultural tile drainage systems
• Natural ecosystem species distributions
• Human health
• Building designs
• Recreation opportunities
• River navigation
• Roads and bridges

Who will provide authoritative information? How
will it be delivered?
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Proposed new Midwest
Consortium for Climate Assessment (MiCCA)
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Midwest Consortium for Climate Assessment (MiCCA)
MiCCAs mission is to translate and enhance the
latest NOAA climate forecast products to maximize
economic gains for agricultural producers and
their agribusiness service providers in the U.S.
Midwest through use of advanced regional models,
interactive web-based decision-making tools, and
high-volume customized delivery and feedback
through the existing integrated regional, state,
and county level extension service network
throughout the 9-state region (MN, IA, MO, WI,
IL, MI, IN, OH, KY).
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Midwest Consortium for Climate Assessment (MiCCA)

• Create seasonal climate forecasts for the Midwest
• Use ensembles of advanced regional climate models
  interactive web-based decision-making tools,
• Translate and enhance the latest NOAA climate
  forecast products to maximize economic gains
• Use high-volume customized delivery and feedback
  through the county level extension service network

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What To Do Now?

• North American Regional Climate Change Assessment
  Program
• Midwest Consortium for Climate Assessment (MiCCA)
  (proposed to NOAA)
• Multi-RCM Downscaling of CFS Seasonal Forecasts
  (MRED) (proposed to NOAA) (RWA lead)
• ISU Climate Science Initiative

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Seasonal Forecasting (MRED project)

• Weather forecasting is short-term (few days to 2
  weeks)
• Climate projection is for decades
• Seasonal forecasting has had less attention,
  despite practical needs
• agriculture, construction and
  repair, transportation, etc.

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Seasonal Forecasting (MRED project)

• MRED project is patterned after NARCCAP
• uses output from the National Centers for
  Environmental Prediction (NCEP) global model as
  input to fine-scale regional models
• many of the same participants as NARCCAP
• ISU has done some exploratory work using a
  similar approach.
• Project has been proposed to NOAA.

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What To Do Now?

• North American Regional Climate Change Assessment
  Program
• Midwest Consortium for Climate Assessment (MiCCA)
  (proposed to NOAA)
• Multi-RCM Downscaling of CFS Seasonal Forecasts
  (MRED) (proposed to NOAA)
• ISU Climate Science Initiative (EST lead)

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ISU Climate Science Initiative

• Launched by Vice President Brighton
• Colleges of Agric, Engr, LAS have taken
  leadership, but broad campus research
  participation will be emphasized
• Build on research strengths in regional climate
  modeling, agriculture, water,
  landscapes, engineering

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Climate Science Initiative
Vision That Iowa State will be the leading US
university in forecasting climate at regional
scales with lead times of two weeks to
multi-decadal for use in decision-making. A
major component of the nations food supply and
renewable fuel supply is vulnerable to both
natural cycles of climate and changes due to
increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases.
Failure to anticipate major floods and droughts
of regional scale will create profound shocks to
the nations economy. Recent advances in
forecasting global climate out to nine years by
use global climate models initialized with new
measurements of ocean heat content as reported
in Science raise prospects for increased
predictability on seasonal and longer time scales
for the Midwest region.
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Climate Science InitiativeProgress So Far

• Held informational meeting Nov 26
• 75 attended (additional 20 sent regrets)
• 59 faculty, 16 staff/admin
• 22 departments, 5 colleges
• Reported back to VPRED advisory team
• VP Brighton, Deans Wintersteen, Whiteford,
  Kushner
• Approval to move forward
• Hired web master, invite speakers
• Forming Climate Science Initiative Council
• Forging linkages with other programs

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Build Links to other Institutes and Centers

• Bioeconomy Institute
• Plant Sciences Institute
• CyberInnovation Institute
• Center for Carbon-Capturing Crops
• Center for Computational Intelligence, Learning,
  and Discovery
• Research Computing Council
• Ames Laboratory
• CARD
• ISU Extension Service
• Great Lakes Consortium for Petascale
  Computing

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Examples of Studying Impacts of Climate Change

• Impact of land-use and climate change on future
  landscape change (C. Kling, CART)
• Impact of climate change on stream flow in UMRB
  (C. Kling, P. Gassman, M. Jha, CARD)
• Impact of climate change on tile drainage flow
  (A. Kaleita, M. Helmers, ABE)
• Pavement performance under climate change (C.
  Williams, CCEE)
• Changes in wind speed and wind power under
  climate change (S. Pryor, Indiana U)

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Future Role of Cyberinfrastructure in Universities
leadership in cyberinfrastructure may well
become the major determinant in measuring
pre-eminence in higher education among nations.
Arden L. Bement, Jr. Director, National Science
Foundation
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Virtual Environmental Observatories

• Assemble comprehensive historical databases on
  environmental measurements
• Meteorological
• Streamflow
• Ground water
• Soil moisture
• Soil carbon
• Crop growth
• Water quality
• Air quality

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Virtual Environmental Observatories Assemble
comprehensive historical databases on
environmental measurements

• Meteorology, streamflow, ground water, soil
  moisture, soil carbon, crop growth, water
  quality, air quality
• Landscape information (elevations, soil types,
  land-use, land cover, animal/bird populations,
  drainage, tillage, cropping patterns, chemical
  application, conservation practices, ownership,
  etc.)
• Human demographics (population, built
  environment, pollutant sources, etc.)

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Virtual Environmental Observatories Assemble
dynamical models for imposing physical
constraints and consistency

• Physical laws
• Balances
• Consistency

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Virtual Environmental Observatories Forecast
future conditions with applications to

• Extreme weather events
• Flood/drought impacts
• Roadway safety
• Emergency management
• Advance preparedness
• Toxic releases
• Crop development
• Agriculture decision-making
• purchase, tillage, planting, marketing
• Recreational opportunities

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Where Do We Go From Here?

• Continue to solicit faculty participation
• Form Council
• Build off-campus partnerships
• Seek funding opportunities
• Establish grants facilitation
• Prepare to compete for a presidential
  initiative
• Prepare to compete for a federally
  funded center