Times they are a-changing
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| Gene Takle warms Iowa up to climate change. |
Climate change predictions do not sound particularly dire for Iowa; milder winters with fewer frosty days; cooler summers—though more of those extremely hot days, best suited for cooling off at the pool.
Such a halcyon image, though suitable for “the good life” will create challenges for agriculture. Already Iowa is witnessing escalating pest diversity and populations. And what happens to Iowa when adverse climate changes impact our neighboring regions?
“Added stresses are likely,” says Gene Takle, professor in the Departments of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences and Agronomy, ranging from an expanding disease, fungus and over-wintering pathogen spectrum to higher spring soil temperatures pushing up humidity levels. “Farmers are heavy users of fossil fuel and agriculture is under the microscope because it generates a lot of greenhouse gasses from tillage and nitrogen fertilization.”
Iowa is representative of the whole Midwest, says Takle who is calling on Iowa State researchers to apply their expertise to maintain and improve Iowa's economy in the face of climate change. To this end, Takle is spearheading the new ISU Climate Science and Impacts Initiative.
Mobilizing researchers with disciplines as outwardly diverse as architecture to riparian restoration seems a natural fit. “We are a land grant university with broad interests in areas that are weather sensitive,” says Takle. “We need to assess what is known, determine how to begin adapting in the near term, then how to suppress climate change beyond fifty years.”
A member of an international group of scientists collaborating with the National Center for Atmospheric Research on the multi-agency-sponsored North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP), Takle and his climate-science colleagues are collecting data sets from regional climate models for more reliable projections of future climates—a valuable tool for Iowa's decision makers.
Takle is requesting funding to establish a Midwestern Consortium for Climate Assessment as the Midwest is different than the rest of the country. “We would like to generate seasonal climate predictions with one-to-nine month outlooks and improved creditability beyond one week,” says Takle.
No stranger to farming, Takle grew up on a farm in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, a town made famous by Laura Ingalls Wilder's “Little House on the Prairie” stories. Ingalls Wilder lived briefly as a young girl in the dugout described in “On the Banks of Plum Creek” —just a few miles from the Takle homestead.
Takle found his way to Iowa State as a student, earning a Ph.D. in physics. A faculty member since 1971, his focus shifted to agricultural meteorology and climate science, “learning it on the ground,” he says.
“The most important thing I tell my students is be able to adapt, learn how to learn, because whatever we are teaching today can all change,” says Takle. And no where else could this be more accurate than in the face of global warming.
