Transcript ISU Ag and Climate

Adapting Agriculture to Wetter Springs
and Wetter Storms
Christopher J. Anderson, PhD
Assistant Director, Climate Science Program
Iowa State University
Adapting to Climate Change: Gaining the Advantage
8 June 2012
Adaptation:
Adjustment in natural or human systems in
response to actual or expected climate stimuli or
their effects, which moderates harm or exploits
beneficial opportunities.
Climate Stimuli – A change in the climate conditions that agitates
the current agricultural system.
What is the climate change of interest?
What is the sensitivity of agricultural systems?
“One of the clearest trends in the
United States observational record is
an increasing frequency and intensity
of heavy precipitation events… Over
the last century there was a 50%
increase in the frequency of days with
precipitation over 101.6 mm (four
inches) in the upper midwestern U.S.;
this trend is statistically significant “
An unequivocal statement!
But…
Who is informed by it? What
decisions can be made based
on it?
Spring and Summer rainfall is the moisture
source for annual crops
April-June Iowa Precipita on
Inches
21.00
20.00
19.00
18.00
17.00
16.00
15.00
14.00
13.00
12.00
11.00
10.00
9.00
8.00
7.00
6.00
5.00
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
30-yr average Iowa Spring rainfall (13.1”) is highest of past 140 years.
Wet springs are more frequent since 1970s. (A 1 in 20 year is now 1 in 5.)
Spring and Summer rainfall is the moisture
source for annual crops
July-August Iowa Precipita on
Inches
20.00
19.00
18.00
17.00
16.00
15.00
14.00
13.00
12.00
11.00
10.00
9.00
8.00
7.00
6.00
5.00
4.00
3.00
2.00
1.00
0.00
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
30-yr average Iowa Summer rainfall (8.6”) is highest of past 140 years.
An absence of dry summer since 1970s! (The number of 1-in-20 dry summers
since 1976 is ZERO.)
Wetter Spring/Summer is a good thing, right?
35
Field Work Days
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Iowa April-May Rainfall
Well… A wetter spring reduces the growing season or takes land
out of production.
3.00
150
Futures
USDA
Bushels per acre
153
4/8/11
3.50
2/8/11
156
12/8/10
4.00
10/8/10
159
8/8/10
4.50
6/8/10
162
4/8/10
5.00
2/8/10
165
12/8/09
5.50
10/8/09
168
8/8/09
6.00
6/8/09
$ per bushel
Wetter Spring/Summer is a good thing, right?
Yield - USDA
Well… A wetter summer can decimate crops at a time that replanting is
impossible, impacting global market prices.
Wetter Spring/Summer is a good thing, right?
Wind/Excess
Wind
0%
GRP/GRIP Crops
Only Flood
0%
5%
Cold Wet
Weather Decline in Price
2%
2%
GRP/GRIP Crops
Only
5%
Flood
3%
Hail
16%
Wind/Excess Cold Wet
Weather
Wind
1%
0%
Hail
10%
Drought
22%
Excess
Moisture/
Precip/Rain
53%
Frac on Crop Insurance Payments 1991-2000
Decline in Price
25%
Excess
Moisture/
Precip/Rain
30%
Drought
26%
Frac on Crop Insurance Payments 2001-2010
Wetter spring/summer results in added cost to taxpayers through more
crop insurance payouts.
Mid-21st Century climate projections
overwhelmingly have a wetter spring in Iowa.
2040-2069 minus 1970-1999
March-April-May
35
SRES A1B
30
SRES A2
SRES B1
25
SRES A2 NARCCAP
Precipitation Change (%)
20
15
10
5
0
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
-5
-10
-15
-20
-25
Temperature Difference (C)
3.5
4
4.5
5
Climatologist’s Perspective: We need to adapt!
Climate Stimuli
Change in spring/summer wetness and frequency of extremely
wet days
Responses
(1) Management logistics: Shorter growing season
(2) National corn yield has been reduced below expectations,
sending global markets immediately upward.
Future projections indicate a continuation of the current trend.
One thing is apparent from speaking with Farmers
Iowa farmers are adapting
• Wetter springs: larger machinery enables planting in smaller
weather windows
• Wetter springs and summers: more subsurface drainage tile,
closer spacing, sloped surfaces
• Fewer extreme heat events: higher planting densities, fewer
pollination failures
• Higher humidity: more spraying for pathogens, more
problems with fall crop dry-down (seed variety selection)
How do we know that this reactive adaptation is the
path we want agriculture to take?
Resistance-Resilience-Transformation Adaptation
Framework
Resistance
Strategies
Maintain the status
quo over the near
term through
management that
builds resistance to
climate change
U. S. Forest Service, 2010
Resilience
Strategies
Transformation
Strategies
Longer-term actions
that build adaptive
capacity by improving
the system’s ability to
moderate effects of
climate
Increase adaptive
capacity by facilitating
the transition to a new
system with different
structure and function
better adapted
A progression of knowledge leading to adaptation
planning.
(1) View agriculture as a system of systems.
• overlapping social, economic, biophysical, and ecological processes and
human decisions interacting over multiple scales of time and space.
(2) Evaluate sensitivity of systems and the interaction among
systems to rainfall changes in the Midwest.
(3) Envision a desired or acceptable level of sensitivity.
(4) Determine if the desired sensitivity requires resistance,
resilience, or transformative strategies.
How do we learn how to adapt?
Develop (1)-(4) within Known Patterns of Innovation
(1) knit together existing parts, ideas, past knowledge and experiences
by becoming very familiar with the region’s “inventory of spare
parts” and taking steps to reassemble them in new ways that might
solve the problems
(2) create dense networks of people with different perspectives,
experiences, and knowledge, bringing more spare parts to the table
and new configurations as to how to assemble them and allowing
individuals to get smarter because they are connected to each other
(3) provide an institutional environment where interaction can take
place, ideas can collide, and hunches can become refined by
exposure to networks (and encourage other institutions to develop
similar innovation spaces).
Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation by Steven Johnson (2010)
NOAA RISA enables transdisciplinary, multi-party
discussion for use-inspired research.
A call to community learning
(1) Spring/Summer rainfall has changed due to hydrological cycle
changes. Sensitivity of agricultural production is obvious.
(2) Let’s take a deep breath.
(3) Let’s form a community of scientists (social and physical), agency
representatives, agricultural producers, NGOs, agricultural
membership organizations, climate information generators, and
climate information providers to


Assess the sensitivity of this region’s ag. systems to wetter spring/summer
Meet regularly and create a vision for what we want the sensitivity of
agricultural systems to wetter spring/summer to be.
(4) Let’s use the networks of this community to create an
implementable agricultural adaptation plan.