Transcript Quantification of Uncertainty of Regional Climate Change

ISU Climate Science Initiative
Meeting objectives:
*
To assess the level of faculty interest in
research relating to climate science at ISU
*
To identify opportunities to build partnerships
at ISU between climate science and programs in
bioeconomy, plant sciences, cyberinfrastructure, and
climate-sensitive areas of research in agriculture,
water resources, natural systems, and engineering
for establishing ISU as a
regional/national leader in climate science and
impacts of climate change.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC)
Established in 1988 by
• World Meteorological Organization (WMO)
• United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
Supports the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
First Assessment Report - 1990
Second Assessment Report - 1995
Third Assessment Report (TAR) - 2001
Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) - 2007
Plus: special reports, technical papers, methodology reports and
supporting material.
(source: www.ipcc.ch)
Understanding and Attributing Climate Change
Continental
warming
likely shows
a significant
anthropogen
ic
contribution
over the
past 50
years
U.S. Climate Change Science Program
Mission: Facilitate the creation and application of knowledge
of the Earth’s global environment through research,
observations, decision support, and communication.
Integrates climate research of 13 federal agencies
Primary Products: 21 Synthesis & Assessment
Reports
• Improve knowledge of the Earth's past and present climate
and environment
• Improve quantification of the forces bringing about climate
changes
• Reduce uncertainty in projections of future climate change
• Understand the sensitivity and adaptability to climate
(source: www.climatescience.gov/)
change
• Explore the limits of evolving knowledge to manage risks
What is a climate model?
(IPCC TAR, Ch. 1)
How can a numerical model represent all of this?
Options:
• Global model
resolve continental
scales


simulate 10s-100s yr
• Regional model
resolve broad human
scales (river basins,
agricultural zones, etc.)


simulate 10s-100s yr
Example Regional Model Domain
North American Regional Climate Change
Assessment Program (NARCCAP)
• An international project to evaluate regional
climate change for North America.
• Uses nested regional climate models: fine-scale
models that use results of coarse global models
as input.
– How does uncertainty propagate from global
models through regional models?
• Develop multiple realizations of regional climate
change for use in climate change impact
assessment (patterned on global model data for
the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report).
North America Regional Climate Change
Assessment Program: Participants
• Raymond Arritt, David Flory, William Gutowski, Gene Takle, Iowa State
University, USA
• Richard Jones, W. Moufouma-Okia, Hadley Centre, UK
• Daniel Caya, Sébastien Biner, OURANOS, Canada
• David Bader, Phil Duffy, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, USA
• Filippo Giorgi, Abdus Salam ICTP, Italy
• Isaac Held, NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, USA
• René Laprise, Univ. de Québec à Montréal, Canada
• Ruby Leung, Y. Qian, Pacific Northwest National Laboratories, USA
• Linda Mearns, Don Middleton, Doug Nychka National Center for
Atmospheric Research, USA
• Ana Nunes, John Roads, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, USA
• Steve Sain, Univ. of Colorado at Denver, USA
• Lisa Sloan, Mark Snyder, Univ. of California at Santa Cruz, USA
NARCCAP PLAN
Current climate or Scenario
global climate models
GFDL
CCSM
1971-2000 current
Provide boundary conditions
HADCM3
CGCM3
2041-2070 future
regional climate models
MM5
Iowa State
RegCM3
MRCC
HADRM3
RSM
WRF
UC Santa Cruz
ICTP
Quebec,
Ouranos
Hadley Centre
Scripps
NCAR/
PNNL
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.
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.
Examples of Studying Impacts of
Climate Change
Global climate models have demonstrated skill in
simulation of future climates (1980s GCMs projected
accelerated warming in the Arctic that now is being
observed)
Regional model output is being used for studying
• Impact on land-use and climate change on landscape change
•
•
•
•
(C. Kling, CARD)
Impact of climate change on streamflow in UMRB (C. Kling, P.
Gassman, M. Jha, CARD)
Impact of climate change on tile drainage flow (A. Kalieta, M.
Helmers, A&BE)
Changes in wind speed (wind power) under climate change (S.
Pryor, Indiana U)
Pavement performance under climate change (C. Williams, CCEE)
http://www.rcmlab.agron.iastate.edu/
Examples of Studying Impacts of
Climate Change
Regional model output is being used for studying
• Seasonal climate forecasts (MRED: J Roads, R. Leung, C.
Anderson, H. Juang)
• Impact of climate change on crop yields (Z. Pan, SLU)
• Impact of climate change on plant disease (X. B. Yang, Plant
Pathology, and Z. Pan)
• Others?
Discussions on climate change impacts
• Montane plant and butterfly changes (D. Debinski, EEOB)
•
•
•
•
Soil erosion (R. Cruse, Agron)
Buffer strips, cloud forests (H. Asbjornsen, NREM)
Turtle populations (F. Janzen, EEOB)
Carbon sequestration (P. Schnable, Agron)
• Bioeconomy (R. Brown, S. Fales, J. Miranowski)
http://rcmlab.agron.iastate.edu/
Midwest Consortium for Climate
Assessment (MiCCA)
MiCCA’s 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).
http://rcmlab.agron.iastate.edu/
Iowa Environmental Mesonet
•
Goal: Build a centralized clearing house for environmental data in Iowa
– "Network of networks": Collect, process and archive data from preexisting networks
– Build two-way partnerships with data providers and data users; foster
interdisciplinary collaboration and research
•
Daily data processing:
– IEM ingests over 300,000 obs/day (~111 million in 1996)
– 20 GB of compressed Level2 NEXRAD data is processed, 10,000+
Level3 NEXRAD radar attribute files are ingested into the spatial
database
– Thousands of NWS issued text products are processed to extract
data and information.
– 99% of processing done in real-time.
Observation Archive (as of 10/2006)
Begins
Current
Stations
ASOS
1945
17
1,323,570
IA AWOS
1995
37
191,017,657
IA RWIS
1994
53
15,015,105
SchoolNet
2002
131
166,626,011
NWS COOP
1893
185
3,107,343
Ag Climate
1998
14
1,003,436
Other
Total
Lots
Obs Stored
~20,000,000
~400 million
Virtual Environmental Observatories
Assemble comprehensive historical databases on
• environment measurements (meteorological, soil moisture, soil
carbon, crop status, ground water, streamflow, water quality, air quality,
etc.)
• 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.)
Assemble dynamical models for imposing constraints
and consistencies
•Physical laws, balances, plausibility
Forecast future conditions with applications to
* extreme weather events,flood/drought impacts forecasting,
emergency management, advanced preparedness, toxic releases, crop
development, chemical/seed purchase, chemical application,
planting/marketing planning, recreational opportunities, etc.
http://rcmlab.agron.iastate.edu/
What’s it going to cost us?
Total cost of large-scale carbon capture and
storage: $76 - $450/tC
Example: Added cost to drive your car.
$(0.076-0.450)/kg C x (12 kg C/44 kg CO2) x 10.4 kg CO2/gal x (1 gal/25 mi) x
12,000 mi/yr
= $103 - $613/yr ($0.22 - $1.28/gal)
An Investment Opportunity?
Total cost of large-scale carbon capture
and storage: $76 - $450/tC
Current price of sequestered carbon on
Chicago Climate Exchange: ~$10/tC
Center for Carbon-Capturing Crops
Rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations/global climate change
Produce crops with cell walls that are “resistant” to microbial degradation
• Sequester
carbon in soil
• Increase
organic matter
• Increase farm
income
Genetic Approaches
Cell wall
composition
varies among
genotypes*
Use genetic variation to identify genes that regulate
resistance of roots to microbial degradation (“guilt
by association”)
*Hazen et al., 2003 Plant Physiol.
Sampling Nested Association Mapping Lines *
*6,000 recombinant inbred lines generated to sample the genetic diversity of maize
Root Samples from the NAM Lines
N=2 x 6,000 Samples
Sarah Hargreaves
Genetic Variation in Distribution of
Vascular Bundles and
Lignification among 25 NAM
Parents
NC358
CML277
Next Steps - Near Term
• Website
• Directory of ISU climate related research and
interests (short CV, pubs, grants, ideas)
• Seminar series
• Office of climate-change and climate-impacts
research
• One full-time position
• Educational initiatives and support
• Proposal collaboration
• Long-term vision statement
Next Steps - Long-Term
• Center or institute
• Faculty positions
• Graduate assistantships
• Named chair