-
NIFA's Information Webinar on Climate Change Programs
-
Rapidly changing climate is one of the most pressing issues facing farmers, ranchers, landowners, households and communities. To address these climate change challenges, individuals, families and communities need the best available science to plan for and implement climate-smart and resilient practices.
n this webinar, National Program Leaders from each of the outlined programs gave a brief description of the program, proposal submission deadlines and other pertinent program information. This webinar is especially useful for project directors with climate based/climate emphasized research, Extension and education projects.
Located in
News and Webinars
/
Webinars
-
Climate Change Impact: Food Systems, Food Security, and Global Linkages
-
Food systems both impact and are affected by climate change. Emissions come not only from farming, but also from the processing, manufacturing, distribution, storage, sale, and preparation of food, and the disposal of food wastes. Likewise, climate change influences not just agriculture, but activities that occur throughout this larger system. In this talk, Dr. Peters will address the fundamental concepts of food systems and food security. He will explain how scientists estimate climate emissions from individual supply chains and from whole food systems. He will also consider case study examples of strategies for reducing emissions viewed both from the production and consumer ends of the food system.
Located in
News and Webinars
/
Webinars
-
Appalachian LCC Coordinator is Panelist at National Conference on Science, Policy and the Environment
-
Appalachian LCC Coordinator and Chief Scientist, Dr. Jean Brennan, participated as an invited speaker at the 16th National Conference and Global Forum on Science, Policy and the Environment in Washington DC.
Located in
News & Events
-
Contrasting futures for ocean and society from different anthropogenic CO2 emissions scenarios
-
The ocean moderates anthropogenic climate change at the cost of profound alterations of its physics, chemistry, ecology, and services. Here, we evaluate and compare the risks of impacts on marine and coastal ecosystems—and the goods and services they provide—for growing cumulative carbon emissions under two contrasting emissions scenarios. The current emissions trajectory would rapidly and significantly alter many ecosystems and the associated services on which humans heavily depend. A reduced emissions scenario — consistent with the Copenhagen Accord’s goal of a global temperature increase of less than 2°C — is much more favorable to the ocean but still substantially alters important marine ecosystems and associated goods and services. The management options to address ocean impacts narrow as the ocean warms and acidifies.
Located in
Resources
/
Climate Science Documents
-
Integration and scaling of UV-B radiation effects on plants: from DNA to leaf
-
A process-based model integrating the effects of UV-B radiation through epidermis, cellular DNA, and its consequences to the leaf expansion was developed from key parameters in the published literature. Enhanced UV-B radiation- induced DNA damage significantly delayed cell division, resulting in significant reductions in leaf growth and development. Ambient UV-B radiation-induced DNA damage significantly reduced the leaf growth of species with high relative epidermal absorbance at longer wavelengths and average/low pyrimidine cyclob- utane dimers (CPD) photorepair rates. Leaf expansion was highly dependent on the number of CPD present in the DNA, as a result of UV-B radiation dose, quantitative and qualitative absorptive properties of epidermal pigments, and repair mechanisms. Formation of pyrimidine-pyrimidone (6-4) photoproducts (6-4PP) has no effect on the leaf expansion. Repair mechanisms could not solely prevent the UV-B radiation interference with the cell division. Avoidance or effective shielding by increased or modified qualitative epidermal absorptance was required. Sustained increased UV-B radiation levels are more detri-mental than short, high doses of UV-B radiation. The combination of low temperature and increased UV-B radiation was more significant in the level of UV-B radiation-induced damage than UV-B radiation alone. Slow-growing leaves were more affected by increased UV-B radiation than fast-growing leaves.
Located in
Resources
/
Climate Science Documents
-
Global change and the groundwater management challenge
-
With rivers in critical regions already exploited to capacity throughout the world and ground- water overdraft as well as large-scale contamination occurring in many areas, we have entered an era in which multiple simultaneous stresses will drive water management. Increasingly, groundwater resources are taking a more prominent role in providing freshwater supplies. We discuss the competing fresh ground- water needs for human consumption, food production, energy, and the environment, as well as physical hazards, and conflicts due to transboundary overexploitation. During the past 50 years, groundwater man- agement modeling has focused on combining simulation with optimization methods to inspect important problems ranging from contaminant remediation to agricultural irrigation management. The compound challenges now faced by water planners require a new generation of aquifer management models that address the broad impacts of global change on aquifer storage and depletion trajectory management, land subsidence, groundwater-dependent ecosystems, seawater intrusion, anthropogenic and geogenic contamination, supply vulnerability, and long-term sustainability. The scope of research efforts is only beginning to address complex interactions using multiagent system models that are not readily formulated as optimization problems and that consider a suite of human behavioral responses.
Located in
Resources
/
Climate Science Documents
-
1.5°C or 2°C: a conduit’s view from the science-policy interface at COP20 in Lima, Peru
-
An average global 2°C warming compared to pre-industrial times is commonly understood as the most important target in climate policy negotiations. It is a temperature target indicative of a fiercely debated threshold between what some consider acceptable warming and warming that implies dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system and hence to be avoided. Although this 2°C target has been officially endorsed as scientifically sound and justified in the Copenhagen Report issued by the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2009, the large majority of countries (over two-thirds) that have signed and ratified the UNFCCC strongly object to this target as the core of the long-term goal of keeping temperatures below a certain danger level. Instead, they promote a 1.5°C target as a more adequate limit
for dangerous interference. At COP16 in Cancun, parties to the convention recognized the need to consider strengthening the long-term global goal in the so-called 2013–2015 Review, given improved scientific knowledge, including the possible adoption of the 1.5°C target. In this perspective piece, I examine the discussions of a structured expert dialogue (SED) between selected Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) authors, myself included, and parties to the convention to assess the adequacy of the long-term goal. I pay particular attention to the uneven geographies and power differentials that lay behind the ongoing political debate regarding an adequate target for protecting ecosystems, food security, and sustainable development.
Located in
Resources
/
Climate Science Documents
-
Beneficial Biofuels—The Food, Energy, and Environment Trilemma
-
Exploiting multiple feedstocks, under new policies and accounting rules, to balance biofuel production, food security, and greenhouse-gas reduction.
Located in
Resources
/
Climate Science Documents
-
A westward extension of the warm pool leads to a westward extension of the Walker circulation, drying eastern Africa
-
Observations and simulations link anthropogenicgreenhouse and aerosol emissions with rapidly
increasing Indian Ocean sea surface temperatures (SSTs). Over the past 60 years, the Indian Ocean warmed two to three times faster than the central tropical Pacific, extending the tropical warm pool to the west by *40 longitude ([4,000 km). This propensity toward rapid warming in the Indian Ocean has been the dominant mode of interannual variability among SSTs throughout the tropical Indian and Pacific Oceans (55E–140W) since at least 1948, explaining more variance than anomalies associated with the El Nin˜o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). In the atmosphere, the primary mode of variability has been a corresponding trend
toward greatly increased convection and precipitation over the tropical Indian Ocean. The temperature and rainfall increases in this region have produced a westward extension of the western, ascending branch of the atmospheric Walker circulation. Diabatic heating due to increased mid-tropospheric water vapor condensation elicits a westward atmospheric response that sends an easterly flow of dry air aloft toward eastern Africa. In recent decades (1980–2009), this response has suppressed convection over tropical eastern Africa, decreasing precipitation during the ‘long-rains’ season of March–June. This trend toward drought contrasts with projections of increased rainfall in eastern Africa and more ‘El Nin˜o-like’ conditions globally by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Increased Indian Ocean SSTs appear likely to continue to strongly modulate the Warm Pool circulation, reducing precipitation in eastern Africa, regardless of whether the projected trend in ENSO is realized. These results have important food security implications,
informing agricultural development, environmental conservation, and water resource planning.
Located in
Resources
/
Climate Science Documents
-
A-maize-ing Diversity
-
Analysis of a new maize resource reveals that a large number of genetic loci with small effects may underlie the wide variation seen in traits such as flowering time.
Located in
Resources
/
Climate Science Documents
