Iowa Climate Statement 2014 Christopher J. Anderson Research Assistant Professor, Department of Agronomy Assistant Director, Climate Science Program Iowa State University Ames, IA October 2014

Climate Change in Iowa is different from Climate Change on TV

Source: Min et al (2011, Nature). Human contribution to more-intense precipitation extremes. The pattern of change in extreme rainfall is a fingerprint of human influence on climate change.

Rare Spring-Summer rainfall combinations are no longer rare : : 5 Dry Spring Dry Summer Dry Spring Wet Summer Wet Spring Wet Summer Wet Spring Wet Summer

Source: Bindoff, N.L., P.A. Stott, K.M. AchutaRao, M.R. Allen, N. Gillett, D. Gutzler, K. Hansingo, G. Hegerl, Y. Hu, S. Jain, I.I. Mokhov, J. Overland, J. Perlwitz, R. Sebbari and X. Zhang, 2013: Detection and Attribution of Climate Change: from Global to Regional. In: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Stocker, T.F., D. Qin, G.-K. Plattner, M. Tignor, S.K. Allen, J. Boschung, A. Nauels, Y. Xia, V. Bex and P.M. Midgley (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, pp. 867–952, doi: /CBO Two human climate change fingerprints on temperature: (1) Land has warmed more than ocean (2) Northern latitude has warmed more than middle latitude

Source: Union of Concerned Scientists, Heat in the Heartland: 60 years of warming in the Midwest (2012) Summer heat wave trend is determined by source of air. Iowa’s hottest summers are dry tropical, moist tropical, and moist tropical+. Warming of northern latitude has affected dry polar, dry moderate, moist polar, moist moderate, but not Iowa’s hottest air masses.

Source: Union of Concerned Scientists, Heat in the Heartland: 60 years of warming in the Midwest (2012)

Iowa City June-July-August Minimum Temperature Humidity increase causes more hot nights during summer. In Iowa City, high summer night time temperature is more frequent. Ten of the top 15 years have occurred since 1990.

Iowa City 3-day Minimum Temperature Humidity increases causes more hot nights during summer heat waves. Maximum of 3-day MinimumMinimum of 3-day Minimum

Length of Growing Season is 10 days longer across the Midwest In Iowa, corn is planted one week earlier than in the 1950s.

As climate changes there will be more wet springs A one-in-ten year wet spring during becomes a two-in-five year wet spring during Data Source: Climate projections from Stoner et al. (2013) Climate Projection of Iowa May-June Rainfall

As climate changes there will more hot summer nights Data Source: Climate Projections from Stoner et al. (2013) Number of July Nights with Temperature > 70F

As climate changes there will be more hot summer days Number of July Days with Temperature > 95F

2013: an example of things to come 2013 Data Source: Stoner et al. (2013)

What might Iowa Educators do Next? Identify additional climate-health connections Develop monitoring and decision tools Produce Information Sheets similar to Union of Concerned Scientists “Confronting Climate Change” series

Iowa Climate Statement 2014 Christopher J. Anderson Research Assistant Professor, Department of Agronomy Assistant Director, Climate Science Program Iowa State University Ames, IA October 2014

: an example of things to come

Source: Bindoff, N.L., P.A. Stott, K.M. AchutaRao, M.R. Allen, N. Gillett, D. Gutzler, K. Hansingo, G. Hegerl, Y. Hu, S. Jain, I.I. Mokhov, J. Overland, J. Perlwitz, R. Sebbari and X. Zhang, 2013: Detection and Attribution of Climate Change: from Global to Regional. In: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Stocker, T.F., D. Qin, G.-K. Plattner, M. Tignor, S.K. Allen, J. Boschung, A. Nauels, Y. Xia, V. Bex and P.M. Midgley (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, pp. 867–952, doi: /CBO The pattern of change in extreme rainfall is a fingerprint of human influence on climate change. Temperature trend can not be explained without Human emissions of greenhouse gases

Ocean Has Absorbed 64% of Energy added by Greenhouse Gas Increase More complete measurements, such as satellites since 1980, has reduced substantially the uncertainty in energy storage estimates. Source: climatechange2013.org

Source: Union of Concerned Scientists, Heat in the Heartland: 60 years of warming in the Midwest (2012) Des Moines June-July-August Air Masses Average Maximum Temperature Upward change since 1945 Downward change since 1945 Dry Tropical: 95 O F, -1.0 O F Moist Tropical+: 94 O F, +2.0 O F Moist Tropical: 88.5 O F, +0.5 O F Dry Moderate: 84.5 O F, O F Moist Moderate: 84 O F, +4.0 O F Dry Polar: 77.5 O F, +2.5 O F Moist Polar: 76 O F, +6.0 O F

Supporting Slides for Historical Narrative Maximum of 3-day Average and Max Temp Dots: Values for each year Red Line: 90%-tile Blue Line: 10%-tile Black Line: average