Winds of change

Story by Susan Flansburg

 

Kari Holmes hunches over a micromill at the Iowa State University Stable Isotope Laboratory. She’s working in Professor Alan Wanamaker’s research group, guiding a tiny drill into a 100,000-year-old Columbian stalagmite, looking for its long-hidden secrets, a search that has become her passion.

“I never thought I’d fall in love with a stalagmite,” the senior geology major says. “I spend hours just milling them in the lab. You can see the progression of climate change in them. They show evidence of changes in rainfall amounts associated with warming and cooling events that we can compare with data from today. It’s amazing that this stalagmite can help people halfway across the world prepare for coming changes.”

The science she is involved in can indeed alert us to coming changes in the earth’s weather patterns, but only if we understand and acknowledge it. Kari says she herself needed convincing.

“I grew up on a farm. I knew bad things were happening to the planet, but I wasn’t sure climate change was to blame. When I saw proof in the lab, I realized climate change is not only happening, it is a huge issue.”

Change of view

While the term “climate change” can provoke polarized reactions, retired Marshalltown ophthalmic surgeon and philanthropist Dr. John Graether says those reactions point to the importance of education.

“The education of people is so important in fighting climate change; people don’t grasp the enormity of the problem,” he says. “I think we can make a difference non-confrontationally. People are beginning to realize that we need to do something. Everyone cares about their children and grandchildren and the world we’ll leave for them.”

Graether thought about that as he listened to nationally-known climate science expert William Gutowski speak on climate change at the Shear Colbert Symposium in January 2020. Gutowski, an Iowa State professor in geological and atmospheric sciences, was an author for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. Graether arranged to join Gutowski for lunch afterward.

“I enjoyed meeting John,” Gutowski remembers. “He’s lively and energetic and has a very sharp mind. We discovered we both liked to ride bicycles, even though he’d just celebrated his 90th birthday.”

It was their shared interest in climate science education, however, that led to an unexpected turn in the conversation. “John started talking about making a gift to Iowa State. I thought, I’d better get some other folks involved in this.”

Within weeks, what started as a simple lunch became a $2.2 million gift to enhance climate science education at Iowa State. The Graether Family Fund for Climate Science Advancement will create a cross-disciplinary, career-oriented degree program that will include communication skills as a core piece of the program.

“Bill and I agreed that climate science education is first and foremost,” Graether says. “We need to provide students with a considerable depth of understanding so they have a useful educational framing for guiding their employers or students accurately. Iowa State is in a unique position to lead it. There are programs at other institutions, but this will be unique in the Midwest.”

 

 

Change of ways

The fact is, Iowa State is already a leader in cross-disciplinary research and education in understanding the impacts of climate change on agriculture and related industries in the Midwest, critical to the development of new products, processes and services. A strong track record of engaging undergraduate students in research and high-impact experiences can be seen in labs across campus.

Jennifer Seth, a mentee of Gutowski who is double majoring in environmental science and meteorology, has spent the past year researching data that may one day assist in the healing of the hypoxic zone, or “dead zone,” of the Gulf of Mexico, which is primarily caused by excess nutrient pollution from urban and agricultural areas throughout the Mississippi River watershed.

“I chose my majors because I want to have an impact,” Jennifer says. “Climate change is so much bigger than I thought. I’m learning more about the universality of it, the socioeconomic and geopolitical impacts of it. Iowa State has given me a broad understanding and global view. I’ve been active in many sustainability-focused student organizations and climate action groups. My goal is to help overcome the apathy so many feel about it.”

Agricultural test plots like those studied by Jennifer dot the landscape throughout Iowa. Agronomy associate professor Andy VanLoocke is among the cadre of Iowa State faculty members who wade into them regularly as they innovate new solutions.

VanLoocke is especially interested in “prairie potholes,” those places where Midwestern row crops struggle to grow. The potholes are left over from the last ice age, he says, wide and deep enough to catch and hold the increasingly frequent torrential summer rains that drown corn and soybeans. VanLoocke is looking for an effective alternative crop that may thrive in these soggy areas. Giant miscanthus – “pampas grass” to gardeners – looks interesting.

“Miscanthus withstands the conditions well,” says VanLoocke. He is a member of C-CHANGE, an Iowa State-led, cross-disciplinary organization working with farmers, communities, businesses and other organizations to create science-based sustainable change through socioeconomic innovation and technology. “It’s more impervious to washouts, heat stress and drought than corn or beans. It filters water better, drains less water into rivers, doesn’t need as much fertilizer and also captures carbon out of the atmosphere. It keeps the soil in place, reducing the danger of dust storms that may come if the climate gets too extreme.”

VanLoocke says while some have used miscanthus for livestock bedding or in erosion-control socks at construction sites, others are putting miscanthus to work as a biomass energy crop. “The University of Iowa uses it for power, too, combusting it with other fuel on campus. Is it profitable? Is it scalable? Both questions are active areas of investigation.”

Kari – herself a farm girl – underscores the relevance of VanLoocke’s questions. “Nobody’s going to change until it’s more efficient to do it.”

Change of hearts

In fact, Iowa farmers, thanks to climate change over decades, have been the beneficiaries of an optimal growing period, according to a February 2020 article in Physics Today by Gutowski and professor emeritus of agronomy Eugene Takle, “with just the right measure and timing of humidity, rainfall and heat.” However, despite the higher crop yields currently afforded by the warming climate, they warn of a looming decrease in Midwest agricultural productivity, possibly to 1980s levels.

“Some say, ‘It’s just the same old weather cycle,’ but farmers agree they are seeing things change,” says Alan Wanamaker, professor of geological and atmospheric sciences. Wanamaker focuses on understanding how the atmosphere and oceans behaved in the past in order to better understand the impacts human-caused global change might produce.

“Computer models show the climate will be more variable in coming decades,” he says. “Farmers will see an extended growing season as well as drought and downpours of rain that wash away fertilized soil. This is just one of a number of impacts for many communities demonstrated by these models.”

How to innovate sustainable solutions will be the purview of students being educated today. Since climate change is experienced differently on a Midwest farm than in a coastal community or crowded urban setting, each approach will be different.

“We need to educate students to be aware of what is important to people,” Gutowski says. “Innovations have to be community-oriented. We have to listen, not dictate.”

Dara Wald agrees. She is an assistant professor in the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication who focuses on environmental communication. She’s the socioeconomic innovation lead for C-CHANGE. “Amazing science is being done here, but if scientists can’t get the information to the people who need it – because of ineffective communication – nothing gets done. The goal is to help everyone understand each other’s discipline – journalist, social scientist, scientist – whether here on campus or in the community. It’s what happens when research leaves the lab and goes out into the world. It’s about better conversations that reflect real values and needs.”

 

 Projected changes in maximum growing-season temperatures by the end of the 21st century.
 The changes are downscaled by use of the Weather Research and Forecasting climate model assuming medium carbon emissions

Published in: Eugene S. Takle; William J. Gutowski Jr;
 Physics Today  73, 26-33 (2020)
DOI: 10.1063/PT.3.4407
Copyright © 2020 American Institute of Physics

 

Be the change

Kristie Franz, professor and Smith Family Foundation Departmental Chair in Geology, agrees with Wald. “We must train students to be scientists, but also to be interdisciplinary communicators and listeners. There’s a lot of disinformation and distrust out there. We need to learn how to talk about and present data in a way that people can understand and use it.”

Franz is finalizing plans to hire a new teaching professor to help launch the new major. Currently designed as an interdisciplinary studies program in climate science, she anticipates offering the full climate science major and minor by fall 2022.

“Students want to have an impact on their communities and in their careers,” she says. “This major will attract students already interested in environmental sciences, but it will also appeal to today’s integrative mindset. It’s a very different type of major, very interdisciplinary, but I think it’s a major for the current century.”

The major’s core curriculum will include geology, meteorology, earth history, paleoclimatology, oceanography, modern climate and climate change, as well as classes in communication and statistics. Additionally, students will choose from focus areas such as advanced climate science, sustainability design and planning, and science visualization.

Graether is happy to have a hand in helping Iowa State prepare students to “go out and make a difference by approaching the subject in a positive, constructive way, to bring others around to accepting the reality of what we see.” And hopefully, he says, to have a meaningful impact on the world.

“This isn’t a regrettable situation; this is a chance to improve our future and be part of solving the problem.

 

You can lead change

The Graether Family Fund for Climate Science Advancement is enabling Iowa State to provide interdisciplinary climate science education to young people who are eager to engage in this work and make a difference in society, especially at this inflection point for capturing their passion, imagination and energy. You can make a gift to support climate science education at Iowa State here.  

 

 

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