Click here to subscribe to
Planet-Profit Report, reporting on sustainable development in the Western United States.

A new hub for climate-change research in the West

Consortium includes Montana, Kansas, Wyoming, Nebraska and Iowa

Several new developments add momentum to Colorado State University’s growing reputation as a hub for climate-change research.

In October, the U.S. Department of the Interior selected CSU as home to one of eight new Climate Science Centers designed to put research in the hands of public and private resource managers so they can better mitigate the negative effects of climate change.

In early November, CSU was named by the National Science Foundation as the leader of a new research and education program to train the next generation of water scientists, granting $2.75 million over five years to the effort.

In mid-November, United Nations officials traveled to the Fort Collins campus for the North American launch of its Decade for Deserts, designed to focus attention on how worsening drought patterns and human impacts turn productive acreage into barren dryland.

“These announcements help tie together the excellence we have on so many different disciplines,” said Bill Farland, vice president for research at CSU. “I consider CSU to be a hallmark 21^st Century land-grant institution that focuses its expertise on global problems. It’s not just about advancing the science; it’s about solving big problems.”

With its new Climate Science Center, CSU will lead a consortium of nine universities in the north-central region of the country: the University of Colorado, Colorado School of Mines, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Wyoming, Montana State University, University of Montana, Kansas State University and Iowa State University.

The center, expected to be operating by 2011, will be housed in CSU’s $13 million Science and Technology Center, which opened in April 2009. The climate center will host up to eight federal scientists as well as post-doctoral fellows who will work with regional land, water, fish and wildlife managers, providing them with the latest tools to adapt their work to the findings of climate science.

“We’ll look at the impacts of climate in the north-central part of the U.S., to help understand how changing patterns affect snow and rainfall in the region,” said Prof. Dennis Ojima, director of the new center. “We’ll see how they affect wildlife habitat, stream flow, fisheries, forest production. A better understanding of the changes in temperature and precipitation will enable us to better manage natural resources, making sure we don’t mismanage them or doing anything detrimental.”

Ojima is a professor in CSU’s Department of Forest, Rangeland and Watershed Stewardship. “We’ll take what we’ve learned about climate change and connect it with the needs of resource managers and decision makers at the local level,” he said. “We’ll work hand in hand with them on what we know on the scientific side.”

There are multiple factors at play,” Ojima added. “The fragmented urbanization of land systems, the diversion of water, nitrogen deposits from agriculture and automobile use. To pool all that info together with what we know about climate change is something we haven’t done.”

Another practical problem Ojima says his team will tackle is the pine beetle infestation of trees in the north-central region. More than 1 million acres of lodgepole pine in Colorado already have been infected.

“We have one type of emergent phenomena we’re concerned with – the pine beetle outbreak,” Ojima said. “With extended drought in the Rockies, how do we manage against fire risk?

Ojima said his scientists are looking at the different responses of vegetation in devastated areas.

“With the various pine beetles, you have similar phenomena but different impacts,” he said. “In Colorado, we’re seeing the lodgepole and aspen coming back, but the fire danger still is quite extreme,” he said. “Not so with the white bark pine beetle in the Northern Rockies, in Wyoming and Montana around Yellowstone.

Century-old trees are being knocked out and replacement is limited. It presents a significant gap in the ecosystem for bird species and grizzlies, who need to fatten up. We want to communicate this translational science to natural resource managers.”

ColoradoState Universitywas the first university in the world to host one of the U.N.’s “decade of the desert” announcements, and the first North American site. CSU and U.N. officials signed a letter of intent to explore how they can work together on desertification research.

While natural deserts make up an important part of the Earth’s ecosystems, desertification occurs when healthy landscapes in dryland areas such as Colorado turn barren from human impacts and worsening drought. Colorado and 16 other Western states are classified as drylands.

Desertified land can be restored, and the U.N. has launched a worldwide effort focused on such research. Other “launches” have taken place in Brazil, Korea and Kenya, with the last scheduled this month in London.

“We have been working with CSU scientists for almost two years now,” said Luc Gnacadja, executive secretary of the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification. “The strength of the U.S. interdisciplinary approach is very important, and it is not universal. Extension services in the United States may be a model that could work elsewhere. University communities are the nexus between research and policy.”

The NSF grant program to train water scientists will be led by Jorge A. Ramirez, a professor of civil and environmental engineering. The grant will take a multidisciplinary approach with as many as 30 doctoral students, who will be trained in engineering as well as atmospheric science and ecology.

“Water management decisions generate conflicts between humans, ecosystem needs and political jurisdictions,” Ramirez said. “There is a critical need for scientists who can address … (the question of ) how does science provide answers for wise water management decisions?”

Added CSU vice president Farland, “The water work we’ve been doing over the years has been such a hallmark for CSU that we’ve populated a lot of the water ministries around the world with our grads.”

CUS has the ability “to not only advance science and deal with scientific climate issues, but we’re in a position to train students about these issues,” Farland said. “We can make sure climate science issues become embedded in the curricula across the university, and we’re well-positioned to stay actively engaged in building this research program.”