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StumbleuponLocals monitoring possible signs of climate change
Nature-watchers say changes would be subtle in the Miami Valley area.
> Are earlier blooms evidence of global warming?
Monday, September 08, 2008
DAYTON — Each year, Dayton has a 1 percent chance of having a 100-year flood.
But if local annual rainfall increases 15 percent to 20 percent by the year 2100 as some climate models predict, the probability of such a flood could rise to 3 percent to 4 percent each year.
So says research by Shuang-Ye Wu, who teaches geography at the University of Dayton. Floods of greater magnitude also are possible, though the region's dam system can handle them, she said.
The Miami Valley isn't home to shrinking polar ice caps or rising sea levels, but Wu and a handful of local academics and nature-watchers are documenting what may be subtle signs of local climate change — and its potential consequences.
"It is probably more likely here that we see incremental changes," said Bob Brecha, a UD physics professor and coordinator of the university's sustainability, energy and environment initiative. "I wouldn't anticipate 'tipping points' of any kind."
A danger of that kind of climatic shift is complacency, said Brother Don Geiger, a retired University of Dayton biology professor who founded the Marianist Environmental Education Center in Beavercreek.
"You don't get the sense of urgency when it isn't blatantly obvious that something's going on," Geiger said.
Brecha, who for three summers has researched climate change at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Berlin, said Ohioans are contributing to climate change elsewhere, even if the state doesn't see the most dramatic effects.
"There is a kind of moral responsibility to other places on the planet," he said.
Evidence of climate change in Ohio includes:
The National Arbor Day Foundation's reclassification of most of Ohio in 2006 into a milder hardiness zone. Those zones are based on the long-term average of a location's lowest recorded temperature each year.
Ohio's average annual temperature has trended upward about 0.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the past century, according to the National Climatic Data Center.
Climate change also could bring more bouts of severe weather to the state, as well as wilder weather fluctuations not reflected in average annual temperatures.
Geiger expects more weather extremes like one in April 2007, when temperatures dipped into the teens, damaging fruit crops after an unusual warm spell in late March spurred early plant growth.
Jim Amon, a Wright State University professor whose research has focused on wetlands around Beavercreek, said if those fluctuations go beyond the tolerance of certain species, those species could be lost, undermining natural diversity.
While the Beavercreek wetlands are primarily fed by groundwater, vernal pools could be more susceptible to climate change, depending on its impact on temperature and precipitation, Amon said.
Climate change has implications not just for weather, but for wildlife.
A local decline in some bird species such as the red-headed woodpecker has been noted by Geiger.
Several factors are likely to blame, he said; one may be climate change. Bird migration is dictated by day length, whose cycle is consistent from year to year. But temperature, which does vary and may be trending upward, influences the insects on which birds feed. So climate change may deprive birds of a food source.
The more local eyes observing natural processes the better, said William "Bill" Felker of Yellow Springs, who publishes an almanac brimming with local weather observations at poorwillsalmanack.com.
That's especially true when it comes to insects and other animals that move about and can be harder to observe than plants, he said.
For example, Felker said, he hasn't seen milkweed beetles locally in years. "Is that sloppy observation or is that the canary in the coal mine?" Having more folks monitoring nature will help answer such questions, he said.
Felker, whose chronicling began in 1972 with the gift of a barometer from his wife, said tracking local plant life — the date of the first dandelions each spring, for example — would be a valuable long-term project for children in the primary grades to continue into high school and possibly beyond.
"Let them start young and watch what happens," he said.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7457 or bsutherly@DaytonDaily
News.com.
