K-State Garden Hour
Gardening with a Changing Climate
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He Welcome to the 2024 kstate Garden hour webinar series we are so glad you’re here this webinar series started in 2020 and has been a collaboration of the entire K State horiculture Extension team since the start of the program we have reached over 50,000 gardeners just like you we are pleased to continue
Offering the Kate Garden hour series for free if you have enjoyed these educational webinars please consider making a tax deductible donation to support this program the link to donate can be found in the chat or on our kstate garden hour website this webinar is hosted by Kansas State research and
Extension my name is Lane W and I’m the horiculture extension agent for shaie County everyone involved in the development of this series is an extension professional for Kate most of us have a background in Horticultural education or related discipline but most of all we each have a love for educating
And sharing important gardening topics before we get started today we do have have a few housekeeping notes to cover please use the Q&A feature for questions related to the presentation this is where we will be looking for questions at the end of the webinar during the Q&A
Session you should see a button along the bottom tab that says Q&A just click on that and you’ll be able to enter your question today’s webinar will be recorded we will post it to our kstate garden hour website we typically upload additional resources related to the
Topic as well if we share the we will if we share links through the chat we will also link them on the website our website is where you will have access to previous topics and upcoming topics in the 2024 series our moderators today are Laura Phillips and Sharon Ashworth and
They will be sharing information through the chat during the presentation they will also help us facilitate the Q&A portion of the webinar today’s topic is gardening with the changing climate I’m pleased to introduce our speaker today Dr Chuck rice Unity University distinguished professor in the department of agronomy please give us a
Few moments while we transition and share the presentation slides okay should be able to see the presentation now Lan looks great looks good Dr Rice okay all right all right well uh thanks everyone um uh this next 45 minutes or so we’ll talk about how the next one of the next greatest
Challenges uh facing us is trying to Garden in a changing uh climate so I’m going to spend the first half talking about what climate change uh patterns are expected projected to happen and then the second half uh figure out how make some suggestions on how we will
Potentially adapt uh to that changing uh those those changes so first of all we have to understand a little bit about climate change what it is and what it is not um let’s see sorry so uh what you see here is the uh the global land and ocean temperature
For the last uh 150 170 years or so and what you should see here is that based on an uh a 30-year average that the early the late 19th century 18 late 1800s uh were cooler than than the the average 30-year average but what’s what
You should also see is on the right side of this graph is these are documented uh global temperatures uh that since about 19 70s or so there’s been a considerable increase in our Global uh temperatures and um there there’s some variability there that we’re talking about climate and uh not weather the
Difference between climate is that we’re looking at longer term patterns weather is what happens dayto day or week to week climate is more in a decades or 10 year time scales but what you see here is there has been a consistent trend for increasing temperatures so that right
Now we’re in a period of uh hottest um temperatures about 1 and a half degrees Fahrenheit uh increase uh almost almost getting close to two degrees uh at a global level and actually that’s been higher than uh over the last thousand years that’s going back to records and um measurements for uh
Temperature um so that’s what’s happened um but what we’re thinking about in the future is what are those projections for climate that will happen in this case by the end of the of this current century and so what you see here is two projections the one on the left
Is the low pathway which means if we as a global Community try to do something about reducing uh the temperature increases which are primarily caused by carbon dioxide nitrous oxide and methane these are called greenhouse gases um and this is if we uh collectively try to reduce those
Emissions on the right which is really what the pathway we’re on unfortunately we’re on right now um uh is what’s expected by the end of the century based on projections not predictions projections and what you should see here it’s not uh uniform um the higher latitudes particularly in the northern hemisphere
Are projected to get um 13 to over 15 degrees Fahrenheit higher uh here in North America that range is about 10 degrees uh there’s some very variation what you should see here also there are areas on the planet that are were minimal change or uh or
Slight cooling so the planet is not uh warming uh uniformly but the other there’s another aspect with the climate the changing climate is it’s not just temperature it’s also precipitation and this is the one for my area research and what I think about it causes more um heartburn is how to figure out
To do with the changing precipitation I’ll talk a little bit more about this but what you see again is the pathways uh the high emission pathway which is the current pathway that we’re on right now projections are um that the uh wet areas will get wetter and the dry
Areas will get drier and you can see most of us are on the online that I saw were from Kansas um but um that there’ll be slight decreases to significant decreases in precipitation and and for those in Western Kansas uh those were they’re on the uh on the edge of significant in uh
Increase or decreases in precipitation um and which uh should be disconcerning because also with the declining ogalala aquafer it’s a double whammy and sense less precipitation and declining Water Resources out in Western Kansas uh but anyway and so you can see here that a large swap particularly from
Um at least agriculture production uh is going to be hampered by uh decreases in precipitation but there that’s only part of the story uh we’ll dig deeper into that um precipitation intensity which I’ll talk a little bit more about but we’re expect to see higher Extreme More uh higher intense rainstorm events and
That’s Illustrated um uh here but even though that water is coming down in more intense rainstorm events we may get this um because of warmer temperatures there’s going going to be greater evaporation so as a result what you see in the bottom panel here is an increase
In the number of dry days and even though there’s higher precipitation because of higher evaporation we’re going to see um greater U droughts or or dryness which affects uh growing plants and gardening um again to go back and look at historical changes uh so uh you can
See how things have changed or are changing uh this is going back to 1901 and what you see here is the change in temperature uh for the U continuous us uh going from 1901 to 2020 uh on a decadal uh scale and clearly you can see that I think should
Be able to see that we are uh warming uh up to a degree uh or so higher in the United States uh over that 120e period um but the other thing that’s pointed out here and I know there’s some other people outside of Kansas online uh that
Uh it’s not uniform across the United States in fact the southeast uh has less warming uh in fact uh um a little bit cooling up until just recently but you can see here um that the southeast and we’re not sure why that is um the weather or the climate
Patterns but again it’s not not uniform but for the most part of the United States um that we are uh significantly warming particularly in the western half of the United States and that would be from uh Kansas uh on um West and particularly the South by us the same same is true for
Precipitation changes um uh over the uh over the 120 years uh again there’s there’s significant patterns across the US uh I I said the dry air is going to get drier and what we have seen is that the Southwest um it changes from decade to
Decade but uh is uh drier about uh on the order 10% drier the middle part of the country particular the Upper Midwest the last 20 years uh well actually last 30 years um have been uh wet particularly if we look at seasonal changes uh the spring is wetter in Iowa Minnesota northeast
Kansas but um then the summer and fall are tend to be drier I don’t have it broken down by season and so that distribution is going to change um I know the last um month or so we’ve had a significant uh amount of snow uh again that’s weather patterns but the
Long-term trends are we’re going to see uh less snow uh in the central part in in Kansas uh here in the central part of the United States and that’s um changing from less snow to to more uh rain uh as we warm up the the wintertime temperatures another characteristic
Of the Chang in climate I mentioned about precipitation and this is the one that is uh I guess a cause uh well uh makes it harder for me or for agriculture or gardening specifically to deal with and even uh urban areas outside of um you know
Flooding and that and this is what you see is the change in heavy precipitation uh events and what we’re what we’re seeing is that there’s a uh increase in the change in uh 20-year return uh precipitation events so that uh means that we’re going to get uh more intense rainstorm
Events and then drier periods in between particularly if there’s not much change in precipitation that has major implications because not only affects gardening affects agriculture we have more intense rainstorm events more so erosion but then there’s more flooding Downstream that uh then affects urban areas and flood infrastructures uh are not adequate to
Handle the water that’s coming down the Kansas River down to lawence TOA or Kansas City so we’re going to flood instructure flood infrastructure containing uh is going to be is not adequate to meet the change in climate that’s um kind of a side note here um but should be concerning not only for
Rural areas but uh urban areas as well and this is another way to show it is the um the two-day precipitation event you can see the trends here that since the 1900s um through uh 2020 is that we’re seeing uh a relative number um increase in heavy precipitation uh events and that brand
Is certainly uh started in the 1970s 80s uh up to a significant increase in the last uh two or three decades and another way to look at across the United States uh it varies uh as as I showed earlier the precipitation uh is less in the southwest so we’re actually seeing decreasing um
Uh uh flood magnitude in the western half for the most part Western half of the United States in an increase the size of the triangle in indicates the percent rate of change per decade so we’re seeing uh more um frequent um flooding events in uh the central Great
Plains Midwest and also in the Northeast it’ll be interesting to see I I know what’s on the news the last week is the atmospheric River uh that has occurred in California La uh I guess it does show an increase um in uh flood events but we’re going to see more of these intense
Rainstorm events and I’ll give a local example uh here in 2018 uh this is Manhattan Kansas if for those that are familiar with Manhattan uh this used to be a grocery store I think it was Ray’s Market here there’s a um baring Grill here on the West side of
Camp on west side of town so 2018 was really unusual we were in a drought we were 30% below normal up until Labor Day and then four hours later we were normal or slightly above normal we had about 8 to 10 inches rainstorm or rain precipitation in that 4-Hour
Event and so we’re not equipped to handle that I don’t think there’s many places that can handle uh 8 to 10 inches in four hours uh so what we’re seeing is that causes major Soul erosion causes um economic damage um and makes it more challenging uh for growing plants
Growing um uh or gardening uh in the those things so not only we have to think about these flood events but then we also have to think about how to handle the dry periods uh in between so the extreme events and seasonality is is absolutely critical and and challenging uh for growing uh
Plants um again looking at some of the seasonal changes these are projections uh annual temperatures are expected in the central part of the unit the Northern Plains um increased by five to six degrees but what’s really uh important is the is the seasonality we’re going to see warmer
Winters uh and um significantly warmer Winters and slightly warmer uh uh Summers the other thing that doesn’t show on here is that nighttime temperatures are showing a significant increase why is that important well there’s two things going on here warmer Winters uh we need a lot of times
Winners are important for killing past and diseases so we’re going to have more past and disease survive over that winter and that’s going to be a greater challenge for for growing PL plants um and then the nighttime temperatures that stresses the plants uh nighttime temperatures is when the plants recover and so warmer
Nights uh are uh detrimental for plant growth and so that’s uh going to be uh is a challenge now and going to be uh causing uh future challenges as well let’s see um yeah let’s see okay uh the same thing with precipitation this shows the seasal
I talked a little bit about this but uh in the Northern Great Plains uh we’re seeing a slight increase in precipitation but again the seasonality is really important here in um the central part uh of the US uh Kansas uh wintertime precipitation is actually in I think there’s some people onine line from
Nebraska um we’re going to see a heavier precipitation so we might actually see more snowfall uh depending upon those those changes in in temperature um I mentioned the upper half the Upper Midwest upper Great Plains are going to see uh about a 15% change uh increase in precipitation that affects our planting
Dates um more so for agriculture but again if the soils are too wet we can’t get in prepare uh the the beds and get those plants in the ground or seeds in the ground the other thing if it’s wetter soils that may increase Pest and diseases um such as root rot and and
Other diseases but then we get those wet Cycles in the spring and then it immediately switches to U dry periods drought and so we’re going to actually see uh a change that the summer is going to be uh drier uh and so again how do how those
Plants adjust or how do we manage those plants uh and Gardens to adapt to that seasonal change wetter Springs drier Summers Falls kind of in between um and so that that um makes it something to to think about and and manage for um and then the other thing is even
Though we have we may have those extreme events uh greater precipitation in some areas northeast Kansas is kind of like Iowa uh is getting wetter or projected to get wetter where Western Kansas is projected to get uh drier uh probably one or two inches less rainfall uh but when it comes in those
Uh events uh we got a warmer atmosphere and so so that’s going to increase evaporation so even though uh the precipitation uh kind of middle part of the state may or may not change much but with the warmer temperatures we’re going to see increased evaporation uh and so that’s going to uh
Dry out those soils and though that’s why you saw in that one graph we have increased precipitation but even drier soils because of that evaporation and again I’ll suggest things that how do we adapt to that from a gardening perspective so um so we got this change in temperature and precipitation I
Showed those patterns um but this is the the one that um I think is the most challenging that keeps me um thinking awake at night is how to handle these extremes uh if we go from an 8 inch rainstorm event to uh to a drought flash
Droughts um we might have and we have had recently I think last week it was 70 degrees in parts of Kansas um you know it can be 80 degrees in April and then we have uh a freeze or Frost event and so trees are starting to
Butt out fruit trees flower and then we get uh hit with a a killing or a frost that damages um those flowers and affects productivity of fruit trees um grapes and other perennial fruits and so again um that it’s something that’s harder to control these extreme events and harder to adapt to
And again Kansas well the last two the bottom two again the dust storms we’ve seen uh a lot of dust storms not so much this year but last year Winns uh draw out on dust storms in early spring late winter uh and wildfires particularly uh in um Central and Southwest Kansas on our
Grasslands and that smoke then affects um air quality okay so um so the impacts uh the summary is and when I do a webinar like this it’s always okay this is the first half is um um bad news I guess um uh but we we got to deal with water um both too
Much and too little um in in the same season uh how do we handle he um and uh I I’ll talk yeah and so this last year uh was a unfortunately at least in parts of Kansas was was a an example where we had August was high temperatures above 100 110 degrees
Fahrenheit uh in mid August and a lot of plants were uh uh suffered from that but then uh Labor Day weekend that we had another week of 100 degree plus temperatures and that uh hammered a lot of plants and in my own U Garden um that I lost um some even perennials that
We’ll talk about that I’ll suggest is some adaptation but they got hurt I lost uh four or five um pine trees that I planted about four or five years ago and I didn’t get the water on them uh I was trying to limit my water use and I I
Waited too long and I lost those trees so again we can do some adaptation measures but then uh getting those multiple heat events uh can affect the survivability of of those plants and then the last part is we got to we’re going to have more extremes we’re already seeing that now more variability
Uh we go from uh intense rainstorm events to Drought we get uh cold snaps Warm Springs and then a late Frost that’s going to affect um plant growth and budding of trees uh now the I guess you you could argue um this is showing growing season um and so the opening of first
Leaf uh has uh the is earlier now by about uh four to eight days in in Kansas and particularly for the northern half of the United States uh we’re seeing uh warmer Springs and so actually the growing season uh has increased somewhere around 10 to 14 days already uh We’ve
Documented across the state um the 100y year records uh for across the state and it it’s pretty consistent um that on the order of uh 7 to 14 days longer growing season a lot of people would consider that that great but you got to remember along growing season then you’re going
To me need more water uh and more uh nutrients uh to take advantage of that growing season so it may not be necessarily a great thing uh the USDA has uh produced plant hardiness zone maps and when I’ve shown here this is controversial when it came
Out uh this is 1990 map so in different zones and for Kansas what we’re in zone um six and five and six uh that has um uh shifted so that now uh the warmer temperatures that most of Kansas is in zone uh six I guess all Kansas in zone
Six and even a little bit of Zone Seven uh in that uh and so everything’s basically shifted North as we see that Continental um us uh change in in warmer temperatures so now we have to think about different hardiness zones different plant species or cultivars to handle uh those different
Temperatures um so just to give you a little bit uh uh the temperature this is in centigrade sorry um the uh 22 would be about um 75 degrees Fahrenheit uh 35 would be in uh in the 90s uh Fahrenheit so a lot of our vegetable crops um uh are have a tolerance range
For vegetative growth ranging from for broccoli cool season crops we’re talking talking um about 4 40° fahit uh up to uh a little in the in the up in the mid 70s upper 70s uh but then Tomatoes uh you can see here water watermelons are a little more tolerant that’s vegetative growth uh
Unfortunately reproductive growth when those flowers uh they’re less uh often less tolerant to heat and so you can see here for the most part we’re talking working uh 25 degre Centigrade which is uh in the mid to Upper 70s if I did my calculation correct and
So they’re going to be uh so when we have those 90 degree temperatures um they’re going to have less fruit less production uh for those uh for those uh crops um so that’s on the on the U vegetable side fruits and nuts uh what we’re concerned about is that um warmer
Temperatures uh are going to cause earlier Bud break uh and flowering in the spring uh that’s and an increase faster development that is not necessarily a good thing faster development for plants whether it’s wheat or vegetables or fruits is they grow uh the faster develop means that you end up with
Smaller um less yield more smaller fruit and vegetables because they grow uh too fast U and then the other problem is then if they have Bud break then we get a cold snap then that’s going to affect um the production of those fruits and um it says no Peach crop this
Year that was actually last year 23 um they had Georgia which is the peach state they had a warm spring and then a cold snap and then wiped out basically the peach crop for the state of Georgia uh and I I know there’s some people online from
Tennessee so I they might have been impacted the the same way but the other thing is I briefly mention is that we’re going to see with those warmer Winters warmer nights we’re going to going to see more past past that generally and disease that generally residing in Texas Florida Georgia are now
Moving um uh migrating up uh to the central part of the United States so we’re going to have new diseases uh that we in Kansas or in other parts of the US that we haven’t uh experienced before uh and so and also with warmer temperatures you’re going to have multiple pest
You’re going to have increased Generations per year instead of having one or two generations of those insects you’re might have two or three and so that means multiple uh hits uh on on those growing uh plants okay so uh for the next uh 15 minutes or so I’m going to talk about
Solutions um it’s interesting I work uh in agriculture uh grow crop agriculture uh and uh Native prairies but a lot of the things that I discuss uh for our large Fields corn wheat soybean cotton uh really uh translate uh to uh Gardens and so I’m going to talk a little bit about those
So the solutions I’ll explain these in detail but really soil health I’m a soil scientist I’m biased but really I think saw health is really key that it provides some of the buffer the resiliency against those extreme events uh both water uh and heat uh less disturbance in in ulture Road crop
Agriculture we talk about no tail but we can also um do less tillage uh of the gardens and we don’t necessarily need to to till and and there’s reasons uh for that uh the use of cover crops during the winter uh growing keeping that soil covered that adds U biomass improves the
Soil Health recycles nutrients mulch is absolutely critical composting um but also in planting a garden planting the garden thinking of plant diversity so you don’t have a single that you have multiple um CRS plants there to um buffer the diseases the pest uh and create some diversity and
That way native plants are a little bit more acclimated to uh the the climate that we have in Kansas uh and then look at uh annual plants that are more that been Brad cultivated they’re more adaptive to the change in climate whether it’s um water restrictions uh or um or temp temperature heat
Tolerance okay a little bit about soil Health this is my favorite topic U this is my what I call the Holy Trinity of so hell and we’re talking about um so organic carbon or organic matter as as a key component for healthy soils and that creates healthy plants but the the Trinity part
Is there’s a connection between organic matter microbial activity the biological activity of soil and soil structure and so those three are interrelated they support each other and if you have those three things then you’re going to have uh better soil structure it’s going to have more paracity it’s going to capture
Those intense rainstorm Events maybe not the eight or 10 inches but the three or 4 inches and that water is going to be retained in the soil and provide a buffer for those dry periods in between those heavy events uh heavy rainstorm events um with organic matter you’re
Going to have other nutrients besides carbon nitrogen phosphorus that really support the the plant growth and so they’re all interrelated and support a more healthy uh Garden so again I talked about Les tillage this is an uh a row crop agriculture example but by not tilling the soil you in retaining that organic
Matter that carbon the residue on the surface when we get to mulch and compost it’s going to prevent or minimize evaporation so you’re going to conserve that water particularly during those um dry events um and there’s other uh reasons uh again for reduce erosion uh again for gardening uh it’s
Going to improve your General Sol fertility uh you’re going to be able to uh have get into the garden uh faster after rainstorm events uh and there’s some other benefits for Road crop agriculture but applies to uh gardening as well and this this really shows the biological activity and how it affects
Uh soil structure and what you see here is um disregard the panel but uh these are fungal hyy in the soil and what you see here is that by less tillage more carbon in the soil that hyy will trap those soil particles and glue them together and that’s really really important
Because now those particles are more resistant to erosion and uh allows the water to infiltrate into the soil and what’s Illustrated U below here is a soil that’s been tilled uh doesn’t have the the aggregate structure those so particle structure and you can hopefully you can easily see that that soil when
It wets up we add water to it it doesn’t it’s not glued together and it dissolves well if it’s on the sole surface where does it go it’s going to go off your garden down stream and you’re going to lose all those nutrients uh uh that are
In the top soil in a well structured soil um this was either from a notel or a native Prairie you can see that you add water to it it retains its structure those High the biological activity glue those particles together and make it more resilient and this is um again an
Illustration that comparing the green as native Prairie infiltration you can see it has uh it’s going to capture those rainstorm events the blue in across the state this is uh Tribune Haze and uh uh here in Manhattan these are a Fields but the same would be true for gardening is
That by um the blue would be less tillage um maybe adding some cover crops create roots to add feed the microbes uh treat that soil structure and you can see that water infiltration uh is in um or or Aggregates are enhanced uh in those uh cases so we got better structure uh for
That so it really becomes important to think about that soil Health organic matter is the key so how do we do that I mentioned not tilling soil the till uh will break up those soil particles and expose uh the organic matter destroy the soil structure but adding plant material
Or organic material to the soil to the Garden uh is one way to do that and we have some long-term research showing the benefits of adding compost but I if I adding uh compost whether it’s food waste uh adding manure uh again adding mulch uh to that soil
Surface uh you can improve the the soil uh structure uh and we got we don’t have to tail that material in I got my own Garden uh flower beds I have Mulch on the surface that suppresses weed so I don’t have to go out and weed as much
But I’m improving my soil and it also retains that moisture I’m preventing that layer of compost or Mulch on the surface is reducing evaporation so now I’m retaining making more effective use of that precipitation or or irrigation um the other benefits of mulch is that it CS the soil so that be
Soil surface heats up that um affects microbial activity but also uh um hampers The Roots um and I mentioned about suppressing the weeds composting is another way again U putting the compost uh on the surface um you don’t have to till it in use that organic layer to create the
Benefits of of water savings um plant selection um you know I’m sure the horiculture uh extension specialist can give better advice but uh looking at one way to uh make more effective use of the water U more heat tolerance is pineals pineals have developed a deep root system I’m showing
The native Prairie The Roots there that diversity of roots going down deep not only is it capturing water um and extracting water from deeper in the soil during those dry periods but it’s also recycling nutrients pulling nutrients that have moved down the soil uh deepen the profile and
Moving that near the the soil surface so um whether it’s um cultivated annual plants that might have deep root systems but particularly native plants uh have evolved uh for um with those root systems uh looking at annuals I mentioned this earlier we need to select cult cirs that
Are more heat tolerant uh drought tolerant and I know there’s um varieties and cultivars out there at the Garden Store um that um thinking about um the ability to handle those extreme events as much as possible U plant diversity and rotation again for Pest Control this is important um having um multiple plants
In there so it does doesn’t uh it it Harbors beneficial plants pollinators but also insects that will um feat on some of the uh negative paths that affect um plant growth and so having that diversity is really important to uh uh support the beneficial uh plants as
Well uh legumes um these are great for you could do intercropping in between Tomatoes or your vegetable crops but putting in clovers in there again that’s adding mulch but the nice thing about legumes uh is that they fix nitrogen from the air and add it to the soil and
So it means less fertilizer that external fertilizer that you have to apply um that’s less energy uh so using legumes as a cover crop uh interceding a legume in between uh some of the non-legume vegetable crops and of course from a human nutrition standpoint legumes your beans um are really important for
Protein and and human nutrition as well uh watering um again U native plants aren’t going to use less water although like I said I should have watered earlier um this year this last uh summer um because I did lose some native plants when that double whammy of 110
Degrees weakened those plants in August and then when we had that another week in September it wiped a few of those out um so again but you wouldn’t have to use as much water uh limiting the water recycling water catch the rain water um uh and use it in your garden uh if
You’re going to do irrigation um don’t water the atmosphere uh it’s better to use uh drip irrigation um uh to uh get it onto the soil surface into the soil rather than atmosphere uh sprinkler irrigation depends on the sprinkler but you’re a lot of it’s going to be evaporated so it’s less
Efficient so uh in summary some climate smart gardening uh ideas here just a uh summary uh minimal disturbance uh no not telling soil you don’t need a road zil um or um and then adding mulch to the soil surface for water and temperature composting same thing it’s conserved
Water but you’re adding nutrients as well U maybe adding cover crops that helps add mulch then during the summer when it winter kills uh think about plant diversity uh using adaptive plants um particularly perennials and then smart watering um you know drip irrigation micro irrigation and and water reuse uh are
Some of the things so um with that I think I will finish and hopefully take questions and I didn’t see the Q&A so um we’ll see what we have great thank you very much Dr Rice we do have a number of questions and they are still coming in so I’ll start
Back up at the top there were some questions um that had to do with your one of your first slides with your data with the temperature uh so if you if go back to that there might be there was some questions about how that data came
To be um so for instance a question here says it looked like roughly the last 10 years there was no further rise and uh yeah let me go sorry and while you’re going back uh there’s a question about how that where that data came from like where the temperatures
Are taken are they taken in cities uh or and I’ll I’ll stop there so you get yeah so that’s good question um so I’m not which one uh you’re referring to um but this graph shows the global uh land and ocean temperatures um so it’s really a whole network of
Monitoring stations across the globe um G thousands of stations uh from that uh they are um screened for extremes like if they happen to be you know over time you know maybe there was Urban Development airport put in or concrete so they remove those outl buers to try to
Avoid um changes in heat load you know if they’re concrete black tops and things like that um so they are averages they they use a rolling 30-year average um and so it’s um this data um here on this slide I forgot I should have put that in there but I
Believe that would have been um see was um I think 1980 to 2010 is the the rolling they go in 30-year segments um so it be based on that that’s why you see um um the cooler temperatures uh in the previous uh Century um because the temp our temperatures are increasing so
If you look at current or more recent that uh 1800s and early 1900s actually cooler um I don’t know if the person was asking about the the last um but there’s a lot of variability here actually I think um 2023 uh globally was the hottest on record so there there is some
Variability um and part of the uh I guess climate Skeptics would say okay they looked at say here 1990 and then you know was a uh decrease here and they say well you know it’s it’s not really there’s a lot of variability but you got to remember the climate is a long-term
Trend and and so there yes you’ll have years that’ll be cooler or water or warmer but it’s the long-term Trend and there’s a consistent Trend um the projections are well uh it may look like it’s leveling off but it the projections are that it’s going to continue to increase and we are hotter
Than um than in the last um I had a graph on that but um last thousand 5,000 years thank you uh is there any way do you have any um data or knowledge about how these temperature changes correspond to uh across the world in terms of differenti differentiating between
Population um and maybe more polluting countries are there yeah so yeah that’s a good question so the so the driver the cause of the increase in temperature is more what they call these greenhouse gases so carbon dioxide methane and nitrous oxide and then also refrigerant
As fs6 or floral um ex Flor something um uh sf6 so um but when it doesn’t the the planet doesn’t is agnostic right so when CO2 is emitted uh it circulates around the world so even though if it’s coming from China or United States uh it circulates
Around the world so it evens out uh so it’s not it’s not local it it is a global uh average and and effect um that’s why it’s important to get the global Community to act and that’s going to be the challenge right um and try to do something about it but
Um yeah so it it um yeah so it averages out across the globe and and another question along these lines is someone is asking how these ex how are the extreme events that we’re seeing lately linked to the global global temperature increase of 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit are their models showing explicit cause effect
Relationships yeah and I I obviously didn’t have time for the details and that and I teach a whole course on it so the reason is that with warmer temperatures that you’re going to get more evaporation so you get more water vapor in the atmosphere as a result of
The temperature increase so it holds more water but then um you know we have uh um circulation pattern so that cold cooler air shouldn’t say cold the cooler air then meets that warm air and then we have these flash events and so you get that’s why we’re having these more
Extreme rainfall events is that there’s more water in the atmosphere and then it dumps um and so it is a result of the the high the extreme event extreme rainfall events is a result of the warming atmosphere do that make sense yes thank you um a couple of questions I I feel
That there’s a lot of questions that are still coming in so I’m still going down the list here so I’ll try to combine some of these we had a number of uh people who were concerned um about the impacts of the climate change you’re describing on native plants and also our
Pollinators our native pollinators yeah yeah so part of my work is on the on the Tall Grass prair uh in Kansas uh well actually the Prairies across Kansas so um what we’re seeing is well there’s a it’s a mixed effect but because of the war um change in seasonality uh we’re seeing more
Invasive species on the Prairie um part of it U human well I guess it’s all human cause but part of its um management of the Prairies but also Cedars and um Caucasian U blue stem are better adapted to those extreme events and the and the change weather patterns and so we’re seeing more
Invasive species uh in across the Prairies um The Tall Grass Prairie is pretty resilient the Prairies are because they’ve uh evolved over time to handle those extremes but the question is you know is it getting when will it uh hit uh or be too much uh the
20124 drought in uh Western Kansas uh really in many cases um saw a decrease in the species composition and the productivity of the mix Short Grass Prairie in Western Kansas so one of the solutions that we were P state was recommending was to and nrcs as well was to
Um uh remove cattle let that uh Prairie uh heal for two or three years because it had been damaged and in actually pulling the cattle off earlier uh so you didn’t do uh extensive damage permanent damage great thank you and now moving to some um vegetable gardening questions uh
The b a good question is what do you recommend for planting fruits and vegetables to adapt to this climate change yeah well uh I’m a soil scientist uh so I probably would want to turn that over to the holder culture U Specialists as well um I mean I guess in my own
Um uh gardening there I mean there’s more there’s there’s tomato cultivars that are more a little more heat tolerant drought tolerant um yeah maybe the horiculture specialist can add contribute to that okay let’s see um looking for oh here’s one um in the projections uh you mentioned the low pathway and the high
Pathway on a larger scale oh somebody um such as the University or on a larger scale such as the University or companies what can we do to move more towards the lower pathway yeah that’s the challenge right um so uh so there’s several ways to reduce those greenhouse gas
Emissions uh CO2 about 60 to 70% is coming from fossil fuels so looking at uh Renewables uh energy conservation uh are ways to reduce those CO2 emissions um nitrous oxide is mostly coming from nitrogen fertilizer in agriculture row crop systems uh grain systems uh so doing better nitrogen
Management uh in that case methane is a little bit more diverse we got um uh gas pipelines uh landfills that produce methane that’s about 50% of the problem and then the other 50% is from animal agriculture we are working on ways uh here at K State and other places to uh
Try to reduce those emissions from meth uh from cattle um better feed quality uh other ways to reduce those methane emissions but it’s going to take a collective effort but energy conservation uh looking at um um other alternative fuels um are ways to to do that and and
There’s actually if you can reduce your energy use conserve your energies that means paying less on your um bills right so it it’s not just uh environmentally it’s also economically makes sense I see that there there’s a clarification requested um about uh how does a roll average differ from a simple 30-year
Average uh say that again how does a rolling average differ from a simple 30-year average there’s a question calculating yeah so I I don’t know why the climate scientists I’m not a a climate scientist but I work on the impacts um so the the 30-year rolling
Average um would it would um take in account than if it’s a rolling 30-year average right so if our temperature is warming that average is going up and then it’s uh then what you’re seeing is the individual years on top of that average if you used uh I mean you can
Pick and choose we could have picked um I’m sorry I’m pointing to my screen um we could have picked uhh 1880 to 1910 well then everything would be raised um but the the climate weather people use the the 30-year uh rolling average I guess to accommodate U more
Adaptive um make an adaptations so we know um accommodate that um that increasing temperature okay thank you a lot of questions that are in here um are about things like mulches and recommendations for mulches and improving soil so hopefully everyone out there will um talk to their local Extension agent um
To get some detailed information particularly on crops that you might recommend gardening crops uh veggies and fruits might recommend different mulches to me recommend uh ways to improve your soil so please contact your local Extension agent to get some of those an questions answered um so we’re at the
Top of the hour now so so I’m going to turn it back over to our host to close out the situ close out the session thank you very much yes thank you very much Sharon and especially to Dr Rice we typically have more we typically have more questions
Than we have time for but we will be sure to link to several articles related to this session on our website we hope these resources will help you to answer your questions but if you need additional information again like Sharon said contact your local case State Extension Office
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