Purdue Climate Change Research Center

ANNUAL REPORT 2007

The Purdue Climate Change Research Center (PCCRC) is a faculty-led, university-based research center on the campus of Purdue University. The PCCRC serves to increase scientific and public understanding of the causes and impacts of climate change through fundamental research and effective education and outreach.

Purdue Climate Change Research Center 503 Northwestern Avenue West Lafayette, IN 47907 Phone: 765-496-3209; Fax: 765-496-3210 Web: www.purdue.edu/climate Email: [email protected]

Cover photos from left to right: Graduate student Kendra Castillo (EAS) at the New Delhi Conference on Sustainability and Climate Change with new colleagues from around the world; graduate student Phil Tackett (Chem) setting up experiments onboard the Amundsen research icebreaker; Jill Jankowski (undergraduate honors student in Biological Sciences) with a resplendent quetzal in the Monteverde Cloudforest Reserve, Costa Rica; Prof. Tim Filley and undergraduates from Bemidj State University setting up long- term experiments to study forest structure in the northern hardwood forests of the Red Lake Nation. PCCRC Annual Report Message from the Director 1

Paul B. Shepson Message from the Director Professor and Director

Please join me in celebrating another organizing large scale collaborative expressing our leadership locally. We great year of growth and development at federally funded research efforts. For the could develop and commit to a new the PCCRC. As you can see from the PCCRC, all the indicators are up. campus plan for sustainability. We could Annual Report, we continue to make So, with these successes, it is appropriate continue our efforts to build LEED substantial progress in all the key areas to return to the initial question – what is certified buildings. We could build by which we measure the success of a it that will truly distinguish the PCCRC showcase buildings that act as living Center. Our level of sponsored research as a unique and highly valued national laboratories, about how to better manage continues its upward trajectory and is resource? To me, the answer is a clear our limited resources. Such activities will such that we are an important one – we should be real leaders. We in the long run save the University component of the overall University should effectively connect Purdue’s money, attract and retain the best strength in the discovery endeavor. We combined strengths in the fundamentals students and faculty, and convey to the are doing high profile research, which of climate science and energy world that Purdue University is an has garnered a great deal of media management with the social sciences to intellectual leader. attention. better inform the national and I have heard that dealing with our energy There is great strength and breadth in our international decision-making process management issues will be very difficult, membership which expands our regarding how to develop sensible and a very great challenge. Well, how opportunities and enables us to leverage national policy that simultaneously exciting for us! We should welcome a synergies between disciplines. Our new addresses our needs for secure and great challenge. Throughout U.S. history members section shows that while the sustainable energy sources, as well as we have met very great challenges with a PCCRC was borne out of an effort within mitigation of and adaptation to the spirit of commitment and a positive the College of Science, our new members impacts of long term climate change. To attitude. We put a man on the moon in this year represent the Departments of deal with the range and complexity of 1969, against unbelievable odds. We Building and Construction Management, these issues requires expertise in a vast loved the challenge. It is time to get back Forestry and Natural Resources, array of disciplines – atmospheric to that spirit. I challenge Purdue to be a Agronomy, and Political Science. science, carbon cycle science, ecology, real leader. The time is now. We are publishing at a fantastic rate in energy technologies and engineering, agriculture, political science, economics, some of the highest impact journals. We Sincerely, have developed new courses at the and sociology, to name several. graduate and undergraduate levels, and What a fantastic opportunity we have to Paul B. Shepson this, along with our research activities leverage the combination of expertise Professor and Director enables us to fully engage our students in that uniquely sits within universities! the new arena of multidisciplinary Can we do it? The answer rests with problem solving. how well we organize our efforts within PCCRC members have been very active the University setting, and the extent to this year in engagement, from local scale which we can break down barriers to talks to a variety of community groups, collaborative research across to analysis of legislation impacts in Departments and Colleges. So, why not support of the work of our state’s start at Purdue? Why not ask Purdue to senators. We have begun putting all this be the leader? Do we have what it takes? together, and pursuing the paths that How could we demonstrate that? I great Centers should pursue, i.e. believe we can best demonstrate that by 2

This experiment at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center was designed to measure how invasive earthworm activity impacts carbon and nitrogen in soils. Tim Filley and Cliff Johnston have recently discovered that these invasive macroinvertebrates fundamentally alter the chemical mechanisms of litter and soil organic matter decomposition, changing the balance and chemical nature of organic matter stored on and below the forest floor.

This research is the focus of a new NSF grant to Filley and Johnston along with Co-PIs from the Smithsonian Institution and The Johns Hopkins University. 3

Table of CONTENTS

1 Message from the Director

5 Discovery 6 Sponsored Research 10 Project Updates 16 Publications 19 Facilities

21 Learning 22 Enriching Experiences 23 New Courses 24 Fellow Updates

27 Engagement 28 Part of the Community 30 Informing Policy 32 Reports 34 People 4

This photo shows the bow of the icebreaker, CCGS Amundsen. In thick ice, as shown, the ship repeatedly moves forward, crushing ice with the keel, and then backs up to enable repeated runs at the ice. Typically, the ship pitches up slightly during such a run, so that the weight of the ship sitting on top of the ice is able to crush it. The ship is able to move continuously through ice as thick as 1m.

With a grant from the National Science Foundation, Paul Shepson and graduate student Phil Tackett were onboard the Amundsen this spring to study the relationship between sea ice and cloud cover in the Arctic. SEQUOIA CLUB 5

DISCOVERY As part of the the new research environment created in Purdue’s Discovery Park, the PCCRC continues to build and strengthen interdepartmental relationships to promote new ideas and discoveries that only interdisciplinary research can provide. The following pages provide a summary of our research programs and how they are being applied in innovative ways to solve climate change issues.

5 6

Sponsored Research

The Center facilitates and supports cross-disciplinary collaborations, assisting our faculty as they initiate new projects and compete for funding. In this section, read about our newest research grants.

Summary not allow unrestricted trading between PCCRC research projects sponsored by The PCCRC continues on its trajectory of individual firms in different countries and external funding totaled over $3.8 million in growth, building and enhancing a vital states. The second testbed will examine FY2007. Federal funding comprised the research program in the pursuit of local, simultaneous trading for multiple related majority of the total, which included support national, and often global, goals related to pollutants, such as different greenhouse gases, from the National Science Foundation, U.S. climate change. and will compare market performance to Department of Energy, U.S. Environmental alternative designs that combine the different In this section we describe our faculty’s Protection Agency, and the U.S. Agency for pollutants in the same market by employing new sponsored research projects and International Development. trading ratios based on their global warming provide an early look at the kinds of potential. The third experiment will study activities underway. Non-federal sponsors of our work included how banking incentives are affected by the World Bank and the Camille and Henry emissions uncertainty and alternative banking Dreyfus Foundation. policy rules that may depreciate banked Experimental Testbeds for New allowances or cap withdrawal rates to reduce Applications of Environmental Trading temporal and geographic “hot spots.” Research Grant Activity Programs

Timothy Cason, Department of Economics, with The overall project results should provide 4 collaborators John Stranlund and John practical answers and advice to improve Spraggon, University of Massachusetts; James management of local environmental problems, Murphy, University of Alaska; David Porter , such as those where banking considerations 3 Stephen Rassenti and Vernon Smith, Chapman may be very important, as well as national University (Funded by the U.S. Environmental and global problems featuring inter- 2 Protection Agency) jurisdictional enforcement challenges and The proposed testbed experiments will multiple related pollutants. 1 provide policy guidance for several important Carefully designed emissions trading systems Awards ($ millions) Awards emissions trading design issues. The first have the flexibility to confront these and other experimental testbed will study how 0 challenges, but only if they are guided both by emissions permit markets function when 2004 2005 2006 2007 economic theory and by empirical evaluation governmental authorities conduct in controlled settings. Fiscal Year international (or interstate) trading, and do

SEQUOIA CLUB PCCRC Annual Report Discovery 7

Building resiliency in the world’s poorest Incorporating relationships between Photochemical reaction chamber in the communities. weather extremes and the energy sector Shepson Lab. into energy planning.

Natural Capital and Poverty Reduction outcomes. The project will work to highlight of local weather and extreme weather events. ways to ensure that a larger share of resource Further, due to limited data, computational Gerald Shively, Department of Agricultural rents go to local people, and articulate ways to restrictions, and conceptual modeling barriers, Economics with collaborators Charles Jumbe, enhance poverty alleviation without Integrated Assessment (IA) models have to- University of Malawi; Disk Sserunkuuma, increasing environmental degradation. date required a “macro” or “top-down” Makerere University, Uganda; Pam Jagger, approach, necessarily excluding interactions Indiana University; Monica Fisher, Oregon State between weather extremes and the energy University; and Arild Angelsen, CIFOR and Impacts of High Resolution Extreme sector. The objective of this work is to build Norwegian University of Life Sciences (Funded Events on U.S. Energy Demand and CO fundamental knowledge regarding the impact by the U.S. Agency for International 2 Emissions in the 21st Century of weather extremes on particularly sensitive Development) portions of the energy sector, in service of the Noah Diffenbaugh, Department of Earth & This 4-year project provides an opportunity to next generation of IA models. Atmospheric Sciences and Kevin Gurney, study the potential impacts of climate change Departments of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences and on agricultural producers and explore policy Agronomy (Funded by the U.S. Department of Production of Secondary Organic Aerosol options for mitigating the economic and Energy) from Multiphase Terpene Photooxidation environmental impacts of climate change in low-income settings. Activities will center on Enhanced greenhouse forcing is likely to Paul Shepson, Department of Chemistry (Funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection strengthening capacity for policy analysis and intensify extreme climate regimes. Because Agency) deriving policy lessons regarding two topics: energy demand is highly sensitive to extreme temperature and precipitation events and (i) the role of natural insurance among the A major area of uncertainty for air quality as their fine-scale space/time patterns, rural poor, including the degree to which well as climate change research is the role of intensification of extreme climate regimes is environmental income serves as a safety net in secondary organic aerosol (SOA). Recently it likely to impact energy demand and related the face of economic and environmental has become clear that there is a large CO emissions. These impacts and their shocks and (ii) the potential for poor rural 2 unknown source of SOA in the free subsequent feedbacks could be a key households to sustainably use environmental troposphere. A wide variety of studies have contributor to the net damage or benefit income as a means to accumulate physical and implicated the oxidation of biogenic volatile associated with climate change. However, human capital, and move out of poverty. organic compounds (BVOCs), and in even the most sophisticated studies of the particular the terpenes, α- and β-pinene, in In addition, the research team will look at the potential impacts of climate change on the aerosol production in the boundary layer. We long term sustainability of resource extraction, energy sector have failed to capture the effects believe there is evidence that a significant part and look to inform policies in directions that of climate change at the scales at which energy of SOA production from BVOCs is derived improve both economic and environmental use decisions are driven and made: the scale

SEQUOIA CLUB 8

from organic nitrates that derive from OH controls the conversion of litter to SOM, and reaction with the BVOC in the presence of its stability in soil is critical to accurately NOx. This three year field and laboratory The Tanzania National Strategy account for the changing balance between the project is aimed at improving quantitative for Growth and Reduction of atmospheric, terrestrial plant, and soil carbon understanding of the photooxidation of α- Poverty highlights “weather reservoirs. In mid-continent and northern and β-pinene, and the extent and nature of the extremes (droughts and floods)” North American forests there is an increasing production of SOA from their NOx-, O3-, and as one of the primary factors awareness of the effect that detritivore

NO3-induced photooxidations. underlying vulnerability of poor macroinvertebrates, specifically earthworms populations. (EW), have on litter decay dynamics and the associated nature of stabilized SOM. The Climate Variability and the Poor in --Republic of Tanzania, 2005, earthworm-litter-soil system is particularly Southern and Eastern Africa p. 14. relevant today as most identified earthworm species in this region’s forests are non-native, Tom Hertel, Department of Agricultural and it is anticipated that over the next few Economics and Noah Diffenbaugh, Department Kevin Gurney, Departments of Earth & decades they will expand farther into northern of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences (Funded by the Atmospheric Sciences and Agronomy (Funded by forests driven by rising surface temperatures, World Bank TFESSD). the U.S. Department of Energy NICCR and local factors such as soil transport, The world’s poor are particularly sensitive to Program) discarded fishing bait, and land use change. changes in the agricultural sector, both This work will employ detailed molecular, This project will use improved time- because the majority of the poor rely on isotopic, mineralogical, ecological and dependent net carbon exchange results from agriculture for their livelihood, and because microbiological methods to develop a the TransCom intercomparison to advance mechanistic understanding of the processes they spend a disproportionate share of their quantitative understanding of the feedbacks that control soil organic matter storage in a income on food. Because the agricultural between net carbon exchange and climate system with an intense gradient in earthworm sector is particularly influenced by weather variability/change for the United States. The activity. extremes, changes in extreme climate regimes project will improve upon recent inverse could have substantial impacts on the poorest work through expansion and extension of populations. In order to develop policies and observations, a state-of- the-art fossil fuel CO2 Computational and Laboratory Studies of infrastructure to cope with increased flux product, and sensitivity to inter-annually Arctic Sea Ice Halogen Chemistry frequency of extreme climate events, we must varying transport. The regional carbon-climate understand how global warming affects Paul Shepson, Department of Chemistry relationships will be further explored climate volatility (both globally and locally); (Funded by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus mechanistically through process datasets Foundation) how changes in climate volatility affect (NDVI, fire, drought) and terrestrial biosphere agricultural yields and land use (as well as model results. The prediction of future global climate change other economic opportunities, including trade is fraught with difficulties associated with and migration); and finally, how all of these feedbacks. Among the most important Soil-Earthworm-Litter System Controls on changes affect poverty. This effort to bridge feedbacks are those associated with changing the Stabilization of Organic Matter in climate, land use, and poverty analyses will sea ice cover. Sea ice is believed to release help to develop a framework for quantifying Forests reactive halogen species (Br2 and BrCl) into the impacts of climate variability and change Timothy Filley, Department of Earth & the atmosphere; those halogens then on the world’s poor on seasonal-to-decadal Atmospheric Sciences, and Cliff Johnston, photolyze to impact the radiative (and time-scales. Because the framework to be Department of Agronomy with collaborators ecological) balance in the lower atmosphere developed through this project will be general Melissa McCormick, Smithsonian by consuming ozone and producing Environmental Research Center; Kathy Szlavecz, and flexible, it will be readily applied to other particulate matter. However, the The Johns Hopkins University (Funded by the regions of the world. fundamentals of the reactions that lead to National Science Foundation) halogen release are poorly understood. With Exploration of the Mechanistic Soil organic matter (SOM) and associated litter funding from the Foundation, Shepson has Relationship Between Improved Regional represent the largest actively cycling pool of created a unique postdoctoral opportunity North American Inverse Carbon Fluxes and organic carbon and nitrogen. Because soil acts that will combine molecular dynamics Climate Variability/Trends as both a sink and a source for carbon, a simulations, associated computer modeling detailed, mechanistic understanding of what studies, and laboratory studies to improve our PCCRC Annual Report Discovery 9

understanding of the nature of the ice surface theory has been that modifications increase includes rising surface temperatures and and sea ice surface chemistry that will enable pore size and in doing so, allow enzymes to declining sea ice extent. There are a variety of us to develop more reliable predictive models penetrate the plant cell wall, most brown rot feedbacks between the changes at the Arctic of the atmosphere in Polar regions. fungi cannot degrade crystalline cellulosics if Ocean surface and the drivers of climate lignin is absent. This observation remains change. Among them is the relationship unresolved and characterizing this dynamic between the sea ice and cloud cover in the Brown-rot Fungal Mechanisms as a Model has significant implications for commercial Arctic. This project will explore the role of for Biomass Saccharification biorefining. Successfully utilizing an halogen atom chemistry derived from salt Timothy Filley, Department of Earth & approach similar to that of brown rot fungi associated with the surface of sea ice on the Atmospheric Sciences, with Jonathan Schilling may offer an alternative to current efforts oxidizing power of the Arctic atmospheric and Robert Blanchette, University of Minnesota focused on engineering plants to have low boundary layer, which in turn results in (Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy). lignin content, or on delignification of production of cloud condensation nuclei, feedstocks prior to processing. which in turn influences cloud cover. The Brown rot wood-degrading fungi accomplish proposed three-year research effort will naturally what bioconversion technologies develop a novel method for ultra-trace level currently do not: complete removal (>99%) of Halogen Chemistry and Ocean- determination of the halogen atom (Cl, Br, and plant polysaccharides from lignocellulosic Atmosphere-Sea Ice-Snowpack (OASIS) I, as well as ClO, BrO and IO) concentrations tissues without removing or extensively Chemical Exchange During IPY in the air above the Arctic Ocean. This work damaging lignin. The lignin modifications that will be coordinated with several IPY projects are seen in residues from brown rot fungi may Paul B. Shepson, Department of Chemistry (Funded by The National Science Foundation) including OASIS, CFL, SEARCH, and ASCOS. be an important link to understanding fungal mechanisms of sugar release The Arctic is currently undergoing (saccharification). While the predominant widespread and significant change that

Early results from the International Polar Year (IPY) field campaign

temperatures were not cold enough! Here, Phil is supplementing the cold Arctic air by adding liquid nitrogen to the GC inlet. The figure to the left shows Phil's BrO measurements (BrO is produced in the atmosphere only as a result of Br atom reaction

with O3.) As shown in the figure, BrO (blue) inversely correlates with In the photo at left, Simply, air enters a tube ozone (red). The chemistry graduate where a reagent gas is maximum measured BrO student, Phil Tackett, added that reacts with concentration, 55 ppt, is stands next to the BrO to make a product enough to destroy ozone analytical equipment that is detected using a in a matter of hours in that he designed to take gas chromatograph (GC). the absence of air mass measurements of the free The GC is cooled by mixing. radical, bromine drawing in ambient air, monoxide (BrO). but the roughly -20°F

SEQUOIA CLUB 10

Project updates Our previously funded (FY04-06), active projects (19), with select examples of recent results and work in progress.

1. Collaborative Research: Water Balance Governing Mechanisms - Noah Service; M. Kramer, University of of western North America: Dynamics of Diffenbaugh; J. Williams, University of California, Riverside; and R. Bowden, the Miocene Summer Monsoon - Noah Wisconsin; B. Shuman, University of Allegheny College (USDA). Diffenbaugh and Matt Huber; M. Lyle Minnesota, and L. Sloan, University of and A. Olivarez Lyle, Boise State California, Santa Cruz (NSF) 6. Developing Activities for University; and C. Ravelo, University of Conceptualizing Climate and Climate California, Santa Cruz (NSF) 4. Soil Carbon Responses to Atmospheric Change - Dan Shepardson and Dev CO2 Enrichment - Timothy Filley; J. Niyogi (NSF) 2. Collaborative Research: Investigation of Jastrow, Argonne National Laboratory; T. Holocene Seasonality and Inter-annual Boutton, Texas A&M; M-G. Meler and 7. Collaborative Research: Synthesis of Variability Along the California Current R. Matamala, University of Illinois, Arctic System Carbon Cycle Research System - Noah Diffenbaugh; P. Koch Chicago (DOE) through Model-Data Fusion Studies University of California, Santa Cruz and Using Atmospheric Inversion and S. Schellenberg, San Diego State 5. Key Role of Nitrogenous Compounds Process-Based Approaches, Qianlai University (NSF). in Soil Organic Matter Stabilization via Zhuang; D. McGuire, University of Interactions with Mineral Surfaces - Alaska, Fairbanks; J. Melillo, Marine 3. Surface-Atmosphere Feedbacks and Timothy Filley; P. Sollins, K. Lajtha, B. Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole; and M. Holocene Climate Variations in Eastern Caldwell and M. Kleber, Oregon State Follows, Massachusetts Institute of North America: Linkages, Impacts, and University; C. Swanston, U.S. Forest Technology (NSF).

8. Collaborative Research: Impacts of Vegetation Change on Stabilization and Microbial Accessibility of Soil Organic Matter: A Microbiological, Isotopic and Molecular Study - Timothy Filley; Diane Stott, National Soil Erosion Lab; and Thomas Boutton, Texas A&M (NSF).

In 2007-2008 this grant supported several undergraduates and one doctoral student, Courtney Creamer. Courtney, a new graduate student in EAS coming from the PULSE program, is working on a project to quantify how various biological, chemical, and physical processes act as protective mechanisms for soil organic carbon following a major vegetation change from grassland to woodland. A chronosequence (120 yrs) of woody plant invasion into a subtropical grassland will be utilized as a model system to investigate the storage or release (as respired

CO2) of organic matter from specific soil physical and chemical fractions. In the photo to the right, Courtney is preparing micro respiration experiments with soil from the woodlands to

analyze the amount and stable carbon isotope composition of evolved CO2 as microbes Courtney setting up respiration progressively degrade the organic matter. Two manuscripts from this grant have been experiments in the lab. published this year that document how these systems accrue both above and below ground organic matter, and speculate on the role that soil structure and plant chemistry have in soil carbon stabilization.

✴ Filley, T. R., T. W. Boutton, J. D. Liao, J. D. Jastrow, and D. E. Gamblin, Chemical changes to nonaggregated particulate soil organic matter following grassland-to-woodland transition in a subtropical savanna (2008), Journal of Geophysical Research, doi: 10.1029/2007JG000564.

✴ Boutton T.W., J.D. Liao, T.R. Filley, S.R. Archer (2008) Belowground carbon storage and dynamics accompanying woody plant encroachment in a subtropical savanna. Soil Carbon Sequestration and the Greenhouse Effect (R. Lal and R. Follett, eds.). Soil Science Society of America, Madison, WI.

PCCRC Annual Report Discovery 11

The PROPHET tower at the University of Sectioning ice cores in West Antarctica. Prof. Gabe Bowen measuring sections in Michigan Biological Station. the Wasatch Plateau, Utah.

9. A Multiphase Study of the Nature, Evidence of the 11-year solar cycle is visible CO2 from the Arctic Ocean surface has been Sources, and Fate of Atmospheric Organic in the depth profiles of both BSH cores, built and will be installed this November in Nitrogen - Paul Shepson (NSF) while it is less pronounced in RIDS-95A. the Beaufort Sea area. Some of the scatter in 10Be contents in the Results of this study, a collaborative effort BSH cores may be due to variations in between the Shepson, Filley and Rhodes 12. Sub-daily Scale Extreme Precipitation in annual precipitation. The average 10Be (Horticulture) groups, showed that plants Future Climate-Change Scenarios: a Pilot concentration of (20±5) x 103 at/g in the can uptake (through stomata) and utilize Study- Jeff Trapp, Noah Diffenbaugh, BSH-5 core is ~10% higher than in atmospheric organic nitrogen. This was Alexander Gluhovsky, Matthew Huber, RIDS-95A, while the average 10Be Sonia Lasher-Trapp (NSF) done by exposing aspen seedlings to a 15N concentration of (26±7) x 103 at/g in BSH-2 labeled organic nitrate and detection of 15N This pilot study has resulted in two in the plant amino acids. The work is is ~40% higher than in RIDS-95A. The publications and provided the proof-of- 10 important in addressing how trees can use average Be contents in the three cores do concept for a more comprehensive project atmospheric nitrogen when in nitrogen- show a negative correlation with the annual recently funded by the NSF entitled, “The precipitation rate determined over the past limited conditions. Response of Convective Precipitating 40 years. Storms to Anthropogenically Enhanced ✴ Lockwood, A.L., T.R. Filley, D. Rhodes, P.B. Global Radiative Forcing.” Shepson, Forest canopy uptake of atmospheric ✴ organic nitrogen (2008), Geophysical Research 11. The Collaborative O-Buoy Project: Trapp, R. J., N. S. Diffenbaugh, H. E. Brooks, Letters 35, L15809, doi:10.1029/2008GL034714. Deployment of a Network of Arctic Ocean M. E. Baldwin, E. D. Robinson, and J. S. Pal, Chemical Sensors for the IPY and Beyond - Changes in severe thunderstorm environment Paul Shepson; P. Matrai, Bigelow Laboratory; frequency during the 21st century caused by J. Bottenheim, Environment Canada; U. Frieß, anthropogenically enhanced global radiative 10. Cosmogenic Nuclides on the West U. Heidelberg; D. Perovich, CRREL; and W. forcing (2007), Proceedings of the National Antarctic Ice Sheet - Marc Caffee (NSF) Simpson, University of Alaska, Fairbanks Academy of Sciences of the United States of (NSF) America 104 (50): 19719-19723. During the last year the team has measured cosmic-ray-produced 10Be in several test The aim of this project is to develop an ✴ Trapp, R. J., B. A. Halvorson, and N. S. cores from Antarctica (the Ross Ice Arctic Ocean-rugged and autonomous buoy Diffenbaugh, Telescoping, multimodel Drainage System core, RIDS-95A; and approaches to evaluate extreme convective capable of measuring atmospheric O3, BrO, Bentley Shot Hole cores, BSH-2 and BSH-5). weather under future climates (2007), Journal and CO for a period of up to two years to These analyses were done to test methods 2 of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres 112, ensure a full year cycle of high quality data. in preparation for core samples from the D20109, doi:10.1029/2006JD008345. The first "O-buoy", that will conduct West Antarctic Ice Sheet. continuous measurements of O3, BrO, and

12

13. Collaborative Research: Impact of an effort to fingerprint the various thaw waters in the Hess Creek drainage basin Permafrost Degradation on Carbon and regimes induced by permafrost were also sampled. To date, the following Water in Boreal Ecosystems," Qianlai degradation. preliminary results were made: 1) It Zhuang; J. Harden, USGS Menlo Park; R. appears that permafrost degradation has Striegl, USGS Denver; Y. Shur, University played a minor, albeit important role in Alaska, Fairbanks; D. Jorgenson, Alaska The 2007 field campaign was conducted at lake shrinkage, 2) relative to sites with in- Ecological Survey (NSF) Twelve Mile Lake in late August in the tact permafrost formed in historically cool Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge, in climates, thawed soils with enhanced interior Alaska (see map below). The drainage likely lost carbon since the 1950s This large, $1.7M effort seeks to assess the research team described successional plant as a result of enhanced decomposition, and interactive effects of climate change and communities, collected samples for 3) permafrost degradation will likely result fire on permafrost stability; to quantify measuring carbon storage, and assessed in increased water infiltration and DOC how varying modes of permafrost permafrost along three transects that mineralization in soil and in the degradation initiate various thaw regimes extended laterally from the current lake unsaturated zone in upland areas. This on the boreal landscape; to determine how margin, through the drained lake basin, to will reduce DOC in runoff relative to areas these thaw regimes affect carbon loss or the adjacent uplands. Five distinct where permafrost persists and will accumulation in biomass and soils; and, to vegetation communities were established increase groundwater contribution to characterize the export of dissolved along each transect and a suite of streamflow. organic carbon (DOC) from watersheds in permafrost degradation sites and surface

The study area within the Yukon River Basin. Upland and Lowland field study areas are identified in boxes, along with two alternative study sites. The photos to the right show the Porcupine River (top) and Koyukuk Reserve wetlands (bottom). PCCRC Annual Report Discovery 13

14. Forest Structure and Biodiversity on a across western North America associated Steep Geophysical Gradient: the Cloud Forest with PETM climate warming, with more Lee Margin - Kerry Rabenold; R. Lawton, R. intense drying in the southwestern part of the Welch, U. Nair, University of Alabama, continent. This suggests northward diversion Huntsville; and W. Haber, Missouri Botanical of atmospheric circulation systems and Garden (NASA) precipitation during the PETM, consistent with some models of carbon-induced Work in this fiscal year has focused on hydroclimate change. generating better estimates of local ranges ✴ Bowen, G. J. and B. B. Bowen, Mechanisms of and population variability, and better projections of range shifts and community Studying the cloud forest lee margin in PETM global change constrained by a new change in response to climate change. Costa Rica - Miravalles volcano. record from central Utah (2008), Geology 36(5): Masters theses were completed in Biological 379-382; doi: 10.1130/G24597A.1. Sciences at Purdue by Matt Gasner and ✴ Gasner, M.R., A.L. Ciecka, J.E. Jankowski, K.O. Keiller Kyle, resulting in the manuscripts Kyle and K.N. Rabenold. Population variability below being submitted for publication. and power to detect change in tropical bird Collaboration with botanist William Haber of communities (to Ecological Applications). the Missouri Botanical Garden has also resulted in preliminary estimates of significant parallel change in tree and bird 15. Collaborative Research: Dynamics of communities; this is a first for tropical Carbon Release and Sequestration: Case systems. Also unique for tropical systems are Studies of Two Early Eocene Hyperthermals - Gabe Bowen; A. Winguth, University of simulations of statistical power to detect Wisconsin; H. Stoll, Williams College; J. Zachos, population change given four-year University of California, Santa Cruz; K. Farley, measurement of population variability over a California Institute of Technology; M. Pagani, 2 40km area, and regression models of local Yale University; R. Zeebe, University of Hawaii; ranges that permit projections of future and T. Bralower, The Penn State University population sizes given projections for (NSF) Geological and geographic setting of the reduced rainfall and higher temperatures. A postdoctoral researcher and several study area. SPM—San Pitch Mountains; Collaborators at the University of Alabama undergraduate students were supported by PT—Pavant thrust system; GT—Gunnison thrust system; WP—Wasatch Plateau. and the National Aeronautics and Space this grant. Initial results from this project Administration have improved imaging from suggest a pattern of extreme aridification in satellite data of cloud immersion and local the American southwest during paleo- In a complementary study, Bowen et al., note climate models that will permit more detailed warming. Summaries of the work, published that lacustrine rocks in central Utah reveal niche mapping for bird and tree species and in Geology and the Journal of Sedimentary dramatic environmental fluctuations in better projections of the ecological impacts of Research, follow. climate change. Educational materials were association with million-year changes in provided to local schools and conservation Climate change during Paleocene-Eocene global climate during the early Paleogene (65 organizations. thermal maximum (PETM) was forced by the - 33 million years ago). Their paper has release of several thousand petagrams of demonstrated that the stable isotope carbon to the ocean/atmosphere system, ✴ Kyle,K.O., A.L. Ciecka, M.R. Gasner, and K.N. geochemistry of these rocks provides a high- Rabenold. Response of avian communities to producing a climatic perturbation that fidelity recorder of these environmental edges of tropical montane forests: harbinger of represents one of the best potential geological changes and a means to link them to coeval future impacts of climate change? (to analogues to modern, anthropogenic global global changes in climate and biotic Conservation Biology). climate change. The paper, “Mechanisms of evolution. PETM global change constrained by a new ✴ Bowen, G. J., A. L. Daniels, and B. B. Bowen, ✴ Gasner, M.R., A.L. Ciecka, J.E. Jankowski, K.O. record from central Utah” describes new Kyle and K.N. Rabenold. Projections of local Paleoenvironmental isotope geochemistry and records of the PETM from previously paragenesis of lacustrine and palustrine range shifts of birds in a montane rainforest in unstudied sites in central Utah (see map at response to climate change (to Biological carbonates, Flagstaff Formation, central Utah, right), which, in comparison with other study Conservation). U.S.A. (2008), Journal of Sedimentary Research 78: sites, suggest a broad pattern of aridification 162-174. 14

2000 2010 2020 2030

Land cover projections for Wisconsin from the Land Transformation Model using historic land-cover training data from the state of Michigan. Yellow=cropland, blue=water, red=urban, green=forest.

16. Multisensor/Multiscale Assessment of hydrology model, enhanced to represent To investigate the simultaneous influence of Urban Impacts in the Great Lakes Region. impervious area, has been calibrated to land use/land cover change on regional NASA LCLUC Program - Laura Bowling, reproduce observed streamflow for several weather, the Regional Atmospheric Keith Cherkauer, Bryan Pijanowski, and large watersheds. The model was then used Modeling System (RAMS-LEAF2) was used Dev Niyogi (NASA) to simulate the relative influence of land with the same land use maps for single cover change and climate change for events under clear sky and rainy conditions. The central objective of this project is to streamflow and other hydrologic variables. It was found that both daytime sensible and study the interactions between land cover/ Conversion from the preexisting forest to latent heat fluxes were about 10 Wm2 higher land use change (in particular urban modern cropland results in an increase in with historic land cover for both conditions, growth), weather, and surface hydrology for streamflow during the high flow period but there was no significant change in a four-state study area (Indiana, Illinois, (March-July) due to increased snow precipitation. The final phase of the project Wisconsin and Michigan) in the Great Lakes accumulation and melt. In contrast, the will extend simulations to the entire study region. The study uses land use forecasts climate change scenarios result in decreased domain using the simulated weather from (see above) as well as pre-settlement land snow accumulation and a reduction in the RAMS-LEAF2 as input to the VIC use reconstructions. Some of the streamflow between the months of March hydrology model, to investigate the relative preliminary work on this project has focused and July. influence of precipitation changes and on the state of Wisconsin, where the Variable impervious area on urban flood magnitudes. Infiltration Capacity (VIC) macroscale

17. Modeling Coherent Structures in Convective Boundary Layers - Alexander Gluhovsky and Ernest Agee (NSF)

Large Eddy Simulation models provide an excellent platform for the study of convective boundary layers (CBL). This project has funded research on the evolution of coherent structures in the CBL that develop in wintertime cold air outbreaks over the Great Lakes region of the USA and Canada. The air-lake interaction produces microscale structures of various 2-D and 3-D geometries that evolve within the surface boundary layer and are responsible for heat, momentum and water vapor transport from the lake to the atmosphere (as done in similar cold air outbreaks over warm ocean currents, such as the Kuroshio and the Gulf Stream). These microscale structures self-organize at higher levels into a spatially-coherent 3-D pattern as illustrated in the figure to the right.

PCCRC Annual Report Discovery 15

From VULCAN to HESTIA

“This type of mapping technology will be 18 -19. Funded by NASA (CARBON/04‐ readily recognizable scales. However, 0325‐0167) and DOE (DE‐AC02‐ critical to a vibrant carbon trading market Hestia will go far beyond a simple 05CH11231), Vulcan constitutes a high in the future, and to efforts to quantify inventory of emissions. The project will

resolution inventory of fossil fuel CO2 the benefits of preserving forest lands.” embed a suite of related information and emissions for the U.S. (www.purdue.edu/ -- Senator Richard Lugar (IN) simulation tools such that users can eas/carbon/vulcan). Through analyze emissions information within the collaboration with Lawrence Berkeley context of energy, economics, behavioral National Laboratory, Colorado State aimed at space‐based CO2 monitoring, choices, and urban/regional planning. University, and Purdue’s Rosen Center for and act as a backbone to new carbon With seed funding from the Showalter Advanced Computing, Vulcan inventories forecasting research. Trust and from Knauf Insulation, Inc. (the CO2 emissions at a 10 km‐gridded scale Kevin Gurney’s vision for next steps with project’s first corporate sponsor), a pilot every hour for the year 2002. The CO2 Vulcan is the creation of a model/data study of the greater Indianapolis region is emissions are subdivided by sector and by system offering a real-time estimation of underway. industrial classification for greater fossil fuel CO2 emissions at a building‐by‐ resolution and flexibility. ✴ Gurney, K. R., D. Baker, P. Rayner, and S. building and road‐by‐road scale across the Denning (2008), Interannual variations in TM Vulcan was created to greatly improve our planet (The Hestia Project). This continental-scale net carbon exchange and scientific understanding of the North information will be placed within a sensitivity to observing networks estimated TM American carbon budget, support the visually realistic Google Earth‐like from atmospheric CO2 inversions for the upcoming launch of a remote sensing platform allowing anyone, anywhere to period 1980 to 2005, Global Biogeochem. platform (the Orbital Carbon Observatory) access emissions information at these Cycles,doi:10.1029/2007GB003082, in press. 16

Publications A listing of this year’s peer-reviewed publications and selected highlights from these studies.

• Pal, J. S., F. Giorgi, X. Bi, N. Elguindi, F. • Bowen, G. J., Spatial analysis of the intra- • Bohn, T.J., D.P. Lettenmaier, K. Sathulur, Solmon, X. Gao, S. A. Rauscher, R. annual variation of precipitation isotope L.C. Bowling, E. Podest, K.C. McDonald, Francisco, A. Zakey, J. Winter, M. Ashfaq, ratios and its climatological corollaries and T. Friborg, Methane emissions from F. S. Syed, J. L. Bell, N. S. Diffenbaugh, J. (2008), Journal of Geophysical Research 113, western Siberian wetlands: heterogeneity Karmacharya, A. Konare, D. Martinez, R. P. D05113, doi:10.1029/2007JD009295. and sensitivity to climate change (2007), da Rocha, L. C. Sloan and A. Steiner, Environmental Research Letters, 2, doi: Regional climate modeling for the • Bowen, G. J. and B. B. Bowen, 10.1088/1748-9326/2/4/045015. developing world: The ICTP RegCM3 and Mechanisms of PETM global change RegCNET (2007), Bulletin of the American constrained by a new record from central • Cavender, A. E., T. A. Biesenthal, J. W. Utah (2008), Geology 36(5):379-382; doi: Meteorological Society 88, (9): 1395-1409. Bottenheim, and P. B. Shepson, Volatile 10.1130/G24597A.1. organic compound ratios as probes of • Bowen, G. J., A. L. Daniels, and B. B. halogen atom chemistry in the Arctic • Ehleringer, J. R., G. J. Bowen, L. A. Bowen, Paleoenvironmental isotope (2008), Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 8, Chesson, A. G. West, D. W. Podlesak, and geochemistry and paragenesis of lacustrine 1737–1750, 2008. T. E. Cerling, Hydrogen and oxygen and palustrine carbonates, Flagstaff isotope ratios in human hair are related to Formation, central Utah, U.S.A. (2008), geography (2008), Proceedings of the Journal of Sedimentary Research 78: 162-174. National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 105(8): 2788-2793.

• Diffenbaugh, N. S., F. Giorgi, L. Raymond, and X. Bi, Indicators of 21st century socioclimatic exposure (2007), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 104 (51): 20195-20198.

Policies that attempt to curb greenhouse gas emissions, allocate emissions rights, or distribute compensation to those most damaged by climate change must explicitly incorporate the international heterogeneity of the climate change threat. In this paper, the research team has developed a novel integration of climate change projections and poverty, wealth, and population metrics. They have shown that the patterns of socioeconomic variables interact with spatial heterogeneity in projected climate change to determine the overall international pattern of socioclimatic exposure. Their synthesis provides a critical missing piece to the climate change debate, and should facilitate the formulation of climate policies that account for international variations in the threat of climate change across a range of socioeconomic dimensions. The figure above is a summary of 21st century socioclimatic exposure. The summary shows that most nations face substantial socioclimateic exposure from the interaction of climate change with some combination of population, poverty and wealth.

PCCRC Annual Report Discovery 17

• Chaubey, I. and M. Matlock, Teaching undergraduate students to manage aquatic ecosystems at the watershed level: an ecological engineering approach (2007). International Journal of Engineering Education 23(4):723-727.

• Srivastav, R.K., K.P. Sudheer, and I. Chaubey, A simplified approach to quantify predictive and parametric uncertainty in artificial neural network hydrologic models (2007). Water Resources Research 43, W10407, doi: 10.1029/2006RW005352.

• Sudheer, K.P., I. Chaubey, V. Garg, and K.W. Migliaccio, Impact of time scale of calibration objective function on the An emerald toucanet performance of watershed models (2007), Journal of Hydrological Processes, doi: 10.1002/hyp.6555. “Who can explain why one species ranges widely and is very numerous, and why another allied species has a narrow range and is rare? • Giorgi, F. and N. Diffenbaugh, Developing regional climate change -- Charles Darwin (1859) scenarios for use in assessment of effects on human health and disease (2008), • Jankowski, J. E. and K. N. Rabenold, Endemism and local rarity in birds of Climate Research 36(2): 141-151. doi: neotropical montane rainforest (2007), Biological Conservation 138:453-463. 10.3354/cr00728. The causes and consequences of rarity are fundamental issues in ecology and conservation biology, in part because species with small geographical ranges • Rauscher, S. A., F. Giorgi, N. S. (endemics) could be at risk of extinction in changing landscapes. If such globally rare Diffenbaugh, and A. Seth, Extension and intensification of the Meso-American mid- species also had narrow ecological distributions and low local densities, then they summer drought in the twenty-first could have very small global populations. The highlands of Costa Rica and Panamá century (2008), Climate Dynamics http:// harbor the greatest avian species richness in Central American montane forests and dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00382-007-0359-1. one of the highest levels of avian endemism in the world. In a study of 100 species in the Tilarán mountains, we found a positive correlation between abundance and • Filley, T. R., M. K. McCormick, S. E. Crow, distribution at the smallest spatial scale: ecological specialists that occupy few forest K. Szlaveca, D. F. Whigham, C. T. types over a complex mountainside also had low abundances where they occur. At Johnston, and R. N. van den Heuvel, larger scales, geographical distribution was correlated with local ecological Comparison of the chemical alteration amplitude (ecological zones occupied). Within families with endemics and trajectory of Liriodendron tulipifera L. leaf cosmopolitan species, 72% of narrow endemics were among the rarest species. Little litter among forests with different is known about most tropical species, but a companion study (“Beta diversity along earthworm abundance (2008), Journal of environmental gradients: implications of habitat specialization in tropical montane Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences 113, landscapes”) has shown that high species diversity in the landscape results from G01027, doi: 10.1029/2007JG000542. species’ ecological specialization, and such specialization increases vulnerability to population declines because of the effects of climate change. Endemism globally is Olchin, G., S. Ogle, S. Frey, T. Filley, K. • concentrated in tropical mountains, and endemics are locally concentrated at high Paustian and J. Six, Residue carbon elevations. Changes in temperature and rainfall consistent with model projections stabilization in soil aggregates of no-till and tillage management of dryland would be sufficient to extirpate some endemic species from the Tilarán mountains. cropping systems (2008), Soil Science In tropical mountains generally, many endemics are threatened at several spatial Society of America Journal 72: 507-513. scales by climate change and other anthropogenic habitat degradation.

Photo credit: Aaron Spalding SEQUOIA CLUB 18

• Filley, T. R., T. W. Boutton, J. D. Liao, J. D. high latitudes: observations and model platform (2008), Boundary Layer Jastrow, and D. E. Gamblin, Chemical results contrasting northern Eurasia and Meteorology 126, 461-476, DOI 10.1007/ changes to nonaggregated particulate soil North America (2007) Environmental s10546-007-9237-y. organic matter following grassland-to- Research Letters 2, 045031 (9pp) doi: woodland transition in a subtropical 10.1088/1748-9326/2/4/045031. • Trapp, R. J., B. A. Halvorson, and N. S. savanna (2008), Journal of Geophysical Diffenbaugh, Telescoping, multimodel Research, doi: 10.1029/2007JG000564. • Butler, A, D. Thompson, K.R. Gurney, approaches to evaluate extreme Observed relationships between the convective weather under future climates • Gluhovsky, A. and E. Agee, On the Southern Annular Mode and Carbon (2007), Journal of Geophysical Research- analysis of atmospheric and climatic time Dioxide, Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 21, Atmospheres 112, D20109, doi: series (2007), Journal of Applied GB4014, doi: 101029/2006GB002796, 2007. 10.1029/2006JD008345. Meteorology and Climatology 46, (7): 1125-1129, DOI: 10.1175/JAM2512.1. • Lyle, M., J. Barron, T. J. Bralower, M. • Xiao, J. and Q. Zhuang, Drought effects Huber, A. Olivarez Lyle, A. C. Ravelo, D. on large fire activity in Canadian and • Gurney, K. R. and L. Raymond, K. Rea, and P. A. Wilson (2008), Pacific Alaskan forests (2007), Environmental Targeting deforestation rates in climate Ocean and Cenozoic evolution of climate, Research Letters 2 044003, doi: change policy: a ‘Preservation Pathway’ Reviews of Geophysics, 46, RG2002, doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/2/4/044003. approach (2008), Carbon Balance and 10.1029/2005RG000190. Management 3 (2), doi: 10.1186/1750-0680-3-2. • Garman, K. E., P. Wyss, M. Carlsen, J. R. Zimmerman, B. H. Stirm, T. Q. Carney, R. • Goetz, S. J., M. C. Mack, K. R. Gurney, J. Santini, and P. B. Shepson, The T. Randerson and R. A. Houghton, contribution of variability of lift-induced Ecosystem responses to recent climate upwash to the uncertainty in vertical change and fire disturbance at northern wind determined from an aircraft

• Trapp, R. J., N. S. Diffenbaugh, H. E. Brooks, M. E. Baldwin, E. D. Robinson, and J. S. Pal, Changes in severe thunderstorm environment frequency during the 21st century caused by anthropogenically enhanced global radiative forcing (2007), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 104 (50): 19719-19723.

Severe thunderstorms comprise an extreme class of deep convective clouds, and produce high-impact weather such as destructive surface winds, hail and tornadoes. This study addresses the question of how severe thunderstorm frequency in the U.S. might change due to enhanced global radiative forcing associated with elevated greenhouse gas concentrations. The authors use global climate models and a high- resolution regional climate model to examine the larger-scale (environmental) meteorological conditions that foster sever thunderstorm formation. Across the model suite, they find a net increase during the late 21st century in the number of days in which these environmental conditions occur. The largest increases are shown This is an image of a severe thunderstorm that occurred during the summer season, in proximity to the Gulf of Mexico and on June 7, 2005, near Murdo, S.D. (Karen A. Kosiba photo Atlantic coastal regions. courtesy of the Trapp research group).

PCCRC Annual Report Discovery 19

Facilities

Examples of our research equipment and infrastructure.

The Airborne Laboratory for Atmospheric Accelerated Scientific Discovery initiative. The Purdue Stable Isotope (PSI) Facility Research (ALAR) Additionally, PCCRC researchers have PSI is a state-of-the-art multi-user, stable ALAR was designed to develop the access to dozens of terabytes of spinning isotope laboratory housed in the capability to measure fluxes of volatile storage as well as a petabyte tape storage Department of Earth & Atmospheric organic compounds from a light aircraft, a system. Sciences. PSI is co-directed by Professors twin-engine Beechcraft Duchess. This past Tim Filley, Gabe Bowen, Greg Michalski year, the ALAR team worked on improving Indian Pine Research Station (IPFS) Yuch Ning Shieh. PSI houses three gas measurements of CO2. They have been Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometers (IRMS), collaborating with the NOAA ESRL Carbon IPFS was organized in January 1989 and each accompanied by peripheral devices for 2 Cycle Group to incorporate a cavity encompasses 50km in the prairie-forest conversion of various compounds into transition zone of west-central Indiana. Two ringdown instrument for simultaneous analyzable gases. Areas of specialty include determination of methane and carbon primary watersheds are included within the modern and paleo-hydrology, N cycling in dioxide from the aircraft, in flux mode. In station boundaries: Indian Creek and Little the upper and lower atmosphere, ice core early 2008, this instrument was applied to Pine Creek. Three properties form the records of climate change, biogeochemical determine CO2 and CH4 flux measurements nucleus of ecological research, teaching, and cycling of C, N in forests and grassland, for the City of Indianapolis. outreach efforts: (1) Martell Forest, operated paleosol environment and climate by the Department of Forestry and Natural reconstruction, and molecular proxies for Resources (FNR), is near the confluence of ecosystem and environmental dynamics in Indian Creek and the Wabash River; (2) the soils and lake sediments. This past year, Purdue Wildlife Area, also operated by FNR, many of the PSI lab’s services were made is on a tributary of Indian Creek near its available to researchers at Purdue and headwaters; (3) the Ross Biological Reserve elsewhere on a contract basis. (photo below) operated by the Department of Biological Sciences borders the Wabash River and two Tippecanoe County Parks Department properties. Research and education within these three core facilities of ALAR director Paul Shepson preparing the IPFS have concentrated on the effects of land aircraft for flight. use on habitat distribution and quality, and on the population dynamics of native flora and fauna using long-term datasets. These Computational Resources facilities all include laboratories and staff, PCCRC researchers have access to a large and are available for research related to array of computational resources at Purdue. climate change. These include the new 812-node dual-quad- Sergey Oleynik, PSI lab manager maintains 3 IRMS core cluster known as Steele, which is the systems, trains students and visiting scientists in mass spectrometry techniques, and is co-instructor largest campus computer in the Big 10; a in a stable isotopes methods course. new 3200 processor SciCortex 5832; and a 150-node quad-core cluster half-owned by investigators in the EAS Department. Purdue researchers also have allocations at national computing centers, including an allocation of 399,000 GAUs on NCARs new bluefire IBM supercomputer, through the Aerial photo of the forests of the Ross Biological Reserve on the Wabash River. 20

Graduate student Keiller Kyle befriends a collared peccary in the Santa Elena Cloudforest Reserve in Costa Rica. Keiller's master’s thesis (Advisor, Kerry Rabenold) compared forest-interior bird communities to those at the edges of forests bordering pastures. Temperatures are elevated and humidity reduced at these edges so that they provide a window on what the effects of predicted regional climate change could be. Populations of peccaries and others like monkeys and big cats are growing in expanding protected reserves, but climate change could alter the species composition even there.

SEQUOIA CLUB 21

LEARNING

The PCCRC strives to create a learning environment that strengthens existing programs and encourages the development of new, cross-disciplinary learning initiatives.

21 22

Enriching Experiences

Many PCCRC students participate in field research involving travel to places ranging from the cloudforests of Costa Rica to the Arctic Ocean.

Leanna in the dunes of the Navajo Nation, Doug in Purdue’s ALAR, preparing to fly Phil and colleagues playing ice hockey on Arizona. over the Iowa “ring of towers.” the Arctic Ocean.

Graduate student Leanna Begay (master’s called the "ring-of-towers," a sensor network environment. It has been shown that sea ice, student in the Department of Biological measuring CO2 from tall towers, surrounding itself documented to be reducing in coverage Sciences) is shown above in her study area on Iowa. Among the experiments that Doug and in intensity, plays a critical role in the the Navajo Nation, Arizona. Increased sand designed and participated in was a composition of the atmosphere. Phil’s work dune activity is associated with the ongoing Lagrangian profile experiment, in which a is focused on investigating halogen chemistry drought in the southwestern US, and Leanna series of vertical profile measurements and in the lower Arctic troposphere through the is investigating the impact of dunes on plant horizontal transects were made while measurement of halogen oxides and communities and adaptations of plants to following an air mass over the course of a halocarbons using a new analytical technique drought and mobile soil. day. The work was a collaborative effort developed at Purdue (see page 9). between Purdue, the NOAA Global Last summer EAS doctoral student Doug Monitoring Division (which funded the Martins (pictured above) participated in the effort), and Atmospheric Observing Systems, North American Carbon Program Mid- Inc., a small company in Boulder, Colorado Continent Intensive Field Campaign. The which supplied the CO2 measurement work will determine fluxes of carbon between instrumentation. the land surfaces and the atmosphere by comparing "top-down" atmospheric budgets In the spring of 2008, Chemistry Ph.D. with "bottom-up" ecosystem stocks. Doug's candidate Phil Tackett spent nearly 2 months project was aimed at capturing regional scale aboard the CCGS Amundsen, a dedicated

fluxes of CO2 by taking measurements from polar research vessel and icebreaker re- an aircraft, the Purdue Airborne Laboratory commissioned in 2003 and operated by the Biological Sciences graduate student Keiller for Atmospheric Research (ALAR). With his Canadian Coast Guard. Phil’s work is a part Kyle and research associate Anna Ciecka in advisor, Paul Shepson, Doug flew a series of of a large international project studying the the Santa Elena Cloudforest Reserve, Costa vertical profiles in the vicinity of what is impact of sea ice on the health of the Arctic Rica.

PCCRC Annual Report Learning 23

New Courses

Six new courses were developed this year by PCCRC faculty.

Topics in Paleoclimatology (EAS 591B) principles covered will include integration of Models in Climate Change Science and Instructor: Gabe Bowen water and biota at a catchment scale, Policy (POL 520A/EAS 591Y) evolutionarily established resilience and Instructors: Matt Huber (EAS) and Leigh Course Description: The study of past climate resistance of ecosystems to stress, and how Raymond (PolSci) change helps earth scientists understand ecosystem properties can be used as a what the climate system can do and why. Course Description: The proper use of management tool for biodiversity, water How hot and how cold has the Earth been in models is controversial in both science and quality, and water quantity improvement. the past? How wet and how dry? How policy making. Nowhere is this controversy quickly can Earth’s climate change? Why do more apparent today than over the issue of these changes happen, and how do they Climate Analysis I (EAS 591C) climate change. This course will provide affect the chemistry of Earth’s atmosphere, Instructor: Noah Diffenbaugh students a better understanding of the role of oceans, and soils, the structure and Course Description: Students will undertake political, economic, and scientific models in composition of Earth’s ecosystems? By a research project to understand the the study of climate change. Team-taught by seeking to answer these questions, mechanisms or impacts of past, present, or instructors from Political Science and Earth paleoclimatologists help us understand the future climate dynamics. The core of this and Atmospheric Sciences, the course bounds of variability in the climate system, project will consist of analyzing existing partners students across disciplines to work factors that cause climate change, and observational, reanalysis and/or climate on applying models to distinct aspects of the potential trajectories of future climate. By the model data. Lectures will address tools for climate change problem. end of the semester, participants will have climate analysis and topics in climate developed a broad understanding of how dynamics. Applied Spatial Statistics (STAT/FNR 598Z) past climate change is studied and an in- Instructor: Hao Zhang depth understanding of several key problems that motivate current paleoclimate research. Terrestrial Biogeochemistry (EAS 591B/ Course Description: This course covers a AGRY 589T) wide range of statistical models and methods Instructors: Tim Filley (EAS) and Cliff for data that are collected at different spatial Ecohydrology (ABE 591S) Johnston (AGRY) locations and perhaps at different times. Instructor: Indrajeet Chaubey Course Description: This interdisciplinary These data are called spatial or spatio- Course Description: Ecohydrology links course provides an introduction to the temporal data, which arise in many scientific hydrological and ecological processes at physical and microbial processes governing disciplines such as agronomy, plant various spatiotemporal scales and is the cycling of photosynthetically produced pathology, forestry and natural resources, considered to be one of the most exciting organic matter on land and in streams and environmental and health studies, frontiers of future research. Movement and rivers. Organic geochemical transformations climatology, geology, biosecurity, etc. This course introduces the classical methods as storage of water are integral parts of in the soil will be highlighted along with well as some newly developed ones, and landscape and ecosystem functioning. methods of characterizing soil organic Hydrological processes in individual constituents. Biogeochemical concepts are provides ample hands-on activities. The ecosystems and the role of water in linking reinforced through hands-on modeling programming language R and a few the myriad components of the landscape are assignments using the CENTURY model. packages for analyzing spatial data are explored in this course. Interactions between Additionally, transformations controlled by introduced. One objective of the course is for hydrological and biological processes and temperature and pressure under geological students to be able to identify appropriate factors that regulate and shape these conditions are discussed. methods and analyze spatial data in their interactions are covered. The ecohydrology own research. 24

Fellow updates

Each year PCCRC awards up to two fellowships to recruit outstanding doctoral students to Purdue. Read about our Fellows’ progress below.

Charlotte Kendra G. Castillo, 2007 Fellow might the regional hydrology (water and energy balance) be affected due to changes This last year, Kendra (Department of Earth which have occurred or changes which are & Atmospheric Sciences, Prof. Kevin likely to occur in future. Over the last year Gurney, advisor) was part of an Vimal has given the following presentations: interdisciplinary team that initiated a project to measure Boilermakers’ attitudes on • Mishra, V. K. A. Cherkauer, M. M. Crawford, sustainability. The project involved creating and L. C. Bowling (2008), Sensitivity study of and implementing a survey, “The lakes/wetlands processes using remote sensing Boilermaker Lifestyle Survey,” which was data and a land surface model. American pilot-tested during the Fall Semester, 2007. Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineering (ASABE), Rhode Island The team presented their findings at the Ecological Sciences and Engineering Student • Mishra, V., K. A. Cherkauer, and L. C. Bowling Research Symposium in November, 2007 (2008), Impacts of climate variability and and won a 2nd place award. The project change on inland lakes in Michigan, 88th was also entered in Purdue’s “Idea-to- Kendra Castillo at the 2007 Delhi Sustainable Annual Meeting of American Meteorological Society (AMS), New Orleans, LA. Product Competition for Environmental and Development Summit on climate change. Social Entrepreneurship” in March 2008. • Sinha T., K. A. Cherkauer, and V. Mishra (2008), Historic climate impacts on seasonal soil frost Kendra attended the 2008 Delhi Sustainable Vimal Mishra, 2006 Fellow in the Midwestern US, 88th AMS Annual Development Summit (Sustainable Vimal joined Purdue in the fall of 2006 as a Meeting, New Orleans, LA, Abstract 135102 development and climate change) as one of PhD student in the Department of the international graduate student Agricultural & Biological Engineering (Prof. • Mishra, V., K. A. Cherkauer, T. Sinha, and M. delegates. Upon her return, she presented Keith Cherkauer, advisor). His doctoral Huber (2007), Variation of surface soil moisture and its implications under changing climate her experiences at the spring semester research is focused on understanding the conditions, 2nd Graduate Climate Conference, Graduate Students Seminar Series. Most role of historic climate variability and future University of Washington, Seattle, WA. recently, Kendra has been developing a climate change on lakes in the Great Lakes research project aimed at understanding the Region. He is using in-situ data, remote Vimal also participated in the Virginia climate impacts of applying the sensing observations and a land surface Coastal Reserve 2007 Field Campaign to “preservation pathway” to tropical forests. model to address (i) how have lakes collect remotely sensed and in-situ data She is also a Fulbright Scholar and a PEO changed historically in the Great Lakes related to coastal wetland water quality International Peace Scholar. Region; (ii) how are they likely to change in along with representatives from agencies the future within the perspective of such as NRL, NASA, NOAA and USGS. projected climate change; and (iii) how SEQUOIA CLUB PCCRC Annual Report Learning 25

Vimal Mishra, Agricultural & Biological Jinyung Tang, Earth & Avantika Regmi, Forestry & Sciences Atmospheric Sciences Natural Resources Joseph Alfieri, Agronomy

Jinyung Tang, 2006 Fellow 20th century. ESA 93rd annual meeting, awarded the 1st place tie. Since last year her Milwaukee, 5 Aug. 2008 During the 2007-2008 academic year, with research has also taken a new direction, she has combined spatial econometric models support from a NASA Earth System Science Jinyung has two manuscripts in review: into the demographic model. Avantika is in Fellowship, Jinyung has further developed the process of writing the first paper, “The the Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (TEM) to • Tang, J. and Q. Zhuang ,A Global Sensitivity and Bayesian Inference Framework toImprove the spatial determinants of fertility in Kenya.” account for the effects of soil moisture and Parameter Estimation and Prediction of Process- nitrogen deposition on methane dynamics. Based Terrestrial Ecosystem Models. In review In March, 2008, he attended a workshop, at J. Geophys. Res. - Atmos. Joseph Alfieri, 2005 Fellow “Toward an adequate quantification of CH 4 Collaborating with scientists at Purdue emissions from land ecosystems: Integrating • Tang, J. and Q. Zhuang, Equifinality in University and the National Center for field and in-situ observations, satellite data, Parameterization of Process-Based Atmospheric Research, Joseph was invited to and modeling,” sponsored by the National Biogeochemistry Models: A Significant NCAR during the summers of 2006, 2007, and Center for Ecological Analysis and Uncertainty Source to Regional Carbon Dynamics. In review at J. Geophys. Res. - 2008 through the Advanced Study Program Synthesis, Santa Barbara, CA. Biogeoscience and the Mesoscale and Microscale This year, Jinyung has given the following Meteorology Visiting Scientist Program. He presentations: Avantika Regmi, 2005 Fellow has been investigating the linkages between the heterogeneity of surface characteristics • Zhuang, Q., Xu, K., Tang, J., Responses of global Avantika Regmi is a student in Forestry and and the spatial variability of surface fluxes. soil methane consumption to changes of climate, Natural Resources (Prof. Bryan Pijanowski, Using a combination of surface, remotely land-use and land-cover, and atmospheric advisor). Her dissertation research includes sensed, and modeled data, in conjunction chemistry deposition during the 20th century, developing a human-demographic model- with flux footprint and spatial statistical European Geosciences Union, General Assembly Watu written in the C-programming analysis techniques, Joseph’s work seeks to 2008, Vienna, Austria, 13 – 18 April 2008 language. This is a spatio-temporal model clarify the influence of surface properties, that takes into consideration the bio-physical, • Tang, J., Q. Zhuang, Incorporating a snow model such as land use and vegetation density, on into soil thermal dynamics modeling, 2008 socio-economic and ethno-cultural variables land-atmosphere exchange processes. In 2007, Graduate Student Research Expo. Purdue that affect the main components of he was awarded a NASA Earth and Space University, Feb. 23, 2008. demography -fertility, survivorship and Science Fellowship. He was also recognized migration. Avantika is currently working on Tang, J. and Q. Zhuang, Modeling the growing as the Outstanding Ph.D. Student in Research • developing the migration component of the season change in Alaska during the 20th and the recipient of the Wayne P. Rothgreb model. The model is country-specific and her centuray, ESA 93rd annual meeting, Milwaukee, Memorial Scholarship awarded through the WI, 5 Aug. 2008 focus is on Kenya. Avantika presented a Department of Agronomy, Crop, Soil, and poster on the development of the model at Environmental Sciences. Joseph was the • Zhuang, Q., K. Xu, and J. Tang, Responses of the Fall 2007 “Center for the Environment’s author or co-author of six papers published global soil CH consumption to changes of 4 Ecological Sciences and Engineering during 2007. climate, atmospheric CH4 concentration, and Graduate Research Showcase” and was atmospheric chemistry deposition during the

26

In the spring of 2008, the Rotary Club of Fort Wayne, Indiana hosted a World Affairs Conference on Climate Change. Over 300 high school students from the northwest Indiana region were in attendance for a presentation and discussion session on climate change led by PCCRC members Kirk Alter, Tim Filley, and Paul Shepson.

The presentation, Climate change: realities, impacts, and opportunities, was filmed and sent to 9 other locations throughout northern Indiana where 2,000 additional high schoolers and their teachers had the opportunity to see the presentation and participate in local discussions. At the Hammond, IN session, Keith Cherkauer focused the discussion on climate change impacts to water resources in the Great Lakes region. SEQUOIA CLUB 27

ENGAGEMENT

In this section, we provide a snapshot of our collaborative partnerships with governments, schools, industry and community groups that put our knowledge and expertise regarding the complex, multidimensional issue of climate change to work.

27 28

Part of the community

PCCRC researchers participate in a variety of activities aimed at advancing scholarship, contributing to public education, and facilitating technology transfer.

Nurturing the Next Generation of Science Technology this fall to study software since it was initiated. The RegCNET mission Leaders engineering and biochemistry. He will is to foster scientific interactions between continue his research in the Filley lab on developing and developed nations on the During his junior and senior years at various projects related to application of new topic of regional climate dynamics and Harrison High School, Russell Conard chemical methods to track carbon cycling. impacts research, and much of Moetasim’s participated in the on-going work with RegCNET has gone toward research in Prof. Tim Filley’s building scientific networks. For example, lab. With Filley’s guidance, with the Abdus Salam International Centre Russell studied how native for Theoretical physics, he helped establish and invasive earthworm RegCNET-South Asia. This regional network activity changes the chemistry has supported government meteorological of decomposing forest litter. departments and climate research centers in The work was part of an NSF- Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan to kick- funded project investigating start research on the assessment of climate the implications of invasive change and its impacts on water resources, earthworm species on organic food security, and agriculture. matter budgets in forest litter and soil. While at Purdue, Moetasim has been Russell Conard addressing a panel of Nobel Laureates at the involved in the development and In the spring of 2008, Russell International Science and Engineering Fair in Atlanta, Georgia. maintenance of new GCM-RegCM3 and presented his findings at the RegCM3-hydrology couplers, and RegCM3- Purdue Regional and Indiana paleoclimate capability. He is also State Science fairs placing first in both responsible for the improvement and Facilitating Knowledge Transfer competitions. He was then invited to maintenance of RegCM3 postprocessing participate in the Intel International Science Moetasim Ashfaq’s (Ph.D. candidate, Earth & codes and a key provider of RegCM3 user and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in Atlanta, Atmospheric Sciences) first exposure to climate support over the RegCNET listserv. Georgia. Russell did spectacularly well, science was in a collaborative RegCNET receiving a 1st place award in biochemistry Moetasim’s doctoral work on the response of workshop in Pakistan in 2004. The and Best in Class - Overall Winner. In South Asian monsoon dynamics to changes RegCNET, short for Regional Climate December, Russell will travel to Sweden to in radiative forcing has also benefited from Network, was established 5 years ago during represent the ISEF and the United States at RegCNET relationships. Most practically, the First ICTP Workshop on the theory and the Stockholm International Youth Science RegCNET connections have led to use of regional climate models. It was Seminar, one of only 25 students from collaboration with scientists at the National connections with the RegCNET that led around the world invited to attend. Recently Climate Center in Beijing, which has enabled Moetasim to Purdue to work with his thesis graduated from HHS, Russell will be computationally expensive high-resolution advisor, Prof. Noah Diffenbaugh. attending the Rose-Hulman Institute of climate change experiments for South Asia. Diffenbaugh has been a part of the network SEQUOIA CLUB PCCRC Annual Report Engagement 29

Examples of our outreach activities

Alter, Kirk; Tim Filley, and Paul Shepson, March Huber, Matthew, Oct 2007, Purdue University, SISI on Natural Disasters: Challenges for Better 2008, presentation to Indiana public high school meeting (teaching teachers), West Lafayette, IN: A Forecasting and Hazard Assessment, Sponsored students at the Fort Wayne Rotary Club World glance in the rearview mirror and the view by the Thailand Commission on Higher Affairs Conference, Fort Wayne, IN: Climate ahead: Using climate models. Education, Mae Fah Luang University Chiang Rai, change: realities, impacts, and opportunities. Thailand: Methodology: Worldwide Experience and Huber, Matthew, September 2007, featured on Assessment of the Application of Space Technologies to Cason, Tim, March 2008, Emissions trading Earth & Sky Radio Series: Global warming and Forecasting and Hazard Assessment of Natural “experts” workshop, Canberra, Australia: tropical cyclones. Disasters. Laboratory experiments inform emissions permit market design. Lasher-Trapp, Sonia, August 2007, Oxford Rowe, Helen, May 2008, co-convener of “Tallgrass Roundtable "Global Warming and Sustainable Prairie Research, Indicators and Monitoring Cherkauer, Keith, February 2008, Indiana Sea Development: Governing a Crisis", Oxford, Workshop” for science directors and project Grant seminar series, Purdue University Calumet, England: Clouds in a Warmer Environment: Friend directors for the central US region of the Nature Hammond, IN: The impact of changing climate and or Foe? Conservancy. precipitation in the Great Lakes basin, Illinois. Michalski, Greg, September 2007, plenary speaker Shao, Guofan, October 2007, Indiana Department Diffenbaugh, Noah, October 2007, NSF Climate at the 7th Annual Association of Isotope of Natural Resources for Forest Planners: Roles of Over Landscapes Workshop, Boulder, CO: High- Geochemists, in Stellenbosch South Africa: Theory Forests in Offsetting CO2 Emissions. resolution paleoclimate modeling. and Applications of 17O anomalies in Biogeochemistry. Shao, Guofan with Liu, Y., and Martin, B., Diffenbaugh, Noah, March 2008, Fourth ICTP Nies, Larry, May 2008, Unitarian Church, November 2007, 1st Xiamen International Forum Workshop on the Theory and Use of Regional Lafayette, IN: Sustainable Development. on Urban Environment held at the Institute of Climate Models, Trieste, Italy: The importance of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Pijanowski, Bryan, June 2008, Keynote address at fine-scale feedbacks in regional climate change Sciences, in Xiamen: Diminishing the Role of Accuracy2008, Shanghai, China: Sustainability, projections. Urbanization in Raising Atmospheric CO climate change, and uncertainty. 2 Concentrations: Think Globally, Act Locally. Filley, Timothy April 22, 2008 Tim Filley, NICHES Rabenold, Kerry, March 2008, Wabash Area Land Trust, West Lafayette, IN: Climate change and Shepson, Paul, September, 2007, Juniata College, Lifetime Learning Association lecture, West forest ecosystems. Huntingdon, PA: Atmospheric chemistry and climate Lafayette, IN: Vulnerability of tropical biological change in the Arctic. Filley, Rose, February 2007, YWCA Spring diversity to climate change. Luncheon Series, Lafayette, IN: Climate change Shepson, Paul, November 2007, presented the 17th Rabenold, Kerry, June 2007, Arenal Tempisque challenges and opportunities (and an introduction to a annual Harold I. Schiff Lecture at York University, Conservation Area Symposium, Ministry of local resource: the PCCRC). Toronto, Canada: Climate Change, and Atmosphere- Environment & Energy, Costa Rica: La Distribución Surface Interactions in the Arctic. Gluhovsky, Alexander, July 2007, presentation at Espacial de la Biodiversidad y las Implicaciónes para las the XXIV IUGG General Assembly "Extreme Especies Endémicas Amenazadas. Trapp, Jeff, November 2007, University of Illinois, Weather and Climate Events: Past Occurrences Department of Atmospheric Science: Connections Raymond, Leigh, December 2007, Harvard and Future Likelihoods" symposium, Perugia, between global climate change and severe Electricity Policy Group Quarterly Seminar, Italy: Advances in subsampling methodology for thunderstorms. analysis of nonlinear atmospheric time series. Invited presenter: “Allocation of Carbon Emissions Allowances” session, Los Angeles, CA: Tung, Wen-wen, October 2007, special seminar at Grant, Richard, Dec 2007, Estimación de Allocating emission allowances: learning from EU and the Dept. of Geophysical Sciences, University of Emisiones de Gases Efecto Invernadero: US experiences. Chicago and in May, 2008 at the Shanghai Actualización de Conocimientos, Colegio de Typhoon Institute, Shanghai, China: Quantifying Raymond, Leigh, November 2007, Purdue Postgraduados, Campus Montecillo, Mexico: dynamical predictability: the pseudo-ensemble University Seminar Series in Bioethics, West Methodologies of the National Air Emissions technique. Measurement Study with applications to greenhouse Lafayette, IN: The Ethics and Politics of Climate gas emissions measurements. Change. Zhuang, Qianlai, June 2008, Northern Eurasia Earth Science Partnership Initiative (NEESPI) Rochon, Gilbert, July 2007, presentation for HRH Gurney, Kevin, November 2007, Indiana Science Team meeting, Helsinki, Finland: Modeling University, Bloomington, IN: From Tara to Hestia: Princess Ncengencenge Dlamini and HRH Prince CO2 and CH4 emissions in the Arctic. Connecting the missing sink and fossil fuels through Lethuthando Dlamini of the Kingdom of carbon science. Swaziland. Purdue University, West Lafayette, Zhuang, Qianlai, October 2007, Keynote speaker Indiana: Remote Sensing in Support of Public Health at “Towards a process-based description of trace Gurney, Kevin, September 2007, Heinz Center’s & Disaster Mitigation in Swaziland. gas emissions in land surface models” Workshop, Business Council for Economics and the Marina Plaza, Helsingborg, Sweden: Current issues Rochon, Gilbert and Joseph Quansah, September Environment, Sustainability Retreat, Invited on methane modeling. participant. 2007, Keynote Address, International Conference

30

Informing Policy

PCCRC members work to bring objective, science-based information to the policy making process.

In December 2007, delegates from over Table on "Global Warming and 180 countries gathered in Bali, Indonesia Sustainable Development: Governing a for the annual event known as the Crisis", held at Oxford University from Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Aug 12-17, 2007. For 20 years, Oxford Framework Convention on Climate University has hosted discussions to Change. The COP is a two-week meeting consider public policy issues as they relate of negotiations and information sharing to education in the U.S., England, and regarding the challenge of global climate other selected countries. Other change. This year, for the first time, two participants included individuals from representatives from the PCCRC attended private industry and government as well the negotiations as part of the Center’s as lawyers and other academics. Sonia's new, official “observer” status. With participation was funded in part by the observer status, the PCCRC can PCCRC, and she presented the paper participate in the COPs and other, related "Clouds in a Warmer Environment: Friend or processes. PCCRC Associate Director Foe?" Papers presented at the round table Kevin Gurney is a veteran of the UN were reviewed and then published in climate negotiation process, having Oxford's Forum on Public Policy, Vol. 3, No. 4. attended as an observer since the early Kevin Gurney at the UNFCCC COP13 days of the meetings in the 1990s. He was held in Bali, Indonesia. On Earth Day, April 22, 2008, Kevin joined by first-time attendee, Leigh Gurney provided testimony before the Raymond, the Center’s other Associate based regulations for controlling U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Director. In the near future, the Center greenhouse gas emissions. His about proposed international deforestation plans to establish travel scholarships for presentation was part of an emissions and climate change policy. Included in his students so they may gain an inside look trading “expert workshop” for the testimony was a new approach (developed at the complexity of international climate Departments of Climate Change, Treasury, in collaboration with Leigh Raymond) that policy. Natural Resources and Environment, and would provide carbon credits for other state and federal agencies. developing countries that set aside a PCCRC member and Purdue Professor of portion of existing forests and slow the Economics, Tim Cason, met in March 2008 Sonia Lasher-Trapp, Assistant Professor of rate at which the remaining forests are cut with Australian policy makers in Canberra Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, was invited down. A key point in the approach is its to discuss plans for implementing market- call for a deceleration of deforestation. to present a paper at the Oxford Round PCCRC Annual Report Engagement 31

Carbon dioxide emissions have increased 13% in Indiana since 1990.

Washington D.C. briefings from an additional dose of realism. For Responding to Climate Change: Measuring Vulnerability and Building In October, 2007, the PCCRC, College of Science, instance, the statement that the U.S. will be Resilience and the Office of Foundation Relations held two significantly affected by climate change days of outreach events to introduce the Hestia overlooks recent work indicating that some Regardless of greenhouse gas mitigation project (see page 15) to business leaders, areas face significantly more serious risks than measures, it is now apparent that some foundations, and NGOs in the D.C. metro area. others (Diffenbaugh et al., 2005). The statement adaptation to climate change will be required in In addition, Kevin Gurney, presented the project that economic actors will reach an efficient price the coming decades. However, different to congressional staff at a Capitol Hill briefing. for greenhouse gases in a cap and trade system communities almost certainly face different ignores recent work indicating that human climate change vulnerabilities. For instance, behavior can undermine those efficiencies in physical effects of climate change will not be 2007 PCCRC Distinguished Lecture many surprising ways (Cason and uniform between nations or within individual The Center welcomed Dr. Barry Rabe, Professor Gangadharan, 2006). The statement that nations. Further, the ability of an individual of Public Policy, University of Michigan, to greenhouse gas offsets are a useful policy tool community to adapt to climate change will campus on October 4, 2007, to present the ignores the uncertain economic and depend not only on the physical effects of PCCRC Distinguished Lecture: “States on environmental implications of shifting climate change that it faces, but also on its Steroids: the Intergovernmental Odyssey of greenhouse gas emissions or storage around the unique social and economic dynamics. Thus, American Climate Policy.” Dr. Rabe shared his globe. Further, policy analysts tend to treat the general prescriptions for adaptation will fail to insights and experiences in climate policy greenhouse gas pricing challenge in the prepare communities for more costly localized development, noting in particular that in the abstract, when in fact governments around the consequences of future climate change. Rather, United States, federal level disengagement on world have been in the business of pricing and successfully building resilience to climate climate policy coincides with an unexpected distributing natural resources for centuries change requires rigorous identification of the and growing body of state and local (Raymond, 2003). local climate exposure, deep understanding of government policy innovation. Dr. Rabe the local community dynamics, and careful The Purdue approach will provide an in-depth examined what has fostered such state consideration of the local geography and assessment of the political, economic, and subnational involvement and considered infrastructure. lessons from early stages of state climate policy environmental benefits and weaknesses of a development and implementation. The PCCRC variety of policy options available in a cap-and- The Purdue approach will integrate detailed, and Department of Political Science co-hosted trade system. Specifically, the research team local-scale projections of climate change with Dr. Rabe’s visit. will evaluate the environmental, economic, and historical case studies of community response to political viability of five initial allocation severe climatic events. The analysis will principles (auction, grandfathering, per capita, provide a deeper understanding of what makes New interdepartmental collaborations per unit GDP, and vulnerability), and five communities vulnerable and resilient to climate related to climate change policy issues trading rules (banking, enforcement, liability, variations, a quantitative assessment of the Greenhouse Gas Pricing Policy: A More equity-based limits, and swapping of weather climate change risks faced by different areas, Integrated, Realistic Analysis risks). Team: Tim Cason, Economics; Noah and specific recommendations for building Diffenbaugh, EAS; Kevin Gurney, EAS and Analysis of greenhouse gas pricing policy resilience to those risks. Team: Daniel Aldrich, Agronomy; Tom Hertel, Agricultural Economics; currently relies on optimizing economic Political Science; Noah Diffenbaugh, EAS; Leigh Leigh Raymond, Political Science; Jerry Shively, outcomes in the face of unrealistic assumptions Raymond, Political Science; and Jerry Shively, Agricultural Economics; and Wally Tyner, about environmental consequences and human Agricultural Economics. decision-making. Such analysis would benefit Agricultural Economics. 32

Reports

The PCCRC encourages and coordinates multidisciplinary analysis to provide science-based information tools for researchers, students, elected officials, and the public. We are pleased to include four new reports in our toolbox this year.

are meant to facilitate activity at a variety In the spring semester of 2007, an of speeds and initial investment. interdisciplinary class of 29 students and 6 instructors calculated the annual carbon Locally, this work has served to put the emissions of Purdue University and concept of carbon neutrality on the Purdue generated a series of ideas to reduce those map and has sparked the interest of emissions over time to the point of campus administration, faculty, students, “carbon neutrality,” or zero net carbon and the surrounding community. In emissions. Their efforts are documented addition, the work has catalyzed in a new report, “Carbon Neutrality at formation of the Purdue Sustainability Purdue.” Council. Led by Dr. Robin Mills Ridgway (Purdue’s environmental regulatory In this report, the group has provided a consultant), the Council brings together model for calculating the university’s students, faculty, and staff to identify carbon footprint and a baseline analysis to issues, discuss options, educate the use in monitoring future energy campus community, and make conservation efforts. For this study, the recommendations on the future direction class defined Purdue’s “carbon footprint” of sustainability initiatives. This includes as the net amount of carbon (in the form consideration of many facets of the of carbon dioxide) released to the University’s impact, including greenhouse atmosphere as a result of Purdue gas emissions, water use, non-renewable University’s activities which include material use, transportation, and more. energy production and consumption, building construction, land management, take towards that end. For example, there Through monthly meetings, an email business travel, and purchasing decisions are opportunities for developing and listserv, and a new website, the Council is for the 2005-2006 fiscal year. The utilizing renewable energy sources, generating excitement, sharing geographic boundaries encompassed the improving energy transmission methods, knowledge, and securing the Purdue West Lafayette campus and land adopting energy efficient technologies, commitments needed to move forward holdings throughout Tippecanoe County. increasing energy conservation efforts, with implementing sustainable best and creating or purchasing carbon offsets. practices on campus. You can learn more While true carbon neutrality is, by any The wide assortment of emissions about campus sustainability activities at: standard, an ambitious goal, the report reductions options identified in the report www.purdue.edu/sustainability. outlines specific steps the university can PCCRC Annual Report Engagement 33

Purdue Climate Change Research Center

Policy Brief Purdue Climate Change Research Center PB 0701 . SEPTEMBER 2007 A Primer on Market-Based Approaches to CO2 Emissions Reductions

By Leigh Raymond and Gerald Shively

Recent political developments have brought to the The brief proceeds in five political fore the issue of controlling emissions of sections. First, we review how cap greenhouse gases. In the United States, numerous and trade emissions trading systems proposals have surfaced promoting policies to limit work. Second, we outline the history domestic emissions of gases like carbon dioxide (CO2), a of emissions trading as a policy Impacts of Climate primary contributor to climate change. Many of these option in the United States and proposals embrace “market-based” approaches, including elsewhere. Third, we review the the creation of a new tax or a new trading program for similarities and differences between carbon emissions. In this flurry of political advocacy and a cap and trade system and an Change for the State of Carbon dioxide activity, a fair amount of ambiguity and confusion has emissions tax. We then discuss some arisen concerning what these policy options might entail, critical issues for policymakers emissions in and how their impacts might differ. The purpose of this contemplating either approach. After Indiana have Indiana policy brief is to describe some of the basic features of concluding we offer a few increased 13% carbon taxes and carbon-based emissions trading. Our goal suggestions for further reading. since 1990. is to aid decision makers to more effectively weigh the advantages and disadvantages of these approaches.

I. What is cap and trade? Prepared for: The Honorable Richard G. Lugar Cap and trade systems draw on the ideas of economic must buy or otherwise obtain sufficient allowances from Prepared by: The Purdue Climate Change Research Center thinkers like Ronald Coase, who argued that a clear those in possession of permits to maintain the total cap. specification of property rights can improve environmental At the same time, the system appeals to those seeking to conditions in many instances more effectively than a tax on limit the overall costs of meeting the environmental target undesired behavior. Cap and trade systems rely on two for several reasons. The first is that allowances are tradable instruments to create these private property rights: the among emitters, allowing them to equalize their costs of “cap,” a ceiling on total allowable emissions (typically compliance at the margin, and thereby achieve the overall defined within a given industry or geographical region); and environmental goal at least total cost to society. Meeting “trade,” or creation of exchangeable emissions permits strict standards is often more difficult and costly for older (often called “allowances”) that grant the right to emit one facilities, for instance, than for newer ones. With a cap and unit of pollution in a given year. The cap appeals to those trade system, emissions trading directly addresses this seeking environmental protection because it firmly limits problem. In other words, firms facing very high pollution total pollution loading regardless of additional economic control costs can continue to emit high levels of pollution growth: new facilities seeking to emit the pollutant typically

503 Northwestern Avenue, West Lafayette, IN 47907; Tel: (765) 496-3209; Fax: (765) 496-3210 Email: [email protected]; WWW: http://www.purdue.edu/climate

Market-Based Approaches to CO2 Impacts of Climate Change on the State The Projected Impacts of CO2 Emissions Emissions Reductions of Indiana Reduction Legislation on Electricity Prices in Indiana Recent political developments have brought PCCRC faculty have analyzed the potential to the political fore the issue of controlling “no-action” impacts of climate change on A report by the Indiana State Utility emissions of greenhouse gases. In the Indiana, as well as the potential Forecasting Group (a part of Discovery United States, numerous proposals have opportunities and consequences of climate Park’s Energy Center) and the PCCRC have surfaced promoting policies to limit change mitigation in the State. Most of the estimated the impact of proposed federal domestic emissions of gases like carbon analyses of no-action impacts assume future regulations aimed at reductions in carbon dioxide (CO2), a primary contributor to greenhouse gas concentrations at the high dioxide emissions on the projected prices of climate change. Many of these proposals end of the IPCC SRES illustrative emissions electricity and the use of electric energy in embrace “market-based” approaches, scenarios, although some analyses also the State of Indiana. Prepared at the request including the creation of a new tax or a new consider low emissions trajectories. Further, of Senator Evan Bayh, the analysis is based trading program for carbon emissions. In some of the analyses are quantitative, based on the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security this flurry of political advocacy and activity, on published and unpublished work that is Act (S. 2191), which places a declining cap a fair amount of ambiguity and confusion ongoing at Purdue; other analyses are on greenhouse gas emissions; however, it has arisen concerning what these policy qualitative based on “expert opinion.” does not attempt to model the full details of options might entail, and how their impacts While additional research will always bring the proposed legislation. might differ. further clarity, these initial analyses are Although the bill places limits on six meant to provide a reliable indication of the greenhouse gases (CO , methane, nitrous Written by Dr. Leigh Raymond, PCCRC direction and magnitude of important 2 oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, Associate Director and Associate Professor climate change impacts and opportunities in perfluorocarbons, and hydrofluorocarbons) of Political Science, and Dr. Gerald Shively, Indiana. Professor of Agricultural Economics, this from a number of producers, this report policy brief describes some of the basic The report, prepared for Senator Richard solely focuses on CO2 emissions from features of carbon taxes and carbon-based Lugar, considers projected climate changes Indiana’s electric utility industry. The emissions trading to aid decision makers to in the State, impacts to water resources, analysis focuses on the impacts of the more effectively weigh the advantages and agriculture, plants and animals, soils, legislated limitations on CO2 emissions on disadvantages of these approaches. human health, and heating and cooling the electric energy sector of the economy demand. It also explores carbon and does not address the benefits of reduced management opportunities and emissions. consequences. 34

People As a faculty-led center, we know that our strength derives from the scholarship, creativity, and energy of our members. The PCCRC was founded by a group of 12 faculty members representing 8 academic units across campus and has since grown to include 46 active members from 13 departments.

Welcome our newest members

Kirk Alter, Associate Professor, Reuben Goforth, Assistant Professor of Cliff Johnston, Professor, Department of Department of Building and Construction Forestry & Natural Resources Agronomy Management

Prof. Alter has been a Prof. Goforth is a Prof. Johnston’s full-time participant in broadly trained aquatic research interests are the mechanical and ecologist with focused on the surface electrical construction particular interest in chemistry of natural industries since the stream and Great particles and the early 1970s. The past Lakes nearshore biogeochemical 13 years Prof. Alter has ecology Within these processes they created curricula ecosystems, he is regulate. Much of his specializations in particularly interested group’s work is in environmental systems in buildings, in conducting research to better soils; however, they are broadly interested sustainable construction, and international understand the mechanisms that drive in the properties of natural particles found development. More recently, his research changes in biological community structure. in a variety of aquatic and subsurface and teaching efforts have focused on green He currently has great interest in the environments. The group seeks to develop building and sustainability best practices. potential role of increased biofuel-related an understanding of how molecules (e.g., In 2007-08 he spent the year in Europe as a crop production as a factor driving stream contaminants, water, nutrients) interact Fulbright Scholar exploring European biological community structure in affected with natural particles, as well as studying approaches to sustainable building watersheds. His lab is also beginning to the particles themselves. Dr. Johnston’s practices and adaptation to climate focus on research to better understand the research is focused on the nano- and change. Prof. Alter is also president of Fast mechanisms of stream communities molecular- scales with application to larger Management, Inc. response to changing environmental scales. properties related to climate change (e.g., increased carbon dioxide concentrations, increased and more variable water temperatures, etc).

PCCRC Annual Report Engagement 35

COALESCE Climate Change Hiring by policy makers in has carried out Initiative their decision research across a With support from the Colleges of Science, processes. Her wide range of Agriculture, and Liberal Arts, the research also explores ecological disciplines COALESCE climate change faculty the concept of ‘useful’ including invasion searches in “policy and science” and scientific information biology, plant “ecological impacts” successfully recruited and seeks to develop physiological two outstanding researchers, Dr. Elizabeth evaluative tools for ecology, McNie and Dr. Jeffrey Dukes. determining whether community, scientific information is useful, and how it ecosystem, and global ecology, and is useful, for policy makers. She is also biogeochemistry. Dr. Elizabeth McNie will join Purdue this interested in the institutional design, The majority of Jeffrey’s work has been fall as Assistant Professor in the organizational dynamics and social capital related to environmental changes and he Department of Political Science and the needed for successful scientist – policy currently leads a broad research program Department of Earth & Atmospheric maker interactions regarding the that centers on drivers and effects of Sciences. Elizabeth’s research interests production of useful information. species composition change. His relate to climate policy and how to overarching professional goal is to study facilitate the development of stronger Dr. Jeffrey Dukes joins the Department and promote understanding of how the linkages between scientists and policy Forestry & Natural Resources and human enterprise affects terrestrial makers so that scientists produce Department of Biological Sciences. Jeffrey ecosystems. information that is both needed and used

PCCRC Membership Earth & Atmospheric Sciences: Ernest Executive Committee Agronomy: Laura Bowling, Melba Agee , Michael Baldwin, Gabe Bowen, Laura Bowling, Agronomy Crawford,1 Richard Grant, Cliff Johnston, Noah Diffenbaugh, Timothy Filley, 3 4 Otto Doering, Agricultural Economics Dev Niyogi,2 and Ron Turco Alexander Gluhovsky, Kevin Gurney, Jennifer Haase, Harshvardhan, Matthew Timothy Filley, EAS Huber, Sonia Lasher-Trapp, Greg Richard Grant, Agronomy Agricultural & Biological Engineering: Michalski, Jeff Trapp, Wen-wen Tung, 2 Kevin Gurney, EAS Indrajeet Chaubey, Keith Cherkauer, and Qianlai Zhuang4 Rabi Mohtar Matthew Huber, EAS Economics: Timothy Cason Larry Nies, Civil Engineering Agricultural Economics: Otto Doering, Kerry Rabenold, Biological Sciences Forestry and Natural Resources: Reuben Edna Tusak Loehman, Gerald (Jerry) Leigh Raymond, Political Science Shively, and Wally Tyner Goforth, Bryan Pijanowski, Linda Prokopy, Helen Rowe, Guofan Shao, and Rob Jerry Shively, Agricultural Economics Paul Shepson, Chemistry Biological Sciences: Kerry Rabenold Swihart IT Discovery Resources: Gilbert Rochon2 Jeff Trapp, EAS Building & Construction Management: Ron Turco, Agronomy Kirk Alter Mechanical Engineering: Greg Shaver Political Science : Leigh Raymond Staff Chemistry: Paul Shepson Paul Shepson, Director Sociology: Martin Patchen Leigh Raymond, Associate Director Civil Engineering: Larry Nies Kevin Gurney, Associate Director Rose Filley, Managing Director Glenda Bauer, Secretary

1 joint appointment in Civil Engineering; 2 joint appointment in Earth & Atmospheric Sciences; 3 joint appointment in Statistics; 4 joint appointment in Agronomy Purdue Climate Change Research Center 503 Northwestern Avenue West Lafayette, IN 47907 Phone: 765-496-3209; Fax: 765-496-3210 Web: www.purdue.edu/climate Email: [email protected]