This event is brought to you by collaboration between date drake university. We connect reporters to scientists to promote more credible, accurate, researchbased news stories. We are wrapping up a boot camp at drake and which political journalists received briefings from experts on science issues that will be prominent in the president ial campaign. The program was promoted by the Schmidt Family foundation. Acknowledge the academic leaders of drake university. And our entire team of scientists and science communicators who have worked so hard to organize this event. That theyremind folks are welcome to ask questions and join the conversation via twitter. Please turn off any ringers on your cell phones and please do not use flash photography. That, i am very pleased to ,ntroduce tonights moderator veteran science reporter miles obrien. He is an independent journalist to covers science, technology, and aerospace. He is a science correspondent for pbs newshour. A writer for nova. An aviation analyst for cnn. Please join me in welcoming him to the stage. [applause] miles it is great to see you here. I will have my panelists get seated while i am talking. It is good to be back in des moines. 1988. St trip here was in i was following Michael Dukakis around. My first taste of deepfried butter. I can so remember it. I can still conjure up whatever that was. How many of you are familiar with the job of state climatologist . Probably about half. There are two states in the nation that did not have a climatologists. Tennessee and massachusetts. Boston is almost underwater now. We have three allstar state climatologist sooner. We will ask them about what they and what the hear, evidence they are seeing on the front lines. A lot of people make about Climate Change as this giant, monolithic problem. It is a million little problems. It is all thought about in a local, specific way. There are big things we could go after but there are a lot of Little Things we could do. These guys are in the trenches dealing with those Little Things. The people who are listened to the most are the closest. Or people who just got to not about it. I flew here. In the middle is our hometown favorite, the state climatologist of iowa. Without going too deep into the bureaucratic match and nations of what a state climatologist does come run through it. It is kind of like being the help desk for people in State Government and businesses. A little bit of an arbiter of good science. Who do yous, consider your clients to be. Climate touches everything and everyone. I get to metal in everybodys affairs. Sofect for me because i am interested in learning about so many things. You become an expert quickly and things he thought you never would. Things you did not go to school for. I work with decisionmakers. A lot of water managers, farmers, and people and the public who just want to know what is going on. Miles anything more you want to add to that . Justin being from iowa, my clientele are state stakeholders. Farmers. Theyre very intuitive. They have been on their lands forever. See whatith them, they is happening. They see changes in the climate. In the weather. It affects their crop yields. What they do on a daytoday basis. ,aving information for them letting them know that there is a 40 chance that next month will be above average temperature wise. Or precipitation wise. To give them some kind of guidance moving forward. It is reassuring being in a state like this. Miles would you add anymore to that . Ditto what he said. That is what i deal with the nebraska. You never know whos going to pick up when i get on the phone. That gives you an idea of the range of people we communicate with on this very complex topic. I want to talk about the. Looding in the wild weather it is interesting to me that the two ladies on the panel are academics inside academic institutions, with all the protections that we associate with that. This gentleman in the middle is a state employee. You are a little bit more vulnerable. [laughter] is there much pressure brought to bear. To say one thing or another . I can just do my job. Was this one of the things i was not supposed to ask about . It was the deepfried butter that confuse me. I find that people care at all levels. Whether it is farmers, ranchers, cities. Everybody is talking about it, cares about it, wants to know. Will not feel any pressure. You are a state employee. Your boss is the governor. He is into renewables. But not much into leaving Climate Change has a human component. I am the weather archivist for the state. I have years of observations going back to the 1800s. They are factbased observations. And level of the government. I dont feel impeded in my position. You have a governor who is at the forefront of suggesting drastic change. E it has only been four weeks. One of the reasons i took the job in North Carolina, we had great things going on in or gone. But i was encouraged about what was happening. Personally, this is the biggest problem of my generation. And the generation behind me. Miles with a complete lack of leadership from washington, those that put more pressure and responsibility on the states to do something . I think it does. Best solutions are local solutions. You know what is going on in your area. How to solve it. I am finishing up a project where we worked with 11 cities where they are incorporating private climate projections into their planning. They are looking at what is water going to look like, what is temperature going to look like. All of these things that they city cares about. They are looking at Climate Change and incorporating it. When i saw what was happening at the e. P. A. I was trying to be optimistic about it. I thought maybe the grassroots would be better in a sense because to the extent that theres an absence of leadership in washington it might mobilize people at the local level to do more. I thought maybe i was being poly anna. But no. Iowa farmers are resilient individuals. They dont rely on anybody but themselves. Iving discussions to various groups across the state. Farmers Elementary School kids, ach has an idea or view. Farmers, i talk to them often. They know they know what to do. Cover crops, working for carbon sequestration. These are the solutions that we can do at the state threavel will start to move for warned up. Miles but it has to be pretty pragmatic when youre talking to a farmer. It cant be stuff way down the road. It has to be something that will help them in the near road that might be different for a climatologist. Sure. We talk about weather a lot. Which is shortterm variations in the atmosphere. Armers are seasonably based. Rahm emanuel said never waste a good crisis. Is there an opportunity to do something meaningful at the state level, in particular in North Carolina. After four weeks, what have you done . You dont have it solved yet . Even when the federal government is moving, it is not our most nimble institution. It is the states that start, then we move as a country towards the direction of addressing the issue. With Greenhouse Gas mitigation, absolutely, showing leadership standing up. California is leading, but other states are trying as well. On the other side, preparing for the impacts of Climate Change are becoming more resilient, local and state solutions are the ones that will stick, because it is the people in the communities who need to come to the table. You mention briefly the 2019 floods. Lets talk about the floods or the fire that devastated aradise, a hurricane, whatever it is to what extent is the strong evidence that the weather hanging, impacting the questions and for that matter the reception you give can you talk to the public, is it changing . My sense is that it is somehow. Martha right. One thing you can do with weather events. You can use that as a tool to explain between weather and klay motte. How you do explain it . Martha depending on the audience, weather is your bat and climate is your batting average, weather is your mood, climate is your personality. Go ahead. You use that as your gateway to talk to folks about Climate Change. The flood is a gateway drug or climate, right . Yes, it is what grabs peoples attention. It is real, local impacts that you cant question. For the floods, for example, we talk about the events leading up to it, which was a big factor in the flood. It wasnt just the storm. It was what happened leading up to that. You talk about how springs are etting wetter, and that will tie into Climate Change. The problem i have discovered in covering this for 25 years is there is the Scientific Method and scientists, they dont talk like the rest of us, right . They are constrained by peer review, evidence, and all that stuff. What it does at times, they have historically been extremely reluctant to connect all those dots, to say this tornado or hurricane has a climate link it has been hard to get that out of scientists. Has that changed . We were affected by the flood. In 2019 also. Iowa at the second wettest year on record, 1993 being the wettest. We were three inches short of breaking that record. Third wettest fall, seventh wettest spring, and all that goes into the circumstances that lead to historic flooding. These three floods in 10 years yeah. You have a stack of evidence that is hard to counter. Ould you go along with that, kathy . Our scientists encumbered by some constraints they felt in he past . Yeah. Attribution science, seeing the fingerprints of Climate Change on events has moved a lot the past few years. Our colleagues saying the european heat wave, saying Climate Change definitely. A reporter would call up and we would say, we cant tie one of these into Climate Change. We are past that. We are seeing heat waves, big fires, and Climate Change ere. We go for the sexy lead. You do all the disclaimers, and at the bottom you say, you are screwed. By the kind of how it goes in the scientific paper. Way we are screwed. If you flip that around, that might be good. I am just saying. When you pick up the phone, what are they asking you . There are people who call and ask about their daughters wedding. Of course. I hope you charge them extra. It depends on my mood. But a lot of people, i find a lot of people just want to talk about it. They want somebody to talk to. I am on the other end of the line. They are looking to buy a house n oregon or North Carolina, or it is somebody making a decision. They want to sit down and get to know each other and me to listen what they are working on and figure that out. There is a counseling component to this . A little bit. It is a Big Mental Health issue with farmers in the midwest, given the variability that weve seep in conditions, just going from last year to this year, d1 drought to d3 drought, now moving into dryness, but in between, record wetness, so farmers, they call. Yes, i do a lot of event lanning. They want some reassurance, hell, is my crop going to come out all right . They need somebody to. T weighs on you, but you are there as a service, trying to make things better with giving them the proper information. Martha, weddings and bar mitzvahs, too . Yes. He two primary questions are what is the forecast for the upcoming season. Primarily agricultural einterested people . Yes. Are we going to be wetter, drier, warmer, colder, and timing of precipitation events. The other question increasingly is Climate Change, what will it mean for nebraska . What can we grow in nebraska. What will it mean for fish and wildlife. How will it impact me, what can i do about it . That is a long phone call, isnt it, when you get a uestion like that . It is not a simple answer. Climate impacts are intricate. There are lots of connections. You have to get to know the concerns, what are those interconnections, how does climate look for a particular area, and it is not an easy answer and it takes time building a relationship, and kind of working with somebody hand in hand. Is it hard to take a global problem, the ultimate macro problem, and make it micro, make it fit for one guy in one county in nebraska . When it comes to people caring about Climate Change, you dont show them the polar bear on the ice floe if they live in spring valley, nebraska, so you talk about crops, changes in precipitation, and things that are local. It is here. It is affecting all of us. The sooner we act, the less risky. To the extent that people are affected now, you know, you have their attention. The concern is, ok, now it is getting late in the game. We have to move things along ere. Do you feel that people are listening in a different way than they were when it was the polar bear on the ice . Sure. The amount of evidence we have in the extreme nature of events recently in the u. S. And across the globe, we are starting to put together a container of vidence that is irrefutable, but again, when youre talking to a state climatologist, people are worried the land, their county, first and foremost, in general, and then you get into other interest groups. Again, and mentoring schoolkids ask the greatest questions. Even in their short lives, and they have seen how our brain gauge works, but we have seen five inches of rainfall in three hours, like we had last year, so we are seeing showing people graphical ways of showing extreme events is another way of getting that information to them. Kathie, an important point, there is a real generational component to this, isnt there . Absolutely. Am not that old, but i was in Elementary School at the time, ive a hoot, dont pollute, and we were taught about recycling and being stewards of the earth. That isnt enough. We are seeing this youth uprising that i think is encouraging and they absolutely have a right to be completely dashed off about the earth. They are effective human communicators. I heard a lot of people say, they are smart. They will figure this out. We owe them more that, dont wait . Passing the buck never works. It didnt work for my generation. It will not work for passing it to him. We are all in this together. I hope to have a few more decades on this planet. Have to wake up every day and feel optimistic about going to work and being a good steward of he planet, for the people in North Carolina, and also for my friends and family. Lets walk through your states in a thumbnail sketch. What are the topline Climate Change impacts going on right now . I will start with you, martha. Yeah, it all starts with water. I would say in nebraska, we get twice the amount of precipitation in the east than the west. A lot of it has to do with water and the timing of precipitation and how effective that recipitation is. That is something that is changing in on peoples minds. Another thing is the warming and looking forward into the future, the rate of warming. If we dont do anything to mitigate future Climate Change, that future rate of warming is something i am particularly concerned about. How about you . What is at the top of peoples minds . Precipitation. The variability and npredictability. The intensity. We are seeing more rainfall when we are starting fieldwork, then we shift into summertime, starting to dwindle our rainfalls right when crops are maturing, when they need it the most, right now, then we move into harvest time. We are getting more rainfall during harvest, september, october, and this really impedes fieldwork, and fieldwork is owa. And then you get into the intensity of these events. They are increasing. We have seen a shift from gentle rainfall to two or threeinch rainfall events in three hours. Hat water cant soak in. It runs off you get flash flooding. Do the farmers connect the dots to Climate Change, or are they like my taxi driver this afternoon who thinks it is magnetic forces causing climate hange . Our farmers realize something is going on, so we have started installing these agricultural solutions. We can be agricultural leaders in mitigating these. There are not a lot of denialists on the farms . No, they see what is happening and we go from there. Best left unsaid. Kathie, did you want to go through North Carolinas top issues . We had a big hurricane last year. I saw something about that. Ere is a question for you. From rain panda, i dont think that is a real person. This is a twitter question, i was born and raised in iowa. My question is regarding the ice melt happening decades before predictions estimated. When will this hit the coastal United States . Will ocean water backflow into our major or minor river outlets, and will it damage freshwater ecosystems . This is an issue of concern in North Carolina. We saw this with Hurricane Florence where you have these storms pushing ocean water up these large river systems, then water coming down the rivers. We had a really wet year last ear. You get this compound flooding. This is the intersection of risk and vulnerability. You have these communities in some areas that get devastated. When you think about groundwater in some of these coastal ecosystems, saltwater intrusion is a big concern. Yes, the ice will play into the Sea Level Rise problem, and it certainly has local impacts for people in North Carolina. I dont know if it will make it all the way to iowa. We are probably safe here, i think. What about this idea that science has been so conservative that it may be happening faster than the peerreviewed body of knowledge would suggest. What do you say about that . You are scientists, so you probably dont want to get too outside your lane, but there is a term, it is concerning that we dont have the ability to come up with good data on this articular issue. People should think of science as constantly evolving and changing. We help improving. There are examples where we underestimated the trend. Arctic sea ice is a great example. That has been retreating faster than we thought. That tells us something, we do not get the physics right. E can lea