This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from USDA’s rich science and research portfolio.

People often get confused when observed weather patterns run contrary to climate projections.  For instance, those living in the Mid-Atlantic States hear from experts that the region has now moved into a dry savanna-like climate zone, but yet two winters ago over 40 inches of snow fell in a single month.  But weather is highly variable regardless of the state of the climate.  Individual weather events like this one are different than “climate,” which refers to long-term trends over decades.  And further, climate change could produce more extremes at both ends of the weather spectrum even while a region shifts into a seemingly contrary climate state.

In an attempt to make science and technical concepts of projecting climate change clearer to the public, the U.S. Forest Service has published a report simplifying complex information and resources. Read more »

A recent study by the USDA Forest Service, Oregon State University, and the U.S. Geological Survey identified trends in stream temperatures at sites like Mack Creek near the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest in Oregon.

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from USDA’s rich science and research portfolio.

Recent warming of terrestrial climates combined with decreased stream flows has raised concerns about possible increases in stream temperatures in the Pacific continental United States. Loss of cold, clean water in the region has major implications for human use and for sensitive coldwater fishes, such as salmon and trout. In a joint project, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research (PNW) Station, and Oregon State University (OSU) researchers assessed the climate effects on cold water in low and high human-influenced sites using long-term stream temperature data from the USGS and the Forest Service. Read more »

ForWarn maps normal forest conditions as blue and change from normal as shades that range from green to red. This map shows that the greater part of Texas and Oklahoma were experiencing severe forest stress in late September of 2011 from the effects of drought and wildfire.

The Forest Service recently unveiled a product that helps natural resource managers rapidly detect, identify and respond to unexpected changes in the nation’s forests by using web-based tools.

The satellite-based monitoring and assessment tool aptly called ForWarn, recognizes and tracks potential forest disturbances caused by insects, diseases, wildfires, extreme weather, or other natural or human-caused events believed by many scientists to be caused in part by climate change. Read more »

USDA’s 2012 Agricultural Outlook Forum, Feb. 23-24, will present 25 breakout sessions, including three sessions focused on U.S. agriculture and the weather.  In the session Innovations to Minimize Crop Loss in a Changing Climate, Oregon State University will demonstrate their PRISM Spatial Climate Knowledge System which accounts for spatial variations in climate.  Speakers will be Christopher Daly, Director of the PRISM Climate Group and David Hannaway, Professor, Department of Crop and Soil Science, Oregon State University.  Rick Mueller, Head of the Spatial Analysis Research Section for USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, will also present a new analysis tool called Cropscape. Read more »

SASL team member graduate student Milutin Djurickovic samples greenhouse gases in the long-term Farming Systems Project. (Photo credit Michel Cavigelli)

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from USDA’s rich science and research portfolio.

Understanding the causes of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agricultural landscapes is truly a multi-scale challenge, with GHG sources ranging from whole plant, to the microscopic microbe level.  For example, denitrification, the production of nitrous oxide, is the result of the action of just a few unique enzymes produced by a small number of bacteria and fungi in the soil.  These small players have huge importance because nitrous oxide is a greenhouse gas 300 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. Increases in nitrous oxide and other GHGs have been implicated in major global changes such as increased mean annual temperatures, resulting in melting glaciers, increasing floods, and more frequent heat waves. Read more »

Ashley Allen, from USAID, moderated the USDA sponsored agriculture events.

Each year, high level government officials from the world’s nations gather together under the banner of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to confront the growing challenge of climate change.   This year, the conference COP-17, so named because it is the 17th such conference to take place since the UNFCCC entered into force, is taking place in Durban, South Africa. Read more »