A Husker conference co-sponsored with NASA launched the effort to create multi-institutional partnerships to help the Midwest address climate-related concerns such as drought, extreme wind events and flooding.
Scientists from several states and NASA met at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for the Feb. 26-28 Harnessing the Heartland conference to hear from a range of Midwest stakeholders about their climate concerns. Attendees then discussed ways universities, NASA, and the private sector can work together to advance climate sustainability in the region.
The meetings continued with sessions at the University of Nebraska Medical Center to develop ideas for addressing climate-related environmental health needs.
The initiative aims to “bring together the best and brightest from across fields to help rally around the topic of climate resilience research, produce actionable information and inform decision-making at all levels” , said Robert Swap, deputy director of mission planning. for NASA's Earth Sciences Division. “Improving people's livelihoods and understanding the weather” is another key focus.
“It's incredibly important to work across the region in areas of critical importance,” said Jeanette Thurston, executive director of the North Central Regional Association of State Agricultural Experimental Station Directors. “By working across institutions, this effort can leverage their diverse expertise and resources to produce products and solutions to the problems we face at the heart of climate change.”
The initiative is not a top-down approach, Swap said, but instead develops its strategies from input from Midwest residents, communities and institutions.
Eric Hunt, a Nebraska Extension educator who focuses on agricultural meteorology and climate resilience, co-created the conference with Swap. Presentations and networking at the conference created exciting possibilities for innovative collaborations, Hunt said, as attendees learned about each other's climate data collection and research projects.
Larkin Powell, head of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's School of Natural Resources, also pointed to opportunities for collaboration.
“There is an increasingly urgent need to make better decisions about the management of soil, water and biodiversity resources in our working landscapes in the face of climate change and extreme weather events,” he said. “The ability to jointly leverage the diversity of amazing platforms to collect data from ground systems, drones, aircraft and satellite systems is driving the conversations for this project.”
The School of Natural Resources was one of the institutional sponsors of the conference, along with the University of Nebraska Medical Center, the Daugherty Water for Food Global Nutrition Institute, and NASA.
Craig Allen, director of the university's Center for Resilience in Rural Working Landscapes, spoke on a conference panel that discussed the potential for collaboration to integrate data collection and enhance climate modeling.
The Nebraska Mesonet network of weather data stations has promising opportunities to work with NASA on data validation and climate modeling, said Ruben Behnke, Husker climatologist and Mesonet director.
“When NASA satellites measure temperature or how much water vapor is in the air or wind speed, we can validate that data with our stations,” he said.
The initiative should include attention to climate-related concerns for vulnerable communities, said Husker climatologist Michael Hayes.
“That's where I'm really interested in making those connections and trying to access some of those communities and how they might use all that data,” he said.
Hayes is among the Husker faculty participating in a federally funded Midwest Partnership to promote climate resilience through outreach to indigenous tribes and women who own farmland.
The university is showing foresight in supporting listening sessions on climate science resilience and stakeholder engagement, Swap said. The university's Office of Research and Economic Development is providing an $80,000 planning grant, for example, which an interdisciplinary faculty team will use to develop the Great Plains Community Climate Resilience Institute.
Although NASA is best known for its space missions, the agency's Earth Science Division pursues a wide range of major projects, said Hunt, who has worked with NASA on projects during his career in climatology. Nebraska “has a very strong history of working with earth scientists at NASA,” he said.
Recent NASA connections include a 2022 tour by NASA Earth Science representatives to Nebraska farms and the Eastern Nebraska Extension Research and Education Center, and presentations by Husker faculty in partnership with NASA in 2023 at the national Commodity event Classic, explaining the importance of innovative technology and data-driven practices for modern agriculture.
“Teaching, research and community engagement teams and platforms have positioned the University of Nebraska to be an important part of this climate resilience conversation,” Powell said. The Harnessing the Heartland initiative “gives us an opportunity to work with others and our federal partners. This has prompted our faculty, staff and students to imagine what can be done in the very near future.”
