Elsevier

Rangeland Ecology & Management

Volume 78, September 2021, Pages 180-190
Rangeland Ecology & Management

Recent Climate Changes Across the Great Plains and Implications for Natural Resource Management Practices

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rama.2021.03.008Get rights and content

Abstract

The Great Plains region plays an important role in providing water and land resources and habitat for wildlife and livestock, crops, energy production, and other critical ecosystem services to support rural livelihoods. The semiarid conditions of the region and tight coupling of livelihood enterprises with ecosystem services creates a situation of increased sensitivity to climate changes and enhanced vulnerability among the rural communities and Native American nations across the region. Recent climate conditions associated with warming trends, and altered atmospheric flows have resulted in rapid onset of drought conditions and other extreme weather events across the region that are changing seasonal patterns of temperature and precipitation and warming trends. Projected climate changes provided in the fourth US National Climate Assessment indicate that potential warming and variability of precipitation will further increase drought and extreme weather events.

Recent research and assessment efforts of current and projected climate changes in the Great Plains indicate that rural communities and ecosystems are becoming more vulnerable to changes associated with warming trends, droughts, and increased variability in precipitation. These climate changes are having differential impacts on ecosystem services that are critical to livelihood enterprises. Strategies for how resource managers and the research community can better collaborate and more effectively codesign and coproduce efforts to understand and to respond to these challenges are needed.

Introduction

The Great Plains (GP) region plays an important role in providing water and land resources and habitat for wildlife and livestock, crops, energy production, and other critical ecosystem services to support rural livelihoods. The land use coverage supporting rural livelihoods is dominated by semiarid ecosystems, such as grasslands, shrublands, and dryland agriculture (Fig. 1). Climate change is affecting the natural resource base supporting enterprises associated with ranching, crop agriculture, conservation, and recreation (Ojima et al. 2015; Even and Ojima 2019). Reliance on the availability of ecosystem services and other natural resources in this semiarid region to support rural livelihoods forms a basis of a social-ecological system that links climate change, availability of ecosystem services, and socioeconomic and cultural characteristics operating across the region. Recent and projected climate changes across the GP are affecting drought events, extreme weather patterns (e.g., ice storms, hot spells, out-of-season frost events), flooding, and fire occurrences (Ojima et al. 2015).

The region's socioeconomic system is characterized by extensive rural population density with a recent concentration of population growth in urban areas. As of 2010, there were almost 42 million people (≈13% of the total US population) living in the nine US GP states, including Colorado (USDA Economic Research Service 2012). The average population density over the region is about 66 people per square mile, with a median of 10 people per square mile (US Census Bureau 2010). Although the region's overall population has been increasing, the growth has not been equitable across counties. Urban population numbers have grown to almost 33 million persons in 2010 (US Census Bureau 2010), whereas 39% of the counties in the GP have declined in population from 1990 to 2010 (US Census Bureau 2010). Rural counties are much more likely to lose population than those with urban development.

Native American tribes and communities also represent a critical population and cultural heritage in the GP. Native American tribes number approximately 65, managing extensive land, water, and wildlife resources. Reservation lands are often marginal and less productive with limited access to fertile soils; inadequate water resources, social services, and infrastructure; and limited food security. There are about 450,000 persons claiming Native American ethnicity according to the US census data (US Census Bureau 2000, US Census 2010).

The semiarid climate conditions and interannual variability driven by synoptic-scale atmospheric flows contribute to the varied weather patterns of the region. These conditions contribute to droughts; changing seasonal climate patterns affecting snow melt; altered seasonal stream flows; earlier green-up of the vegetation; and extreme events such as fires, ice storms, and floods affecting ecosystem services (e.g., forage and browse availability, soil moisture, habitat, water availability) in time and space. Livelihood strategies have evolved to the availability of ecosystem services and variable weather patterns so that recent and projected climate changes in the region result in greater uncertainty. The increased weather variability and extreme events are also contributing to enhanced vulnerability of rural communities (Marshall et al. 2014; Shafer et al. 2014; Even and Ojima 2019) and Native American communities across the region (Eiser et al. 2012; McNeeley 2017; Jantarasami et al. 2018).

This paper describes recent atmospheric conditions contributing to climate changes affecting weather patterns of the region. Future climate projections based on the US Fourth National Climate Assessment (fourth NCA) report (USGCRP 2017) are presented to provide a perspective of how these changes will manifest themselves into the future. The manner in which recent climate changes affect droughts, fires, and extreme events is discussed. Examples are provided of how natural resource managers are responding to these climate changes. We conclude the paper with a discussion of framing adaptation planning within a social ecological system perspective that enables the development of adaptive management strategies that incorporate aspects of adaptive capacity of a particular livelihood and to better target management options.

Section snippets

Trends in Recent Climate Patterns and Controls Across the Great Plains

Recent US National Climate Assessment reports (Kunkel et al 2013; USGCRP 2017) provide information on current trends of weather and climate conditions across the United States and GP. In addition to warming trends reported in the fourth NCA (Kunkel et al. 2013; USGCRP 2017), certain features of the GP climatology are changing and resulting in changes of weather patterns and extreme events of the region (USGCRP 2017). These include changes in the controls of arctic air mass flow across the

Projected Climate Changes for the Great Plains

Analyses of projected climate changes have been conducted with an ensemble of coupled atmosphere-ocean global circulation models (AOGCMs) under the guidance of the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5; Hibbard et al. 2007; Moss et al. 2008) for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment (IPCC 2013). Under the CMIP5 protocol, various projected climate scenarios were simulated under specified radiative forcing of the atmospheric using a number of AOGCMs

Implications of Climate Change on Natural Resources Management Strategies

Climate change is already impacting natural resources and ecosystem services (e.g., land productivity, water availability, seasonal dynamics of ecosystem and wildlife dynamics) and is expected to continue to exacerbate these effects on ecosystems, wildlife, other natural resources, and human livelihoods in the GP region (Ojima et al. 2015; Conant et al. 2018; Kloesel et al. 2018). Recent climate change impacts include a reduction in the snow season (e.g., later onset in the fall and earlier

Conclusions and Implications

Climate change continues to emerge as an issue that will challenge management operations and impact livelihoods in the GP. Changing seasonal patterns of atmospheric flows and continued warming of atmosphere will increase weather variability and extremes and impact natural resources critical to key ecosystem services for wildlife, conservation, agricultural, recreational, and livelihood needs. Collaborative efforts between researchers and management professionals are and will enhance development

Declaration of Competing Interest

We have no conflicts of interest. We are supported by federal grants and Colorado State University employees.

Acknowledgments

The content of this publication was presented at the 2018 Great Plains Summit, Denver, Colorado, and co-organized by Deborah Finch (USDA-ARS) and Justin Derner (USDA-ARS).

References (91)

  • W.N. Adger et al.

    Successful adaptation to climate change across scales

    Global Environmental Change

    (2005)
  • I. Algarra et al.

    On the assessment of the moisture transport by the Great Plains low-level jet

    Earth System Dynamics

    (2019)
  • K. Averyt et al.

    Regional climate response collaboratives: multi-institutional support for climate resilience

    Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

    (2018)
  • J. Barnett et al.

    From barriers to limits to climate change adaptation: path dependency and the speed of change

    Ecology and Society

    (2015)
  • J.M. Boustead et al.

    Discriminating environmental conditions for significant warm sector and boundary tornadoes in parts of the Great Plains

    AMS Weather and Forecasting

    (2013)
  • M. Chen et al.

    The signature of sea surface temperature anomalies on the dynamics of semiarid grassland productivity

    Ecosphere

    (2017)
  • M. Chen et al.

    Assessing precipitation and AET as controls of Great Plains plant production

    Ecosphere

    (2019)
  • J.-E. Chu et al.

    North American April tornado occurrences linked to global sea surface temperature anomalies

    Science Advances

    (2019)
  • R.T. Conant et al.

    Northern Great Plains. In: Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States

  • J.F. Danco et al.

    Understanding the influence of ENSO on the Great Plains low-level jet in CMIP5 models

    Climate Dynamics

    (2018)
  • C.F. Dewes et al.

    Drought risk assessment under climate change is sensitive to methodological choices for the estimation of evaporative demand

    PLoS ONE

    (2017)
  • X. Dong et al.

    Investigation of the 2006 drought and 2007 flood extremes at the Southern Great Plains through an integrative analysis of observations

    Journal of Geophysical Research

    (2011)
  • V.M. Donovan et al.

    Surging wildfire activity in a grassland biome

    Geophysical Research Letters

    (2017)
  • J.R. Eiser et al.

    Risk interpretation and action: a conceptual framework for responses to natural hazards

    International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction

    (2012)
  • T. Even et al.

    Changing weather and livelihoods in rural Colorado: a report on 21st century impacts and adaptation in the farming, ranching, and outdoor recreation sectors. Report prepared for the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory

    (2019)
  • S.R. Fassnacht et al.

    Snow and albedo climate change impacts across the United States northern Great Plains

    The Cryosphere

    (2016)
  • Z. Feng et al.

    More frequent intense and long-lived storms dominate the springtime trend in central US rainfall

    Nature Communications

    (2016)
  • M.E. Fernández-Giménez et al.

    Complexity fosters learning in collaborative adaptive management

    Ecology and Society

    (2019)
  • T. Gerken et al.

    Convective suppression before and during the United States Northern Great Plains flash drought of 2017

    Hydrology Earth Systems Science

    (2018)
  • E.R. Griffin et al.

    Decreased runoff response to precipitation, Little Missouri River Basin, Northern Great Plains, USA

    Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA)

    (2017)
  • Gross, J. E., M. Tercek, K. Guay, M. Talbert, T. Chang, A. Rodman, D. Thoma, P. Jantz, and J. T. Morisette. 2016....
  • B. Hanberry et al.

    Managing effects of drought in the Great Plains

  • M.D. Hartman et al.

    Seasonal grassland productivity forecast for the U.S. Great Plains using Grass-Cast

    Ecosphere

    (2020)
  • K.A. Hibbard et al.

    A strategy for climate change stabilisation experiments

    EOS

    (2007)
  • R.W. Higgins et al.

    Influence of the Great Plains low-level jet on summertime precipitation and moisture transport over the central United States

    Journal of Climate

    (1997)
  • M. Hobbins et al.

    The evaporative demand drought index. Part I: Linking drought evolution to variations in evaporative demand

    Journal of Hydrometeorology

    (2016)
  • A. Hoell et al.

    Anthropogenic contributions to the intensity of the 2017 United States Northern Great Plains drought

    Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

    (2018)
  • L.C. Jantarasami et al.

    Tribes and indigenous peoples

    Tribes and indigenous peoples

    Impacts, risks, and adaptation in the United States: fourth national climate assessment, volume II

    (2018)
  • B. Jongman

    Effective adaptation to rising flood risk

    Natural Communitires

    (2018)
  • E. Kachergis et al.

    Increasing flexibility in rangeland management during drought

    Ecosphere

    (2014)
  • S.M. Kennedy et al.

    Sustainable grassland management: an exploratory study of progressive ranchers in Nebraska

    Sustainable Agriculture Research

    (2016)
  • K. Kloesel et al.

    Southern Great Plains

  • D.B. Knight et al.

    Contribution of tropical cyclones to extreme rainfall events in the southeastern United States

    Journal of Geophysical Research

    (2009)
  • E.W. Kolstad et al.

    The association between stratospheric weak polar vortex events and cold air outbreaks in the northern hemisphere

    Quarterly Journal of Royal Meteorology Society

    (2010)
  • Cited by (11)

    View all citing articles on Scopus

    Funding was provided by the USGS grant G11AC90009 in support of the North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center based at Colorado State University and USGS project funding (G17AC00284) related to Engagement Support Climate Adaptation. Research was additionally supported by funds from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Grass-Cast and DayCent modeling Coop agreements (58-3012-7-009 and 58-5402-4-011) and University of Nebraska USDA Grass-Cast project (58-0111-18-018). This work is also supported by the USDA UV-B Monitoring and Research Program, Colorado State University, under USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture grant 2019-34263-30552, and the Colorado Climate Center, Colorado State University. This research was a contribution from the Long-Term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) network. LTAR is supported by the USDA.

    View full text