Des Moines Register 10-13-07 3 professors from ISU aid climate panel

Des Moines Register 10-13-07 3 professors from ISU aid climate panel By LISA ROSSI REGISTER AMES BUREAU Ames, Ia. — Iowa State University has three contributors to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shares this year's Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. Ray Arritt, a professor of agronomy; Bill Gutowski, a professor of geological and atmospheric sciences; and Gene Takle, a professor of geological and atmospheric sciences, have contributed as authors and reviewers for the panel's 2001 and 2007 assessments of climate change. The United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988. The panel comprises scientists and researchers across the world who assess the scientific, technical and socioeconomic information on climate change. "It's kind of neat: I have, like, .002 percent of a Nobel prize now - shared with about 2,000 other people," Arritt said Friday. The three researchers have worked together on climate studies for 15 years and are now studying regional climate change. They are examining Iowa climate data from 1975 to 2000 that has shown that annual precipitation has increased by about an inch in Iowa in that period and that more of the precipitation is falling during extreme weather events. They also said that Iowa winters have become less cold and Iowa summers more humid in that time. Arritt said the panel did not conduct original research; instead, its members looked at research that's already been done and worked to figure out what questions needed to be answered on climate issues. He said the current scientific consensus is that the world is warming and that most of that is because of human activity. He said he and his ISU colleagues were on a team of people who looked at research that has been published in peer-reviewed journals. He also said his and Gutowski's research on the local effects of climate change was included on one of the report's volumes.

"One of the things that I'm really interested in working on is how large-scale climate and its variability has local effects," he said. Gutowski said he and his colleagues interacted with scientists and researchers around the world through work on the panel. "I'm saying that to emphasize this really is a global process," he said. "It's why we need so many hundreds of scientists to develop as best we can a good understanding what is happening to climate." Gutowski said people should pay more attention to the issue of climate change. "As a scientist, I try to do my best to provide the best knowledge," he said. "How we respond will have to be worked out in the political arena." Reporter Lisa Rossi can be reached at (515) 232-2383 or [email protected]