Browsing by Author "Frelich, Lee"
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Item Climate Tracking: Applications of a Novel Technique to Sustainability(2012-07-24) Barnes, Richard; Lehman, Clarence; Williams, Shelby; Frelich, LeeClimate change has profound implications for the sustainability of society and the environment, yet estimates of climate change cover times scales which make results difficult to verify, are often computationally expensive to make, and have uncertainties which are not easily communicated, especially outside the area of computational meteorology and mathematics. We present a method of quantifying climate change over the past century and into the near‐future which bypasses many of these problems. Using historical weather data and a surface‐fitting algorithm, we are able to extract "climate velocities", representing the surface speed and direction of the climate for any location. Projections from these velocities can be used to extract possible future locations and direction‐of‐movement of biomes, biofuel hotspots, and agricultural productivity, with implications for conservation parkways, preemptive revegetation, agricultural policy.Item The Story of Nitrogen Episode 4- The Soil Bank Account(2021-11-15) Klinger, Greg; Bugeja, Shane; Castellano, Mike; Frelich, Lee; Pyfferroen, TomIn the Midwest, most of the nitrogen our crops use comes from organic matter in the soil rather than the fertilizers we apply. The amount of nitrogen the soil provides can change dramatically from year to year, leading to added complication for farmers. Are there ways to help us predict how our soil management, and other factors like the weather, influence the nitrogen that's available to crops? To learn more: Nitrogen, organic matter decomposition, and corn yields (https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1206&context=agron_pubs); Earthworm invasion into previously earthworm-free forests (https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/175603/Frelich%20et%20al%202006.pdf?sequence=1).