A researcher at the University of Wisconsin Madison has undertaken research indicating that a decline in wind speed due to global warming could affect predator-prey balance.
Although climate change is a very well known and well documented phenomenon, our attention is most often captured by more dramatic weather, severe storms, and melting sea ice. But UW-Madison postdoctoral researcher Brandon Barton has focused his attention on the impact of climate change on wind speed.
As the planet’s polar regions are warming faster than the equator, it reduces the temperature differential that creates wind. Wind speeds in the Midwest US are expected to decline by as much as 15 percent this century.
“There are all sorts of other things that are changing in the environment that affect animals and plants and their interactions,” explains Barton. “My students and I were standing out in a cornfield one day as big gusts of wind came by, and the corn stalks were bending almost double. From the perspective of an animal living in the corn, we thought, ‘That’s got to have a big effect.’”
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