Minnesota scientists speak out after White House dismisses authors of climate report

“We need to be thinking about how we manage dams proactively and put in flood abatement measures, not just for the types of rain events we have already seen but for those that scientists say are possible given a changing climate,” she said.

Marissa Ahlering is the science director for the Nature Conservancy’s operations in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota and also contributed to the climate report. She said her nonprofit uses the assessment to help plan their conservation and restoration efforts, including how best to engage with landowners whose property might overlap with a project.

“We use it in the Nature Conservancy to help us inform our actions,” Ahlering said. “That is one of the goals: to synthesize this information so it can be used by local communities, policy makers — at the state and federal levels.”

Kenney said the report also provides useful information for Minnesotans who care about the state’s forests. The habitable zone for some species will be pushed farther north as the state’s climate warms, meaning some plants that grow in the southern part of the state may not in the future.

“If we want robust forest systems that are climate adaptive, we actually have to be thinking about that now, what the seed banks should be, where they should go, where it makes sense,” she said.

After last week’s dismissals, it’s unclear what will come of the next climate assessment, Baker said, adding that he was “extremely disappointed” to see so many scientists, many of them at the top of their fields, taken off the project. “It really is an apolitical process,” he said. “The whole reason it was mandated in the first place was to inform policymakers.”