By Dave Dahl

PEORIA – There’s more to “climate change” than you might have known.

“Climate change has local impacts, primarily,” says state climatologist Trent Ford. “That sort of thing, what climate change means for Peoria, means for central Illinois, means for the Quad Cities – that’s not studied at the federal level. That has to be the job of the state, to understand what those impacts are. It’s not just more heat, more flooding; it’s public health impacts, it’s water resources impacts.”

Ford adds the largest impact on agriculture will not be weather extremes but “integrated pest management – insects, weeds, disease. Because what we are getting is warmer and wetter, overall.”

Ford appeared on a panel at Saturday’s Illinois News Broadcasters Association convention in Peoria with Ed Shimon, warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Lincoln.

Shimon says NWS is trying to make the forecasts more user-friendly.

“Everything we do is impact-based now. We are going towards, how is it going to affect you,” said Shimon. “Obviously, the more impactful the weather is, the more you want to know about it. We are trying to zero in on those high-impact events and try to message those as best we can, as quickly as we can.”

Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected]