The issue of climate change and its impact is now taking center stage in Arkansas.
“Arkansas has completely gone from one zone to another,” The Nature of Conservancy Director of Science and Strategy Doug Zollner said in a recent news release. “You get earlier spring green-ups which entails a lot of adjustments, mostly by farmers. They’re changing crops, moving up the dates for planting and harvesting. They’re the most attuned to climate change, even if they still won’t talk about climate change.”
Just weeks ago, VOA News reports tornadoes ripped through the state, leaving dozens injured in and around the areas of Little Rock and Wynne.
"The Little Rock tornado tore first through neighborhoods in the western part of the city and shredded a small shopping center that included a Kroger grocery store,” the report stated. “It then crossed the Arkansas River into North Little Rock and surrounding cities, where widespread damage was reported to homes, businesses and vehicles."
One man told THV11 that he only survived the storm by sheltering in his work van.
"Yeah, 100% I did think I was going to die," 24-year-old Cody Coombes told the outlet. "Once I saw the winds pick up the way they did, my first thing that made me bring out my phone was the clouds in front of me were actually picking up some debris. So, I saw a little chunks of wood roofing was being flung around in front of me. So, I knew at that point, it had to be nearby."
Across the state, climate change stands to take on a different look than in the coastal areas. As it is, the temperatures don't seem to be rising enough to contribute to the surge in precipitation. Computed from the rise in average low winter temperatures, the color-coded maps offer a glimpse to farmers and gardeners of what plants will grow well and where.
According to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services officials, South Arkansas is now plastered in yellow, the zone found historically along the coastal plain of Louisiana, paving the way for plants that once sprouted two hundred miles below Crossett to now do likewise at Felsenthal and surrounding areas.
“On the Shoffner farm, which is located in her family’s namesake of Shoffner, Arkansas, you’ll find a multipronged approach to becoming more resilient to extreme weather, as well as conserving that land and resources that her family has farmed for over a century,” owner Hallie Shoffner told THV11.com of the increasing frequency and intensity all the bad weather shifts in Jackson County have caused problems.
Nowadays, Shoffner approaches soil fertility much differently. Among the changes is the way she now minimizes the use of chemicals and fertilizers and plants row rice instead of rice paddies. Shoffner’s farm is now also working in concert with some of the largest agricultural companies in business to grow and test new varieties of certain crops that were crafted to withstand all the changing elements.
With the refuge’s 15,000-acre pool, which backs up the dam, growing as high as 36,000 acres once flooded, Felsenthal’s bottomland hardwoods are intentionally flooded in the fall to provide prime habitat for wintering, migratory waterfowl. Prior to the dam’s opening nearly four decades ago, the pool was only 5,000 acres. As operators of the dam, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other federal and state agencies began planting hardwoods across the bottomlands.
Every five years, the trees are generally surveyed to determine growth, health and mortality. Initially, the reports were encouraging, the added moisture didn’t stunt growth and the acorns – food for ducks and other critters – continued to rain down, but it wasn’t long before that tune began to change.
“After two decades of GTR management, mortality of mature trees has continued and was 2 to 3 times greater than normally expected mortality rates of similar bottomland forests,” reads a 2010 report by USGS’s National Wetlands Research Center.
