Research from Professor Elfatih Eltahir and former postdoc Ross Alter shows that intensive agriculture has an impact on summer climate in the Midwestern United States. Eltahir and Alter demonstrated that there was a significant empirical association and physical connection between the intensification of agriculture in the Midwest, the decrease in observed average daytime temperatures in the summer, and an increase in the observed local rainfall. The work indicates that intensive agriculture is no less important than greenhouse gas emissions in shaping regional and local climates. The research was published in Geophysical Research Letters. Read more on MIT News.