Images via U.S. Department of Agriculture

Series: Climate Science And Wisconsin

Climate science is complex. Because changes to the global climate span continents and develop over decades, their effects on individual places and weather events are difficult to pinpoint. But with an ever growing body of historical climate data and sophisticated computer modeling, scientists can forecast how climate change is unfolding — and likely continue to play out — in places like Wisconsin with increasing confidence. In coming decades communities around the state are projected to continue experiencing warmer and more extreme weather. These effects are increasingly being recognized, with winter and nighttime temperatures rising, and heavier rainstorms occurring with increasing regularity. From the environment to human health to the economy, gauging the impacts of a changing climate is an urgent scientific endeavor with implications for every Wisconsinite.
 
By the time children born in the 2010s reach retirement age, many Wisconsin communities may feel something like late-20th-century Kansas City or Philadelphia, at least in terms of seasonal temperatures and precipitation.
Canada is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, according to a 2019 climate change study. What does that mean to the Great Lakes?
In a world with a changing climate, just how accurate are hardiness zone maps, and how do their makers continue to ensure these tools are as useful as possible?
As recently as 2013, water levels on most of the Great Lakes were very low. But since 2014 the issue has been too much water, not too little.
Tracking global croplands and how they are changing is a massive, pressing and complex undertaking made possible by advances in remote sensing and computing.
Complaints about living in the Midwest often hinge on its seasonal extremes as a top reason to steer clear of the region, and a July 2019 study highlights the health risks posed by dangerously high summer heat in Wisconsin and throughout the United States.
One of the first environmental scientists in northwest Wisconsin to raise concerns about how prepared the region was for more intense flooding is Randy Lehr.
In the longer term, warmer waters that come with a warming climate may make it more expensive to combat sea lampreys, longtime predators of Great Lakes fish.
In a place with long winters like Wisconsin, people tend to make use of one of its most visible seasonal resources: ice.