News: Top story
The effects of climate change
Two experts discuss how global warming will alter Wisconsin’s ecosystems
JEFF SCHORFHEIDE/Herald photo
Richard Lathrop, a research scientist for the state of Wisconsin, speaks to a crowd at UW Thursday.
Looking for a print version?
Simply use your browser’s ‘Print’ command and a printer-friendly document will be generated automatically.
Also by Matt Marx:
- Council to vote on Edgewater (December 15, 2009)
- Brothers wants student support (December 11, 2009)
- Weather delays Edgewater vote (December 9, 2009)
- UPDATE: Quadruple homicide suspect dead (December 8, 2009)
- Council to make decision on hotel (December 8, 2009)
Sharing tools:
E-mail this article:
Two climate experts told a crowd at the University of Wisconsin Thursday Wisconsin’s climate and economy will suffer consequences as a result of climate change, but state officials and scientists are already working hard to help the state adapt.
“The science is really unequivocal that the earth is warming, climate is changing,” said Richard Lathrop, a research scientist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. “So we’re not here to argue that tonight.”
According to Lathrop, the effects of climate change on Wisconsin are numerous and wide-ranging.
He said climate change increases temperatures, humidity and the number of storms seen in Wisconsin. The temperatures increase the risk of heat stroke, while the storms can lead to more damaging floods. The floods can increase the amount of pollution in runoff.
According to Dan Vimont, UW atmospheric and oceanic sciences assistant professor, Wisconsin can also expect more heat waves in summer and more rainy days in winter.
This leads to more ice, creating problems with potholes and decay in road quality, Vimont said.
With the current model of Wisconsin’s climate, the state’s ecosystem will be damaged, according to Lathrop.
“The loss of winter is a real potential for our future,” Lathrop said.
He went on to say milder winters lead to loss of recreation and can also slow the economy.
Logging depends on frozen ground for operations, while ice fishing and snowmobiling will unquestionably suffer, Lathrop said.
Also, milder winters will threaten species like the snowshoe hare, while other species such as deer and geese will swell to uncontrollable numbers. According to Lathrop, trees such as the white birch and red pine may disappear from Wisconsin.
However, the two speakers introduced the Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impact, a joint effort from the University of Wisconsin’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources. WICCI focuses on the consequences of climate change on Wisconsin’s ecosystems, farms and health.
“We are trying to bring the best minds of the state together to address these problems collaboratively,” Lathrop said.
Vimont agreed, saying some sort of organization must be created that brings scientists and decision makers together.
He went on to say WICCI, which advises how Wisconsin can adapt to its new, warmer climate, does this in a very effective way.
“This is kind of a depressing talk, and we’ve got a lot of problems in the future,” Lathrop said. “But we can change and we can adapt. And I think now I’ll show you that if we do some mitigation as opposed to business as usual the future won’t be as bad.”
For example, according to Lathrop, an adaptation strategy would be planting trees that are adapted to the future warmer climate.
“We need people who are going to connect [climate research] to impacts that are easily grasped,” said Steven Olikara, a first-year political science and business student at UW who attended the event. “On an international level, this is the direction that research needs to be going if we want to make a change.”
The lecture was the first of a nine part series titled “Bracing for Impact: Climate Change Adaptation in Wisconsin.” The next segment is scheduled for Wednesday, March 4.
3 Comments | Leave a comment
Leave a comment
Top Classified Ads (view all)
Place your classified ad online and have it show up here. Your ad will hit thousands of viewers a day!
DON'T READ ME! Too late. If you're reading this, guess how many other people are reading it. See... advertising in The Badger Herald does work!
IP hash: 3412785f
“The science is really unequivocal that the earth is warming, climate is changing,” said Richard Lathrop, a research scientist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.”
Really? Actually, more and more scientists are coming out against the CO2 theory of warming and, in fact, the earth has been cooling now for almost a decade.
http://www.climatesceptics.com.au/climate-change.html#notstopped
and
http://www.johnlocke.org/lockerroom/lockerroom.html?id=18946
and
http://www.heartland.org/events/NewYork09/newyork09.html
IP hash: 974fd503
The planet’s fine. Get a real religion!
The hypothesis of Man Made Global Warming is in debate every single day. In US congressional testimony 2/25/09: Washington, DC — Award-winning Princeton University Physicist Dr. Will Happer declared man-made global warming fears “mistaken” and noted that the Earth was currently in a “CO2 famine now.” Happer, who has published over 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers, made his remarks during today’s Environment and Public Works Full Committee Hearing.” Story continues here: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=af8f5b20-802a-23ad-49fb-8a2d53f00437
In separate news: What is the source of the rise in atmospheric temperature in the second half of the 20th century? Shunichi Akasofu [Founding Director of the International Arctic Research Center of the University of Alaska Fairbanks] Japan’s Society of Energy and Resources dismisses the IPCC - says “recent climate change is driven by natural cycles, not human industrial activity” The full translation of the Japanese report is available here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/25/jstorclimatereport_translation/page2.html
The tides are turning on the unproven hypothesis of Anthropogenic (read Man Made) Global Warming. Japan, the site for the “Kyoto Agreement”, is now rejecting the Man Made Global Warming hypothesis. Reason is slowly overcoming the fear mongering and obcene amounts of misspent taxpayer money.
It must. The Obama agenda to create “Cap & Trade” in “carbon offsets” for “CO2 polluters” will have a severe impact on our economy (potentially +$6 Trillion in costs, -5 million jobs, and again drive gas/diesel prices up to $5/gal). Al Gore has created his own personal +$100 million dollar business (and growing) in “carbon offset credits”.
This is being done to control an invisible, odorless, naturally occuring atmospheric trace gas that 1) all of us exhale. 2) is currently at 380 parts per million ppm (0.00038) in our atmosphere today. 3) has been at +1000 ppm many times throughout biologic/geologic time. 4) plant growth accelerates with +1000 ppm concentrations, as most greenhouse operations know, 5) navy submarine experience shows humans have no impairment from up to 8000 ppm, (that’s no typo, we evolved in much higher CO2 concentrations than 380ppm!). 6) most importantly, is a negligible variable in the planetary energy balance, from physics, chemistry, and thermodynamics perspectives.
Get informed. Speak out. Write your local, state, and federal legislators. Our financial resources are being squandered to serve a political agenda while our readily available American energy resources are being senselessly embargoed by selective science based on unreliable data and outright deceit in the ‘analyses’.
If you want to reduce your carbon foot print, wipe your feet before you come in the door. If you’re really committed, stop exhaling!
Invictus Maneo
IP hash: f74ab44f
Global Warming(tm) COULD be a problem, if it happens.
Global cooling would mean the end of civilization.
The coming Ice Age is a bit overdue. Perhaps the the extra CO2 is the only thing holding it back?