Climate disasters like flooding
and storms are on the rise across
the state, resulting in
added human and financial
costs.
A new report projects we'll see
more intense storms into
the future, and more rapid
shifts between very wet and
very hot conditions.
But there are ways to encourage
climate resiliency, according
to Steve Vavris,
co-director of Wisconsin Initiative
on Climate Change Impacts.
Just out with its 2026
assessment.
And thanks very much for being here.
Thank you for having me.
So are the current floods and
last week's 24
tornadoes across the state
evidence of a
changing climate?
I think last week's severe weather
outbreak is a combination of random
weather variability, i.e.
Bad luck in this case, and also
climate change.
And the climate change fingerprints
are on it because climate change
favors the warm, humid air masses
that we saw out of season.
We typically don't hit 80 degrees
and have humid weather in the middle
of April, but if we do,
we have the fuel that generates
severe storms.
So according to your assessment,
what are other trends for climate
impacts going forward and
some examples of that?
One of the key
terms or key phrases I like
to use is warmer and wetter.
That describes the climate change
we've seen to date and also
the climate changes we're expecting
in the future in Wisconsin.
For example, the 2020s are
currently the warmest decade in
state history.
The 20 teens were the wettest decade
in Wisconsin's history and
we've see an increasing number of
heavy rainfalls punctuated
unfortunately with the state record
last year, last summer in Milwaukee.
Dumping 14 and 1 half inches.
And your report said something that
stood out. It was, March used
to be part of
winter, but now it's part of spring.
Yeah, and that's an interesting new
finding that came out of the State
Climatology Office.
And the reason we talk about it that
way is that in the past,
starting in most of the 20th
century, the majority of time
in Wisconsin, March was below
freezing, below 32 degrees.
And recently in the last decade or
so, that's flipped.
And now we spend the majority of
March above freezing.
And that has big consequences in
terms of whether we get rain or
snow. If we get snow, how long it
sticks around and when our lake ice
melts in the spring.
So these impacts are very
measurable, and yet there is still,
if not scientific, political
skepticism around climate
change. What is that like for a
climate scientist?
More and more people understand
that the climate's changing.
The evidence is all around us.
It's hard to miss.
The politics enter into it in terms
of how serious a problem it
is compared with other issues that
we're dealing with and also
what can we do about it or what
should we do it about it and how
much resources should we put in
terms of climate change in other
issues we're facing.
So I think that the
shifts, there's been a shift in
terms of how we talk about climate
change. And the surveys show
that increasing numbers of Americans
understand and are aware of climate
change.
Your report looks at ways Wisconsin
can mitigate against the impacts,
like nature-based strategies.
What's an example of that?
Yeah, so we talk about in
the Wiki report, the Wiki
assessment, a range of options
ranging from what we call
traditional mitigation strategies,
which is cutting carbon emissions,
reducing the source of climate
change to adaptation.
And that is accepting that there
will be impacts and now figuring out
what to do with it.
We try to promote nature-based
impacts. These are things like green
infrastructure instead of relying
strictly on traditional
infrastructure.
So for instance, with more heavy
rainfalls, the traditional
engineering approach is to build
bigger stormwater pipes,
increase the size of culverts,
but there are also nature-based
green strategies such as
rain gardens and green roofs and
bioswales and wetland restoration
that can all be as effective or
more effective and also reduce
the cost as well.
How well does Wisconsin's
infrastructure hold up to
these changing climate impacts?
It's a mixed bag.
One of the ways that we're
struggling right now is with these
increasing numbers of extreme
rainfall.
Because much of Wisconsin's
infrastructure was built 40,
50, even 100 years ago in some
cases for a different climate.
That climate was cooler and it was
drier than the climate we're
experiencing now.
And so certain ways
that used to manage storm water
just aren't valid anymore.
They aren't as effective.
And so the infrastructure can't
hold up as well.
So is there a dollar figure on
how much it would cost to make
Wisconsin climate resilient
infrastructure and otherwise?
There's not really a dollar amount,
but I like to bring up the old adage
that an ounce of prevention is worth
a pound of cure.
And a lot of studies show that a
dollar invested in becoming more
resilient pays off many times
over in terms of reduced
damage.
And a good example of that was with
Milwaukee becoming much more
flood resilient over the years.
The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewage
District in particular has done a
number of things that have made the
city more resilient to climate
change and. Heavy rainfalls,
and the damage from last summer's
rains would have been much, much
worse without that.
All right. Well, Steve, thanks very
much and thanks for your work.
You guys are still recording,
that I didn't get to,
and it is, your assessment
says that underserved and tribal
nations bear disproportionate
climate burdens, how so?
Yeah, so tribes face some
unique challenges from climate
change.
One example is that some
of their cultural practices are very
threatened.
An example of that is Manuman or
wild rice harvesting.
It turns out that wild rice is very
sensitive to weather and climate
variations.
Wild rice requires a very
narrow temperature range to be
healthy and very steady water
levels.
And our variable climate
patterns of late have made that
difficult.
Another reason they face
challenges is simply because the
tribal lands are generally
geographically fixed.
The reservation boundaries, the
ceded territory boundaries, those
were established many, many years
ago and they're not gonna change
even though the climate on those
tribal lands has changed already and
will likely change more in the
future.
Thank you, thank you for that.
We'll probably use that
last response as a pullout
for our new site,
in addition to the interview
itself.
Great, great, thank-you.
Thank you. Appreciate it.