again. >> Reporting from Fremont.
I'm Steven Potter for here and Now.
>> 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 Vavrus, co-director of the
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 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 change we're expecting in the
future. In Wisconsin, for example, the 2020s are
currently the warmest decade in state history.
The 20 tens were the wettest decade in
Wisconsin's history, and we've seen an increasing
number of heavy rainfalls punctuated, unfortunately,
with the state record last year. Last summer in
Milwaukee, dumping 14.5in. >> 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 the most of the 20th century, the
majority of time in Wisconsin, March was below
freezing, below 32 degrees. And recently in the past
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.
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 about it, and
how much resources should we put in terms of climate
change and other other issues that 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 more reduce the costs 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. And that climate was cooler and it was drier
than the climate we're experiencing now. And so
certain ways that we used to manage stormwater 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?
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
Sewerage 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 been much, much worse