Image Credit: Susan Bence, WUWM

This spring, with funding support from the Brico Fund, WUWM’s Lake Effect is exploring the science and impacts of climate change, with a particular focus on Wisconsin, through a series of conversations with Prof. Paul Roebber. The series includes listener questions about how climate change is directly impacting our region and lives.

In the first episode from late January, Prof. Roebber discusses how the climate is changing, variability in where and how it is changing, and the effects of weather and climate on the Great Lakes. In the second episode from late February, Prof. Roebber answers a listener’s question about the ‘cooler by the lake’ phenomenon we know so well near Lake Michigan, describing how Lake Michigan water temperatures have warmed significantly – reducing the coolness by the lake – in recent decades. He also discusses how a warming planet is contributing to glacier melting in Antarctica and why we, in Wisconsin, should care.

In the third episode from late March, Prof. Roebber discusses how responding to the COVID-19 pandemic can inform how we respond to climate change: by instituting sound policy informed by robust science. Finally, in the fourth episode from late April, Prof. Roebber speaks about NOAA’s new temperature proxy record dating back 12,000 years and the importance of education in facilitating positive climate-change outcomes.