The University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts will contribute climate data informing the work of a state task force charged with advising Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers on climate change adaptation and mitigation.

Last year, scientists announced that a human jawbone and prehistoric tools found in 2002 in Misliya Cave, on the western edge of Israel, were between 177,000 and 194,000 years old.  The finding suggested that modern humans, who originated in Africa, began migrating out of the continent at least 40,000 years earlier than scientists previously thought.

For a Baldwin Foundation-supported climate education project, Michael Notaro and Rosalyn Pertzborn led a teacher-training workshop in August 2019 for teachers from Blessed Trinity in Dane, Wisconsin on the implementation of protocols for the NASA Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) program.  The aim is to increase climate science understanding, local environmental inquiry,and access to climate scientists across rural Wisconsin communities, focused on schools along a north-south transect along the Wisconsin Ice Age Trail through the Curtis ecological tension zone.

As the state feels the heat from the recent weather snap, a new report shows that global warming could cause Wisconsin’s climate to mirror that of Arkansas in the next generations. Michael Notaro, a scientist with the Nelson Institute for Climatic Research, discusses the study and what the impact will be for the state.

Former CCR Director Jack Williams has been elected as a Fellow of the Ecological Society of America.  The award cites Dr. Williams fundamentally important contributions in paleoecology, biogeography, and climate change ecology, notably no-analog climates and ecosystems, the role of megaherbivores in regulating late-glacial vegetation, and creative applications of paleoecoinformatics, and for his generosity and impact in mentoring and collaboration.

Wisconsin's meteorological winter begins every year on Dec. 1, but bonafide winter weather didn't arrive in the 2018-2019 season until mid-January. And it arrived with surprising force, as the atmosphere suddenly unleashed a sucker punch of pent up winter energy and some of the coldest and snowiest weather Wisconsinites have experienced in decades.  

Steve Vavrus was interviewed by several media outlets about the January 2019 “polar vortex” cold surge in the Midwest. His perspectives were featured in NOVA’s Planet Earth newsletter, Climate Nexus, Shepherd Express, and the Wisconsin State Journal. He also appeared on Wisconsin Public Radio, WDET Detroit public radio, and South Korea’s Busan English Radio.

Dr. Steve Vavrus will serve as WICCI's Co-Director. Steve has been involved in WICCI since its beginning, having participated in the Climate, Stormwater, and Milwaukee/Health working groups, and has a long history of work in climate impacts research and outreach. His research interests are very broad, from understanding changes in extreme events, to identifying interactions between the polar regions and mid-latitudes, to modeling human influence on climate going back 4000 years.