Two UW-Madison climate experts said Wisconsin may be nearing a tipping point with respect to environmental warming at a forum Tuesday in Engineering Hall.
UW-Madison professors Dan Vimont and Chris Kucharik presented the most recent data projections on Wisconsin's climate, predicting Wisconsin will face rising temperatures and more severe weather in the future.
They stressed the consequences of drastic changes in Wisconsin's natural climate and said policymakers and industry leaders need to prepare for these changes.
According to Vimont and Kucharik, by the middle of the 21st century, southern Wisconsin could see more instances of extreme precipitation and three more weeks per year when the temperature reaches 90 degrees or higher.
They added that southern Wisconsin could experience 10 to 12 fewer days of subzero nighttime lows.
Kucharik said if even the most conservative estimates become true there could be huge implications for Wisconsin's industry and natural environment.
He cited examples of the possible effects of these drastic climate changes, like the logging industry's need for frozen ground and the impact rising temperatures would have on fishing and tourism.
According to Vimont, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projected the future of climate change based on several different scenarios of human behavior.
The scenarios ranged from human populations discontinuing the use of fossil fuels to one in which humans make no effort to combat climate change.
Vimont said even in the best-case scenario climate change is still a serious problem for the future.
""We need to be able to adapt our natural systems and our planning for an inevitable amount of global change,"" he said.
Vimont added that regardless of the future of human behavior, carbon dioxide levels are already too high.
""Carbon dioxide emissions have exceeded every one of the scenarios,"" he said.
Vimont and Kucharik's research is part of the Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts, a study that was aimed at analyzing the effects of climate change on Wisconsin's industry, natural resources and human health.
The presentation was sponsored by the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.
