Think our record-setting winter pokes holes in the case for climate change? On the contrary: In a warming world, scientists tell us Wisconsin can expect a future of more weather extremes and variability, including heavy snow. And these effects won’t be caused by carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases we generate now; they’re the after-effects of our lack of understanding going back at least a generation.
Lewis Gilbert is interim director of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a member of the Task Force on Global Warming Technical Advisory Group.