I’d rather be fly fishing. I don’t mean offense by that statement – it has nothing to do with my situation at any moment. It’s a general truth.
There’s a relationship between my love of fishing and my research as a climate scientist. As my wife put it – at the time our car was drifting into the oncoming traffic as I craned my neck to scope out a potential fishing stream – “you’re really into water, aren’t you?” Yes, I am.
In my day job, I’m a climate scientist who studies how interactions between the ocean and atmosphere produce fluctuations in our climate, like El Niño. My students and I use math and physics as tools to analyze observations, run massive computer models and develop pure theory to understand these climate fluctuations.
Behind the fluctuations, though, we observe a disturbing trend in climate change that requires a new set of tools. Events of the past few years point to the urgency of a new understanding.
In April 2014, we passed a milestone: carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere climbed above 400 parts per million for the first time in our history. For the next year and a half, carbon dioxide levels fluctuated around 400 parts per million.
Then something more remarkable happened: In November 2015, carbon dioxide levels passed the 400 parts per million mark for the last time.
Ever.
No one living on the planet today will ever again experience carbon dioxide levels below 400 parts per million. There’s no going back – it’s a reality that we need to plan for. To do so, we need a new tool: conversation
No one living on the planet today will ever again experience carbon dioxide levels below 400 parts per million. There’s no going back – it’s a reality that we need to plan for.
In the past decade, I’ve been a part of the Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts (WICCI). It is a collection of scientists, educators, managers and others working together to understand and help plan for expected impacts of climate change in Wisconsin.
WICCI recognizes that any one person or one area of study is insufficient for understanding climate change’s potential impacts, and what to do about them. As a climate scientist, I don’t know how crops are planted, how forests and streams are managed, or how communities plan for extreme heat. Individually, I can’t ask the right questions to help Wisconsinites plan.
But through WICCI, a conversation begins with the farm community, forest and fisheries managers, and city planners. Through that conversation, we work to communicate new ideas and identify research that’s needed to better understand how climate affects us.
Through conversation, we ask new questions, identify research needs and develop understanding. It’s the Wisconsin Idea at work.
It’s a burden to constantly think about how climate change will affect us and our children. But it’s critical that we advance our understanding together.
And I hope you’ll forgive me for occasionally wanting to get away from it all, to enjoy a moment standing in the water, fishing.
Maybe I’ll see you out on one of Wisconsin’s trout streams. If so, don’t be a stranger. Let’s talk.
Daniel Vimont is a professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and director of the Nelson Institute’s Center for Climatic Research. His research centers on the mechanisms of climate change, interactions between weather and climate and global and regional impacts of climate change. Currently, he is studying ocean-atmosphere interactions and their contribution to tropical Atlantic and Pacific climate variability.
Fueling Discovery
"Fueling Discovery" is a joint effort of the UW-Madison College of Letters & Science and the Wisconsin State Journal featuring faculty members wiring about their work in their own words. The effort was financed through sponsorships and gifts from alumni and friends.