Forum to focus on climate change in Wisconsin

Regional impacts of global warming will be the topic of the third annual Wisconsin Climate Change Forum on Tuesday, Oct. 14, at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

The public is invited, and admission is free.

Linda Mearns, a leading expert on regional climate change, will speak at 7 p.m. in room AB20 Weeks Hall, 1215 W. Dayton St. Mearns is a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., where she has directed the Institute for the Study of Society and the Environment.

A panel of Wisconsin scientists and public officials will join Mearns in a discussion from 8-9 p.m. The panelists are climatologist Dan Vimont, retired limnologist John Magnuson, environmental health scientist Jonathan Patz, all of UW–Madison, and Tia Nelson, executive secretary of the Office of the Wisconsin Board of Commissioners of Public Lands. Nelson recently co-chaired Gov. Jim Doyle’s Task Force on Global Warming. Another UW–Madison climatologist, Steve Vavrus, will moderate the discussion.

An informal reception beginning at 6:30 p.m. will precede the program.

The forum is sponsored by the Reid Bryson Climate, People, and Environmental Program of the Center for Climatic Research (CCR). Co-sponsors include the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE), Center for Limnology and the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. CCR and SAGE are both part of the Nelson Institute.

For more information, contact Steve Vavrus, (608) 265-5279, sjvavrus@wisc.edu.