The Impact of Climate Change in Oregon with Bob Lindmeier

               OREGON WI- It is well known that climate change is affecting our world in many ways by rising sea levels, droughts, wildfires, extreme flooding, hurricanes, and severe weather. However, many Oregon High School students wonder whether the climate crisis is affecting Oregon and if it is, how?

               One local meteorologist from Oregon has done a lot of research on the topic. WKOW Chief Meteorologist Bob Lindmeier is on a mission to go around the Madison area and educate people about the climate crisis, how it is affecting us and what we can do to fix it. 

              Back in October, Lindmeier spoke about climate change to the residents of the Oregon Senior Center and it turns out that there is a lot changing  in our climate. 

          “The world has seen an average temperature increase of 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit since 1970 and Madison has seen an average warming of 3.1 degrees,” said Lindmeier. 3.1 degrees may not seem like a big deal but to put it in perspective, the climate was only 6 degrees colder than it is today during the last ice age where part of our state was covered by glaciers up to 2 miles thick. 

          But what does 3.1 degrees warmer mean for our weather? Before we explore this, we need to differentiate between weather and climate. Weather is what happens on a short-term day to day basis. Climate involves looking at patterns in the weather over a 30-year or longer period of time. This is important to know because a 70 degree day in February cannot be directly attributed to climate change but may “have the fingerprints of climate change on it” as Lindmeier said. 

But even when we look at our long term averages, we can still see changes as a result of climate change. For example, our winters are warming at a much faster rate than the other seasons. Our average winter temperature has increased over 4 degrees in Wisconsin since 1970 and our average summer and fall temperatures have only increased by 1 degree on average. 

This means that Wisconsin is getting significantly less snowfall during the winter than we used to be. This is bad not only for snow lovers but also for our economy. Wisconsin has a huge tourism industry based on winter weather including ski resorts, and ice fishing. We noticed in January of 2023 where all of our snow suddenly melted and we were experiencing high temperatures in the 40s and rain. Before 1970, rain in January was considered extremely rare in Wisconsin. 

  In addition to less snowfall, we are also experiencing less arctic outbreaks which goes along with the absolute lowest temperature we see every year. Polar outbreaks just are not as frequent or as bad as they used to be. In 1970, the average minimum annual temperature in Oregon was -20 degrees. Now it is -13 degrees. A whole 8 degrees warmer. 

 Now some may think, "why should I be concerned about this? No one likes -20 degrees. "

 However, Lindmeier reminds us that, “The negatives far outweigh the positives in a warming climate.”