Wisconsin: Local Questions
GCMs (general circulation models), global warming, and global environmental change and its impacts on cultures and regional stability are topics at the forefront of environmental research, but all too often, when research is focused on the broader questions of climate change, the local perspective is lost. CPEP makes a point to turn the lens around and look at local questions at the interdisciplinary confluence of climate, the environment, and humans and how they fit in and interact with each other.
Archaeoclimate modeling is one example. Unlike GCMs, which use global output to investigate local questions, the Archaeoclimate MCM approach models climate at a specific location and then uses the aggregate of multiple models over a landscape or region informs us about culture and environment. Likewise proxy studies from tree rings, small lakes, and bogs capture the local environmental history that can then be placed into a regional context of human and environmental change.
In the spirit of the Wisconsin Idea - a philosophy embraced by the University of Wisconsin, which holds that the boundaries of the university should be the boundaries of the state and that research conducted at the University of Wisconsin should be applied to solve problems and improve health, quality of life, the environment and agriculture for all citizens of the state – CPEP strives to study our immediate environment so that we can make informed decisions about our local landscape.
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CPEP study sites in Wisconsin |
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Ongoing Projects in Wisconsin
Climate History Recorded in Tree Rings of Sunken Logs Retrieved from Lake Superior
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Logged trees being transported to mill in northern Wisconsin in the 1860s (photo from the Wisconsin Historical Society)
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Response of Lakes to Disturbance and Drought
- Sara Hotchkiss, Patricia Sanford, Jim Rusak (UW Trout Lake Station), Jasmine Saros (UW-LaCrosse), Randy Calcote (University of Minnesota), and Doug Schnurrenberger (University of Colorado)
Mid-Continent Records of El Nino Evidenced in Tree Rings
- Samantha Kaplan, Monica Weinert (University of Minnesota).
High Resolution Climate Variability as Recorded in Wisconsin Lakes
- Samantha Kaplan, Kevin Spigel
Great Lakes Water-Level Fluctuations and Wetland Vegetation Response
- Bob Booth, Douglas Wilcox (USGS Great Lakes Science Center), Todd Thompson (Indiana Geological Survey), Steve Baedke (James Madison University)
Atlas of Wisconsin Climate History
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