Across Wisconsin, possible signs of a changing climate are all around us: warmer temperatures, shorter winters, heavier rain and snowstorms, even more potholes as temperatures fluctuate above and below freezing more often. There 's a growing sense that climate change has come to our backyard.

The Governor 's Task Force on Global Warming will soon announce its recommendations to curb emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that cause climate change. Those will be important steps in reducing Wisconsin 's contribution to this global problem. But we must also address another side of the issue: adapting to changes that are already underway, and which will continue for decades to come.

The key is inertia. The main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, remains in the atmosphere for well more than a century. Even if we could halt all carbon pollution today, climate change resulting from our past input would continue for decades. We need to prepare for the changes ahead.

Facing up to climate impacts, and the need to adapt to them, does not mean throwing in the towel. Cutting carbon emissions will be critical to prevent dangerous and catastrophic climate change. But we still need to plan for the inevitable consequences of our heavy reliance on fossil fuels for most of our energy needs.

We 're likely to experience a broad range of climate impacts on our environment, economy and health, and we need to identify and plan for them. For example, will a warmer Wisconsin mean more heat-related illnesses? Will winter recreation, and the communities and businesses that depend on it, remain viable? Will municipal officials need to design storm sewers to handle more frequent and heavier rainfall?

The list of potential impacts is long, and identifying them presents a considerable challenge. As a first step, UW-Madison climate scientists are working hard to tune computer models to let us know more precisely what the future may hold for our state.

It 's part of a new statewide effort, the Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts (WICCI), recently launched by UW-Madison, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and others to begin working on these questions. The project will bring together the best available climate science to help natural resource managers, business people, public health officials, agricultural leaders and others develop strategies to deal with changes we 're likely to see.

The goal is to protect our health, economy, wildlife habitat and other essential components of Wisconsin 's natural beauty and quality of life in a changing climate.

Magnuson is a professor of limnology at UW-Madison and co-chair of the Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts. Nowak is a professor and outreach chair in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at UW-Madison.

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