 Welcome, welcome. I'm so happy we were able to come here this Friday, even though we couldn't last Friday. I'm sorry about that, but we had ice. And we were worried. So, just so you know what's going to be happening, we've transferred our database to Mailchimp, which is a completely different system. We have a couple of little perks, but overall it's really going well. It is an email based system. So if we do not have your email and you have one, make sure members you give it to us so that we can make sure you get the emails we send out on Thursday, which give you the zoom link and also tell you what the speaker is for the next day. I also want to suggest that you look at your emails on Friday morning, because what if we had an unexpected storm or speaker is sick or there's no heat in the church or heaven only knows what we would tell you by 11am you would get that email. It will also be on our website for those of you who are members and non members. So you could check our website that morning. I would say by 11. Last week it was on next to the date of the lecture in red it said zoom only so you would be able to see that. We're hoping we don't have any of those issues anymore. No more snow on Fridays, no more minus 50 win chills on Friday. I hope so. Anyway, so we're very excited today to have Dr. Dupini to drew, and I've been practicing how to say this. She's laughing at me she's giving me two thumbs up this nice lady I've got to get my glasses which of course I have my head. Yes. All right, I want to read a little about her. She's spoken to us a few times before, but maybe you hadn't seen or heard her and applied climatologist by training. Dr. Dupini, Jerusalem's research interests intersect a number of interdisciplinary fields, including hydro climatic natural hazards and climate literacy geospatial climate and land surface processes all within the context of our changing climate. We do have that, you know that Dr. Dupini drew has served on the Vermont state climate. No, has served as the surface processes all within the context of our changing climate. She has served as the Vermont state climatologist since 1997. And is the immediate past president of the American Association of state climatologists in 2020 she was appointed by the Vermont House of Representatives. To the Vermont climate council as the member with expertise in climate change science. She continues to work with Vermont state agencies and municipalities and they're planning for and adapting to climate change. She is an expert in floods, droughts and severe weather and the ways in which these affect Vermont's landscape and people. She has worked extensively with K through 12 teachers and students, bringing the use of satellites, climatology and climate change to all levels of the pre university curriculum. She is the lead editor of historical climate variability and impacts in North America, the first monograph to deal with the use of documentary and other ancillary records for analyzing climate variability and change in the North American context. Nationally, Dr. Dupini drew was involved. Was invited by the White House Office of Science and Technology policy program to be a presenter on the climate science leading the way panel at the CLP 26 meeting in Glasgow, Scotland in 2022. She served as the lead author for the Northeast chapter of the 2018 fourth national climate assessment of the US global change research program and is an author on the national water chapter of the fifth national climate assessment. Wow. So without any further ado, please welcome Dr. Dupini. Good afternoon everyone, and it's always such a pleasure to be back here at triple E. Even though it's a little bit cold outside and I know I was warned not to talk about chills too much, but thank you for being here somebody hearing me okay. I have two layers on so I'll take off one layer. Little bit better. So I have a really low voice. And if at any time it gets even lower than usual, just wave with me. So if I see the entire audience doing like this. It's because you're not saying that great things are happening is because you're not hearing what I'm saying. Okay, so feel free to wave at me at any point in time. So today what I thought I would do since I think it's my third or fourth time being in the triple E family and you've probably seen some of my slides before I have to mix things up a little bit just to keep you on your toes. So there's some things that are happening in the news there's some things that are happening in Vermont. And I thought we try and bring all of this in to look at how climate change is sort of playing out across the state. And what what can we think about doing and some of those pieces. Okay, and most recently I've gotten really really interested in the people's first approach and how do we think about who's at the table who's not at the table. How do we think about human vulnerability. How do we think about who are vulnerable populations and so those are some of the things that we're going to be talking a little bit about today, not just the climate as a science. But how climate climate change and weather patterns affect us as humans and how we affect the landscape around us. So some of the things that we're going to be looking at. So this is hot off the press. So today is Friday the 24th of February 2023. And did you know that last month, January of 2023 was actually the warmest January since 1895 here in Vermont did you know that one. Okay, so this is this is like cutting straight to the chase here. Okay. And so we were among a lot of other New England states in setting that that record for last month being the warmest January since 1895. So, here's a graph. And if I try and move my mouse, is everybody seeing the mouse moving. Okay. Okay, so here's here's a graph that shows you the the January temperatures. And it starts off in 1895. Everybody see that. Okay. Right. And here we are in 2023. And this is the highest this record here. Okay. So as you're looking at this graph, a couple of things I wanted to point out. You see that there have been other January's that have been particularly warm. Right. And then you've seen that there are other January's in the recent past like in the recent decades or so that have been particularly cold. Okay. And we know that in Vermont, we can go from high to low and high to low. And that's that variability that we talk about. And you know, it's one thing that we always say when you get into the elevator what you talk about if it's not hockey. It's it's the weather or the climate. Right. And so there's always something to talk about always something to learn about our climate here in the state. And think back a little bit further than January, think back to Christmas time last year when we had that bone chilling and really, really blizzard type conditions. If you remember back that far. Okay. And so what you're seeing here are blues represent really cold conditions. And you see how far south that that went and then reds represent where it's warmer conditions. Okay. So look, look at that. There's a weak difference between around Christmas time on the left hand side here and getting close to New Year's on the right hand side. And you see with again flip that switch between being cold around Christmas and then being almost record warm. Close to New Year's. All right. And so you're probably thinking right off the bat what was happening. What are we looking at here. Why is this occurring. And what what I'm going to play for you is is a video that shows you the the movement you know about the jet stream right the jet stream that separates where the cold air is from where the the warm air is right. And what you're going to see is that jet stream kind of moves around and how it moved around in the month of December last year. Okay, so I'm going to play this for you. And you're seeing how it's swirling. And sometimes it's further north and sometimes it's further south. Okay, so we're seeing how that sort of plays out and then we get to the end of January and here. Sorry, the end of December in here when it went back to being far the north of us and so we got warm conditions. Okay, so part of what what we're looking at with climate change is there's a lot of changing is going on in the Arctic regions north of us. Okay. And anything that changes in the Arctic is then going to affect us here in the middle attitudes. So we need to keep an eye out on Arctic changes because they're going to have a direct influence on us here in the middle attitudes here where we live in Vermont and New England and the Northeast. Okay, so that's part of what we're looking at as we step through. And what they've realized is these changes that we're seeing in the Arctic regions have sort of ramped up a little bit since about 1980 or so so we're seeing more of these these times when we have that cold air coming down towards us from the Arctic and then the warm air coming up from from the from the tropics. So 1980 is a critical year if you're trying to put a pinpoint on when are we starting to see some of these things really really amplify and accelerate. Okay, remember there's a quiz after. So make a note 1980. So something else that I know you've probably seen this slide because I've shown it practically every time that I've come here is some of these changes are not just us wintertime changes we're also seeing changes in the summertime and in the spring time, so that what we know is something called a backward spring where you know wrong Mother's Day, we've gotten snow in the last couple years. Okay, and then other times we'll see all of the flowers start to bloom and then it snows on top of them. And I'm not talking about a little bit of snow I'm talking about snow snow. Right. And so when that happens in the springtime, those temperatures and that snowfall is actually opposite to what we would expect it to be and so we call it a backward spring because it's going backwards to what it should be. Right. So if you see any pictures like this this year, please send them to me so I can swap out these because I know you've seen these before. Okay, so I need to get some fresh ones if we happen to see any more of these backwards springs. Okay. All right. So one way of trying to broaden the conversation of where Vermont and New England fits in is of course looking across the entire world the entire globe. And this particular animation, it starts off in in the 1880s. And it goes up until last year. And again, remember that that that year that I told you, look for it when we get to 1980, and you'll see why I pointed that out. Okay, so I'm going to go ahead and play this one for you. And let it start off in the 1880s kind of moves on through. And what you're seeing is changes relative to an average time period. Blues mean it's colder than that average. Red means it's warmer than that average. And so we're looking did you see that 1980. Okay. And what's happened since 1980, we've gone to this tremendous amount of warming, particularly in the northern hemisphere. All right. And so that time period that they're comparing this to is 1951 to 1980. So colder than that shows up as blue warmer than that shows up as red. So it begs the question. How can you have warming taking place at the same time as having record snowstorms and part of the answer to that is, when when we're thinking about warming patterns, warming then leads to the ability to have more moisture in the air. And that's part of the reason why you can get record snowfall because there's more moisture in the atmosphere to actually fall. Now, how can you get record snowstorms? Well, remember, all of that changing coming down from the Arctic. Okay, you're still going to get cold air coming down. And so Norwester's are still going to happen. Blizzard's are still going to happen. So it's not incongruous to have both a snowstorm and warming taking place at the same time. Okay, it's all part of how things are changing and the dynamics and the processes that are going on. Everybody still with me? Okay. All right. So to understand how all of this works, we have to remember that all of the things here on earth are connected. Right. There's nothing that's disconnected from anything else. And another way of saying that is everything is a system. So if I warm up something that's going to change how much moisture is in the air, which then changes how much rain or snow falls, seeing where I'm going with this. And if it changes how much rain or snow falls, then that means it's going to change who gets too much rain or too much snow and who doesn't you seeing we're going all of this right. And so all of this is interconnected. It all has to be a system because there's there's no sort of like break in there. And anytime you change one thing, it's going to change something else. All right. So we're looking at all of this all together. So all of these changes that we're seeing whether they are on a global scale, whether they are on a regional scale like New England and Northeast. We're seeing a lot of these changes occurring in extreme events taking place region wide, but also locally. So you're looking at this you're seeing things like drought conditions, particularly in the western part of the US for example, we're looking at mudslides we're looking at floods taking place. And so part of what we do is to try and capture this all in one place to understand how these changes are occurring and what that means for us. So during the introduction you heard that I've been fortunate and privileged enough to participate in a national climate assessment. And the fifth national climate assessment is going to be released later this year. The fourth national climate assessment was released in 2018. And at that time what we were able to understand were all the changes here in the Northeast were changing our seasons. They were changing our livelihoods they were changing things like tourism and recreation and that has not changed. Okay, all of these seasonal changes all these changes in our socio economic pieces that we depend on. Those are still very much subject to change and so this is one of the pieces that came out in 2018 and it's just as true today in in 2023. So, I like to make things local. So whenever I go and give a talk I will actually try and find information for that particular place. So here we are on door set street what was the the address again 899. So 899 door set street. Okay, and South Burlington so there's a program called climate Explorer. And this is where your next set of notes come in, you want to try this. Put in a zip code. And what it will give you is the climate of that particular zip code in the past. And then what it's projected to do out into the future. Alright, so if you're thinking about how can we plan for a change in climate. This is a great website to actually see what it could look like in a particular zip code. Alright, so it's called climate Explorer. And so we're looking at at this particular diagram for South Burlington and I purposely picked, you know the nighttime temperatures, how cold it drops at night. Because I'll let you in on a little secret. That's one of the clearest ways of seeing the effects of climate change, how cold it gets at night. And if we're still getting as cold as we used to get. Alright, so that that minimum temperature that nighttime temperature is one of the clearest signals that we can look at. And so what we're just seeing is, it's been getting warmer and warmer at night. Right, so it's not getting as cold as it used to get. And that's going to have implications for things like ticks that we used to, you know, expect them to die off over over winter and it got cold enough. If the winters are not as cold as they used to be, then the tick population is not going to be as as controlled as it used to be in the past. So that's probably the reason why we're looking at, at things that are critical for like it said system. Okay, so you're thinking biology you're thinking pests you're thinking species and temperatures are critically important in that as well. So let's talk a little bit about too much water, too little water. And what it means for us here in the state. When we look at things like when snow melt occurs we've got a decent snow pack out there right now when that goes, how fast it goes, whether it will lead us to flooding a little bit later on a couple months time or whether we won't get any flooding. Right, so the timing and the rate of snow melt is is something that's important to us here in the Northeast. And we're seeing that it's been shifting a little bit earlier in time. Okay. Another thing that we can look at if we move from spring to summer is how much rainfall how much precipitation how much runoff how much storm flow and again all of those have been increasing over time so we're seeing that across in here. And here we are in Northwest corner of the state here. Okay. So the flip side of too much water is not enough water and droughts in Vermont have an interesting history, because if we look far enough back in time what you're looking at here can everybody see the reds the yellows the oranges. Right. And you're also seeing the blues and the teals. Alright, so all the times when we have reds and yellows and oranges. Those are times when we've been in drought conditions. And then when you see the blues and the greens and teals. It's when we've had excess or a lot of moisture. So you'll notice back in time, Vermont used to be a really really drought prone place you see that. And did you know that we used to have a lot of droughts back in the like the 1910s 1930s 1940s we used to be really really drought prone. And then things switched. And we started to get to be more moisture prone. But it doesn't mean that we no longer have any droughts right but droughts are part of our history. And we can look at Lake Champlain and look at Lake Champlain through time 1909 1927 1966 and 2011. And each one of these graphs is showing you the height of Lake Champlain. The highest it can ever be that's this top line here. The lowest it could ever be that's this bottom line here. The average is the one in the middle. And then the year itself is the one that changes. So this is the line for 1909. This is the one for 1927 and so forth. Okay. So what you're seeing is when the lake level drops to the lowest it can be or close to the lowest it can be. You know that we're talking about drought conditions right because it takes a while takes a lot for Lake Champlain levels to drop that low. If you've ever seen pictures in 1909 it's it's been so low then you could actually walk out to some of those islands in the lake. Alright so that's what we mean we talk about being drought prone. So 2011 was interesting. We had hurricane tropical storm Irene in here that set some records. We had the spring floods that also set some records in in May of that year. And here is the flooding in 1927 that set those records in here. Okay, so we're looking at that. Everybody got this diagram. Okay, because I'm going to show you what last year looked like. Do you remember anything about last year whether it was a wet year or dry year. All I'm hearing is remember. No, no thoughts about last year. Okay, let me show you. This is what last year look like. Okay, and what was the word you probably use pretty, pretty dry. Yeah. Okay, so the last year which is this red line here shows us pretty dry. Okay, getting close to some of the values that were low, the lowest they've ever been. Okay, and so we ended off the year still pretty dry. So it means we're still kind of dry right now. Okay, so this is one of the reasons why we talk a little bit about not just too much water but not enough water. Okay, so. So here's, here's a map from what's called the US drought monitor, and it shows you on a week by week basis, where is their drought across the state and across New England across all of the northeast. And last week was one of the first times that the state has not been in drought. Okay, all of 2022 we were in drought, pretty much all of 2021 we were in drought as well. All right, so some part of the state was was in drought. And so, if I were giving this talk last year like October November last year, we were still in drought. And it was particularly on the eastern side of our state that we were in drought. So, I did actually give a talking in fairly, and fairly is one of the towns that is interesting because part of the county was in drought and part of it was was perfectly fine. So when we look at all of these things about weather and climate where you are is also important. So, why am I talking about not enough water well affects things like plants. It affects things like the crops that we grow. So, there was a drought back in in 2016 here in the Champlain Valley, and I took these pictures you know my mother's fruit stand is in Colchester. Yeah, so I took these pictures just close to where this the stand is just to help me remember how dry the conditions were how dry the soil was during that particular drought. You'll also see drought affecting our iconic species are sugar maples, when they don't turn as brilliant orange and red as they would if they weren't dry conditions. So, so droughts important to us from a socio economic perspective. And one that we don't always think about the impact of drought on wildfires. And one of my students is actually doing some work right now to help answer this question. What's the relationship between dry conditions in the state, and where and when do we have wildfires. Okay, so it's important to answer that question, because again, a lot of our economy depends on on on knowing the health of our species. So, the last piece in drought is there's a new type of drought. This called ecological drought. And what it allows us to do is to see what we do as humans, what we value as humans, and how that's impacted by drought. So it's, it's the given take between, you've heard about ecosystem services and things that we value like healthy species, like clean water, like clean air. How does drought affect all of those things. If we're thinking about carbon sequestration, how do healthy species be affected by drought, so that they're not sequestering as much carbon dioxide as possible. So this is this is new. And it's critically important for us to also understand how our ecosystem is being affected by by dry conditions. So we've looked at a couple of these and one of the things that you always hear about when you hear about climate change in the state is the extremes are changing. So if we're looking at extreme conditions, like I said, a lot of times we'll think about floods, we'll think about fires, we're looking at how these affect us on a local basis, how they affect things like transportation and infrastructure, and that diagram on the lower right here. You might think that was part of over a month, but it wasn't. These were. Okay, Irene, back in 2011. So what is that now. How many years ago was that 12 years now almost 12 years. Yeah. Okay. And what what have we learned in terms of lessons learned as a result of Irene how have we changed our business practices or living practices as a real result of having lived through hurricane Irene. So speaking of hurricanes, why do you think we're talking about hurricanes hurricanes affect us was Irene the first. So I'm getting love. No, no, is that a general no. Think about hurricanes thinking about why we need to look at them here in Vermont and the answer is yes we do need to look at them here, because hurricanes tend to sort of track along the eastern seaboard, and then either go up the Champlain Valley in here, or they go up the Hudson Valley and the Connecticut Valley in here, or they'll make a glancing blue. All right. So we've seen that in the past and when that happens, they do produce a lot of rainfall and so knowing about hurricanes for us is also part of our climate change story because of the amount of precipitation that they're going to bring. So, here are some of the hurricanes that have sort of moved in that pattern that I just mentioned, coming along the eastern seaboard and up into either the Connecticut River or the Champlain Valley here, and affecting us by the amount of precipitation that was produced. And by looking at all of this precipitation. What we have realized is the amount of rain that used to fall in the past is a whole lot less than what falls now. All right. So you see this diagram here. You see all these colors on here. What they're showing you is the amounts of rainfall that fall that we can use for a planning purpose. If you are a transportation engineer, and you need to figure out how large this to create your culverts, you would look at a graph like this. All right, and figure out where to put a culvert that can hold the amount of water versus one that needs the whole amount of water. Right. So this this is a graph. It's in what we call geographic information systems or GIS, which means you can actually zoom on in to get how much you need to look at. Okay, so this this is important because see these yellow lines that I just put on here. All right, those were what we used to use for planning purposes. So we've gone from having only three or four lines and kind of having to eyeball in between to having this this really super high resolution technology where you can get a better value of what you need to plan for when you have to create things like culverts. And now this new technology also has the latest amount of rainfall. So it's like a win, win, win. Okay. All right. So, keeping all of those pieces in mind and thinking about who is most vulnerable. Who is at the table who's not at the table. Those are some of the pieces that have gotten particularly interested in in the last few years, particularly during the COVID pandemic because it was very, very eyeopening to see where climate climate change and vulnerability pieces were sort of coming together. So in looking at that one question we can ask is, hey, which sectors in Vermont are particularly prone to or susceptible to or vulnerable to our changing climate so we can do it from a socio economic perspective and so the ones that you may think include infrastructure, they might include tourism, agriculture, forestry, human health, those are some of the things that we think about when we think about what is at risk. That's another way of saying it. What is that risk in terms of our changing climate. And so infrastructure is is big. It could be critical infrastructure like power plants for example, it could be our grid. If the infrastructure gets really, really hot. We don't always think about what happens to the electricity on load on the wires, and whether it can handle that. All right. So these are some of the elements when we think of infrastructure that are critically important in terms of our changing climate. And because of our history, because of our, our cultural legacy. And I think I've said this in here before when we when I've given a talk. You know how a lot of the valleys in Vermont are these sort of V shaped valleys where the rivers are here and the roads are literally next door because that's the only space that they could have installed the rivers that sets up another kind of vulnerable build vulnerability that we have from an infrastructure perspective because of geography, right topography, history, and how all of those sort of come together so there's some places that are really prone to flooding events because of that, that positioning of your rivers and your roads next to each other. And we saw that in 1927. We saw that again in I read I'm going to blow up the middle of this part here. And so what you're seeing all of those roads that were affected in 1927. Those that were affected during I read. Okay, because it's it's it's a it's a piece of the landscape right those roads have not moved in the last 100 years and so this actually makes it a little bit easier to figure out where we can position position resources because of that proximity to your rows and your rivers. So topography is critically important to us here in the Green Mountain State and as as we look at that. It's not only for infrastructure, it's also for things like air quality. You know if you've got valleys like this, and we've got pollution in a valley like this is not going to wash out too fast right. Understanding our geography or physical geography or topography critically important for us as we think about things like human health in particular. So, we're standing here so the Green Mountains are that way. Right at the Adirondacks are the other way. If you've ever looked at the Green Mountains on some days and see in sort of like a pea soup to it. You know I'm talking about when the atmosphere has a lot of material in it. It's part of that influence of our geography in here where things are going to sit and stagnate and where when do we need to stay inside and when do we need to put out a warning. Okay. Let's talk about us as humans for a sec and part of thinking of climate change and us as humans is looking to see changes in, you know, when it goes from hot to cold, or rain to drought. Okay, if we're if we're seeing more of that extreme conditions which is what you see here see these squiggles, these squiggles are getting bigger and bigger. So you can see droughts and floods in the same year. You can see cold and and and warmth in this in the same month like December 2022. All right. So when you see these extremes it puts a pressure on us as humans. And so there's a human vulnerability by seeing these extremes. And how does that affect us. So, last time I was here somebody asked me about Lyme disease, and I was not able to provide a response because I didn't have any data at that point. Well, I now do. So, if we're thinking of of of of incidences of Lyme disease reports of Lyme disease on the left hand side is 1996 on the right hand side is 2018. And you see, you see, I heard that everybody's like, ooh, do you see that tremendous amount in increases of cases reported in New England northeast but Vermont as well. All right. So Lyme disease is one of those that we're looking at in terms of tick borne diseases and how those change with our temperatures. It's an element of of of our changing climate for us as humans, we can also think about temperatures. And I think this is new from the last time I came here. Whenever you hear an alert that there's a heat wave or hot conditions that threshold is now 87 degrees. It's no longer 90. You know why, because for us in the Northeast, where we're not acclimated to having 90 degree weather we started field challenges at 87. So, the Vermont Department of Health, in conjunction with National Weather Service now puts out a warning if the temperatures are going to consistently exceed 87 degrees. Okay, because that's that's where we see these physical physiological changes to us as humans here in the North country. So, here's our hero here we are banana belt in Champlain Valley, and seeing how that sort of plays out relative to our colleagues who live in the Northeast Kingdom they have fewer days higher elevation colder values. And then our colleagues down in the lower part of the Connecticut Valley here. Right. These are the days of how many times does it get above that 87 degrees. Okay, so then came COVID, and the world changed. And everything became into Clara focus, because now you started to see some of the impacts of our changing climate in conjunction with the impacts on us as human beings. And that's where like I said a lot of my thinking sort of changed a little bit in looking at vulnerability as humans but also inclusion and making sure that we have all of the folks at the table as we move forward as a society. So I'm not sure if you've seen this diagram but what it is is it shows you remember when everything shut down in March of 2020 and industrialization pretty much stopped we stopped driving we were all at home for extended periods of time. One of the things that we noticed is one of the gases that is a greenhouse gas did a dramatic decrease as a result of everything being shut down. So as you look at this diagram here on the upper part is the average conditions, the gas in question is nitrogen dioxide. And the more purple or the more black, the higher the concentration of this greenhouse gas, and the more yellow and blue the lower the concentration. So this is the average on the upper diagram here 2015 to 2019. And this is March of 2020 when things shut down one month. All right, and you see that dramatic decrease in a lot of bad gas across pretty much most of the Northeast. Right. So we're looking at how the influence of the COVID pandemic plays out from a greenhouse gas potential as well. And when we bring us as humans into the conversation and thinking about a lot of the things that went on during the COVID pandemic we also had heatwaves taking place at the same time. All right. And during the pandemic you heard things like shelter in place. There was a heatwave going on. That opened my eyes a lot as a climatologist because if you ask someone to shelter in place and they don't have a home, where are they going to shelter? Does everybody know where the closest and safest shelter is? Okay, does everybody have access? And so it started me really, really thinking deeply about vulnerability, about who has access and who doesn't have access. All of our materials in languages that everybody can access and understand. While we have thinking about mobility, thinking about if folks need to move from one place to the next, all of these are critically important. And I think COVID-19 was this sort of like really, really slicing through to some of the things that are critically important and really matter. So who is vulnerable? All right. And we think about it both from a cultural perspective. We can think about it from an ability perspective. We can think about it from an age perspective, from a housing insecure perspective. These are all things that we need to think about in the context of our changing climate because they all go together. Okay. So during the pandemic and continuing even to today, we've seen a lot of movement of peoples from one place to the next and folks coming into the state, migrating into the state for a number of reasons, including leaving places that may have had more COVID cases where they were. And so we've seen a number of COVID migrants coming into the state and that raises the question of, are we prepared? Are we inclusive? Are we welcoming to folks who are coming in from other places? And so we have refugees and migrants who are COVID related coming into the state of Vermont. This wasn't only in Vermont. This was sort of occurring across the entire globe. And so the World Meteorological Organization, who looks at everything that is meteorologically related, actually pinpointed using the vulnerability that we saw in COVID as a springboard to how to change how we do business. And so there's some lessons learned in coming out of how do we provide services that make sure that we have people first. Okay. And it wasn't just at the, at the international level. It was also at the national level so the centers for disease control were also in this space at the same time, looking at how changing climate, changing hazards, peoples are all part of the equation of moving forward. So that brings me to being on the Vermont Climate Council. And a lot of the work that we did in terms of writing our very first climate action plan was to think about the environment, to think about land, to think about us as as and what do we need to know about and put in place in order to mitigate against and adapt to our changing climate. So one of the committees that helped us with all of this work was called the Just Transitions Committee. And the Just Transitions Committee helped us to understand how to be inclusive. What are some of the best practices in being inclusive so that we don't repeat the mistakes of the past. And one of our subcommittee members was Judy Dow, who's an Abinaki elder and scholar, and she created this diagram that she shared with us as counselors at the very beginning in helping us to understand the Abinaki way of knowing about the land about our mother and so it was my privilege to actually bring that into the writing up of the plan and sort of set the stage for how do we look at and understand all peoples, all ways of knowing. And it led me to create this diagram here that was my way of trying to conceptualize peoples, land, processes, governance, communities, how they all sort of fit together in a way that kind of makes sense for us to look at our changing climate. And how do we present it, how do we talk about it, how do we learn from each other, how do we figure out what we know how to figure out what we don't know and how do we move forward with that. Okay, so this isn't in the climate action plan itself. So wrapping up here, because I know it's always important to end on a what can you do note, right, because I know I've thrown a lot of other stuff at you here so let's end on on what can we do note and the two pieces that I'm going to just sort of highlight briefly. People, people, people. Okay, we need to have people as part of the conversation, whether it's from a governance or a community's perspective, whether it's from an accessibility perspective, we need to, we need to really put people first. Okay, so not not necessarily the systems not necessarily the technology, we need to get people in the equation. Okay, so that's one face that's in here. And the other piece is, maybe thinking back to how can we be more cohesive in terms of, of bringing in land components. So whether it's nature based solutions, whether it's preservation well it's all of the things that we do so well as we're mantas, how can we make sure that those are part of how we prepare to respond to and adapt to our changing climate. So with that, I would like to thank you for your attention I thank you for being here. I'd like to thank all the folks who are online on zoom, and turn it back over for any questions that we might have so thank you again. Thank you so much. So for those of you who are on zoom, I would like you to ask some questions on zoom, go into Q&A. If you have a computer, you should find that bar at the bottom if you have an iPad it would be at the top and under Q&A type in your questions we just have one so far so we're looking for more. Okay, so why we wait for folks online to add to your questions that was a challenge. So if you would like to see more than one question. Any questions in the room. Hi, yeah. I have noticed this winter that even though it wasn't maybe that cold that it was often windy. I mean I live right in Burlington so and I don't think it's always just wind off the lake either I think it's north wind south winds and colder because of the wind and also there's more dampness in the air. It was last part of it was this. There's more dampness in the air. It doesn't feel it used to be that you could have a cold, dry day and it just was nice and crispy and very tolerable but now it seems we're having more not so cold but wet and damp. So not so cold but wet so there's there's a change in the moisture in the air. Yes, dampness. Yes, yes. And the wind how about what what's where did that wind comes right. So one of the things that we know about the champion values it tends to be windy, particularly as you get further north of us. When you get towards St. Albans, it gets even windier, because what happens with wind, two things that happen with wind, the big open expanses where it's flat are perfect for having a lot of, you know, like big events like tornadoes, mostly tornadoes in Vermont actually in that flat part near to St. Albans, but you also get a lot of wins whenever you have obstructions. So if you have an obstruction, the wind is forced to blow between the obstruction. So think about valleys. Think about tall buildings. Right. So we're in between the Dax and the greens. So naturally the wind flows, either from the south to the north, or vice versa from the north to the south. So anytime you get either an obstruction, or you get a large open area, you're going to tend to see a lot of wins and what wins do is they cause us to feel colder, because they move the heat away from our body. So if the winds are faster, we lose heat faster. So we feel cold faster. So that's part of what you're seeing. Now dampness has to do with how much, how sticky the air is. Right. And so if the if the winds are coming from the south, or if they're coming from the lake or the ocean, they're going to tend to have a little bit more moisture in them. One of the things that you can check to see is on those damp days, if you notice there are certain time or certain weeks, we can go back and see where the winds were coming from, because that would help us to figure out where the moisture was, particularly in the winter time. Yeah. We have several questions suddenly on zoom. So I'll start with the first one on the slide entitled atlas 14 24 100 year return period rainfall. They're two areas in Connecticut where they're unusually high rainfall. These two areas do not appear to be in a mountainous area. What might be causing this higher rainfall. Okay, so I'm guessing the, the two regions were in here where the bullseye was the eight inches and we're looking at this, this part across in here. Pardon was Connecticut. Okay, where they're unusually high rainfall. Two areas. So around the Tarrington region here. I wonder where the other region is. I'm wondering why higher rainfall. So without having the overlay underlay show up really well if you look really closely with there's the topography right underneath here. It's not crispy enough for me to see if there's an aura graphic or topographic influence going on. So what I would have to do is to, if the person who asked the question wouldn't mind sending me an email, I'll be able to follow up online, because it's either topographic, or there's something to do with how the air flows onto land right around there. Okay. How is the change of spring impacting maple sugar production. Oh, that's a million dollar question, right. Yeah. So I think that one. There's some digging on because the, the changes that you're seeing are not just in whether it gets as cold as it used to, but it's also the shifting in the seasons if it's shifting a little bit earlier. Shifting a little bit earlier and then temperature drops again so the stops up starts to flow and so I think that's one of the biggest challenges for sugar maple sugar makers right now, whether they continue to top or not. Whether the yields are going to be the same, whether the, the flavors the same whether the grades are the same and I think there's a lot of work going on at the proctor maple research center and other places, trying to answer those questions because they're non trivial. I found a quote from Bill McGiven is about agricultural practices, you know, up here at UVM. It says shifting from feedlot farming to rotational grazing is one of the few changes we could make that's on the scale as the problem of global warming. I don't agree with the need for radically cutting emissions, but it could help get the car exhaust emitted back in high school out of the atmosphere. Okay, so those are some of the the agricultural practices that are currently being explored. And I think a lot of it is trying to capture before it even gets emitted into the atmosphere how do you capture that back into the ground itself. And it sort of plays into carbon sequestration and making sure that our species are healthy enough to adequately store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. There's something that I saw last night that said there might be a threshold beyond which species are not able to continue to sequester carbon I wasn't able to read it through completely. And that's yet another piece as things evolve and continue. And science is so iterative that every day there's a new study that comes up with yet another piece in the puzzle. And so, carbon sequestration and looking at agricultural practices is huge. The state, the natural resource conservation service are actively putting together some some plans, some committees and some strategies to continue working in that area, because it's one of the things where you can actually both mitigation and adaptation, depending on the practices that you employ. This is connected with that is it true the carbon levels are lessening in the atmosphere how does that affect the planet if true. So carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide, as far as I know has not has not declined in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is what we call a long lived gas so it stays in the atmosphere for extended periods of time. And even if we were to stop producing greenhouse gases today. There will be continued warming going on because of the gases that are already present and the fact that they're still going to continue warming the atmosphere so it's what we call inertia. And that's probably the reason why it's making sure we try to mitigate as well as adapt you. Do you have recommendations for political changes to address or mitigate the climate crisis. This might be a hot button. It goes back to being on the council and being able to provide the best science possible to help inform policies. It also goes back to being on so many other committees around the state because it allows me to bring that also at a local level. So it's sort of like a sandwich, helping all different levels to make changes and to set up policies to change governance. So I worked with an individual town last semester. So it's interesting to see how well you can actually help shift things at both levels. Congratulations. Can you offer some future projections in about immigration to Vermont for immigration. So that is a perfect segue to Dr Pablo Bose who will be coming here in two weeks time and whoever asked the question I'm sure Pablo be able to answer it a whole lot better than I would. Okay, that sounds good. I have some more if you don't. This is awesome. We usually don't have many on zoom. Yeah, what do we do about invasive species. Oh, goodness. What do we do about invasive. I mean, aren't they part of the story. They are indeed. And invasive species are challenging because once they take root, a lot of them can out compete the native species and so I think when you're talking about invasive, it has to do with either whether they're insect or species or in the lake or so on. What are the types of strategies that could be implemented and so that gets into more biological pieces of the land in the environment that a little bit outside of my bailiwick. So I don't want to make a recommendation or suggestion that might be inappropriate. The fellow who sent in the question about Connecticut just said he meant New York. And so I know this person, but I won't say anything. And you are being recorded right. Southwest of Albany that's what he meant the two I see exactly what he's now saying on your map that those two areas, these two years. Yeah, that that's what I would have thought when when I heard. Two areas and everybody in the room was telling me no, you need to go. So these two areas here. Yes. Okay, I still need to look at the jargon. Yeah, that's fine. I just wanted to make sure that we have this on tape that is these two areas. Okay. One more question. You said the threshold for a heat wave and an alert is now at 87 degrees, or it used to be at 90. If we look at last year there were 18 days that reached 87 or higher in Chittenden County what was the number of days at 90. Last year. Oh, dear. I get another question where probably less. No, no, no, not necessarily. No, not necessarily because what what could happen is, they could be non consecutive. Yeah. And so if if the person who asked that question sends me an email. It's just a quick thing to run a script and find out wonderful. Yeah. Great. I think we're all set. This has been such wonderful. Thank you so, so much. Thank you.