Too soon to tell if snowy winter, global warming linked

73.9 inches dumped on Green Bay area could have its benefits, local experts say

By Kate McGinty
Gannett Wisconsin Media

APPLETON — It's far too early to know what caused this year's massive snowfalls, environmental scholars say — but it's not too soon to predict some of the environmental benefits.

The Green Bay area has received 73.9 inches of snow so far this winter, and many heaping piles of snow still line the roadways. The Ashwaubenon-based National Weather Service is predicting a 30 percent chance of snow this afternoon, with more snowfall likely in the evening hours.

The weather cannot be blamed on any great climate pattern, though, including global warming, said Jeff Clark, chairman of the Environmental Studies Program at Lawrence University in Appleton.

Though the snowfall is high, it's not altogether extraordinary, especially taken as an isolated winter, he said. It takes eight to 10 years to begin identifying scientific trends, making it far too soon to blame global warming.

"Things that go on in a year or a season, they might be background influenced by global warming or a climate change, but we cannot take them as evidence of it. It's just too little information," he said.

Instead, it's a combination of factors that may explain the weather, Clark said. Certainly, the right mixture of cold blasts and moisture blowing into the area, mostly from the west, created prime conditions for snowfall.

The first snowfall also set the stage for the continued snowfalls, said Marcia Bjornerud, a professor of geology and environmental studies at Lawrence University.

"The snow actually reflects heat back and keeps things colder at ground level," she said. "The more it snows, the more it snows, essentially."

Rather than searching for trends that cannot yet be identified, the environmental scholars say they're focusing on what benefits the massive snow piles might bring.

The snow is like "water that's stored on the surface" and will eventually need to go somewhere, Clark said. That means high water levels are inevitable.

The melting snow actually will replace water levels, particularly in the Great Lakes but in all rivers and lakes, that have dipped during recent dry years.

That's a relief for farmers, said Zen Miller, an agriculture agent with the Outagamie County University of Wisconsin-Extension. "We needed the moisture really bad," he said.

The snow and the pockets of air trapped in it could even protect what's underneath, from plants to amphibians, Clark said. The air in particular acts as insulation.

Though farmers and environmentalists alike are concerned about flooding from melting snow, how cataclysmic it could be depends on how quickly the weather warms up, Bjornerud said.

The clay-based soil common in the Fox Cities doesn't soak up much water and sometimes causes severe flooding — but there's hope yet for an easy thawing of the snow.

"If it's kind of a gentle, gradual increase of temperature as we head into spring; it's not going to be catastrophic," Bjornerud said. "If the ground can thaw out kind of gradually and allow for infiltration of some of that melt, then it won't be too bad."