News from Wisconsin Sea Grant

Riding on the heels of its successful 2007 lecture series “Climate Change in the Great Lakes: Starting a Public Discussion,” Wisconsin Sea Grant has been awarded a $293,000 grant from the NOAA Climate Program Office Sectoral Applications Research Program (SARP).

The two-year grant partners Wisconsin Sea Grant with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research’s Cooperative Operational Meteorology, Education and Training (COMET) Program to develop centralized training for Sea Grant Extension agents and specialists to enable them to deliver consistent, science‐based messages regarding the likely effects of climate change in coastal areas.

Wisconsin Sea Grant and COMET will develop an interactive Web site to serve as a portal for the training course and permit NOAA and Sea Grant climate researchers to interact to bring up-to-date scientific information to coastal stakeholders. The resulting “wiki”—a collection of Web pages on climate-related topics that allows approved individuals to contribute or modify content—will help disseminate timely coastal climate information (climate change impacts, research results, reports, publications, etc.), and will continue to grow as new knowledge and information become available. The wiki will increase interaction between key NOAA scientists and coastal stakeholders through Sea Grant Extension and provide a forum for current climate science discussions.

To learn more, go to UW Sea Grant.