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In a year of extreme weather fluctuations, from a record 26 inches of rain in the first six months in northeast Wisconsin to drought conditions and poor air quality from distant wildfires, climate change is happening before our very eyes, experts say. 

“Climate change is going to affect everybody. It is important to bring it back to the forefront,” said Bart De Stasio, professor emeritus of biology at Lawrence University in Appleton. “It’s fallen off the radar unfortunately because of the political climate we’re in right now.” 

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Climate change costs 

Leading up to the November election, affordability has garnered more political attention than the environment, but some Wisconsin residents and scientists say candidates should be diving into climate change in a larger way.

Insurance premiums and taxes often rise after property owners face stormwater damage, said Steve Vavrus, director, Wisconsin State Climatology Office, and co-director, Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts (WICCI). 

“It’s in everybody’s interest, regardless of how people vote, to make sure our environment is in good shape,” Vavrus said. Seasons are becoming warmer, causing more heat stress and extreme weather, such as flooding. Wisconsin’s stormwater management infrastructure often is a century old, Vavrus said, and it can’t keep up with torrential downpours.

Warmer temperatures stem from fossil fuel and methane emissions, De Stasio said. 

“The only way we’re going to be able to really change our path here is by continuing to look for other sources of energy” and by mitigating the impacts of manmade pollution, he said. “We’re going to have to adapt. Otherwise, we’re not going to survive this.” 

Town of Peshtigo homeowner Jeff Budish couldn’t agree more. “The weather is talking to us. Mother Nature is telling us, ‘Hey, wake up,’” said Budish, a clean water advocate and avid angler. 

While Budish blames gas-powered vehicles for much of the pollution causing the greenhouse gas effect, rivers so contaminated the fish aren’t considered safe for human consumption also frustrate him. He lives near the Peshtigo River, just outside of a designated area local residents call “the plume.” The plume is an area where “forever chemicals” stemming from Johnson Controls Inc.’s Tyco fire technology center in Marinette contaminated the groundwater some residents used for drinking water. 

Tyco has taken responsibility for the contamination in this limited area, offering to provide new deep wells for some residents, but a recently settled lawsuit could limit its contributions in the future. In the meantime, many residents outside Marinette worry PFAS chemicals found in biosolids are also in runoff headed for waterways. 

Warmer rivers 

Charles Frisk, a retired Green Bay science teacher, has observed the worsening effects of climate change for several decades. Warmer rivers and lakes mean walleye and trout could become scarce, while bass become more prominent. It also could bring fewer days of cross-country skiing and ice fishing for winter tourism and poorer air quality in the summer from wildfire smoke, he said. 

“The rate at which the climate is warming up is just occurring so much more rapidly than what was ever thought,” he said. 

In many parts of the country, extreme weather events involve lightning strikes igniting wildfires that burn for days or weeks. Prescribed burns, used for forest and land management, also contribute to the smog that crosses state and national borders. 

Envisioning what his granddaughters, ages 3 and 11, are likely to experience in their lifetimes because of climate change worries Frisk. “By the time they are my age, there are going to be major highly populated areas where it’s unlivable” because of the heat, he said. 

Wildfire smog 

Summer wildfires in Canada and Minnesota sent dangerous particulate material to Wisconsin, impacting air quality, De Stasio said. The particulate matter of less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter can get into people’s lungs and cause breathing problems, he said. When the air quality index hits 200, it becomes unhealthy to be outside, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Wildfires and prescribed burns were linked to 20,000 premature deaths and $200 billion in damages, with a disproportionate number of older adults, Native Americans and African Americans affected, according to a study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University. 

“The frequency and intensity of these fires has increased,” said Nicholas Muller, professor of economics, engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business, who co-authored a 2025 study on the cost of smoke from wildfires and prescribed burns in 2017. 

In Green Bay, city officials closed Bay Beach Amusement Park for two days in July due to wildfire smoke. 

While some people compared the smog to a campfire’s smoke, Muller said wildfire haze is far more dangerous. 

“Around a bonfire, you may get a blast of smoke in the face, but you’re not exposed to the sustained smoke,” Muller said. “When I was walking around (in July), I was aware I was inhaling something. The particles were so abundant, you’re inhaling a high concentration of them.” 

Being prepared is one way to lessen the impact of climate change, whether it be wearing a face mask, helping to prevent flooding or contaminated waterways, or cutting back on driving a gas-powered vehicle, experts said. 

Flood control 

Officials in the village of Allouez plan to construct the municipality’s eighth retention pond in Riverside Park in 2027. The ponds are designed to protect waterways from polluted runoff when stormwater surges. The newest pond is expected to cost taxpayers about $800,000, said Sean Gehin, public works director for the village.

Still, some residents confronted damp or flooded basements in April and July when streets flooded, Gehin said. 

The problem isn’t limited to the Green Bay area, said Jean Marsch, a village of Allouez trustee and 50-year resident. “It’s something all municipalities are dealing with.” 

“You can tell flooding is happening all over. You see it and hear about it and know people who have experienced this kind of flooding,” Marsch said. 

The city of Green Bay’s Fire Station No. 3 sustained over $50,000 in damage from June 24 flooding that affected the boiler, water heaters and electrical service in the basement.

Other areas of the city also were affected by the deluge, said Valerie Joosten, director of public works. A dollar amount for the damage wasn’t available. 

Shared responsibility 

While some are skeptical climate change will be addressed on the federal level, Wisconsin has had bipartisan support for flood laws, Marsch said, pointing to Wisconsin Act 265 signed into law in 2024. It created a pre-disaster flood resilience grant program. 

Marsch would like to see more government funding to help communities deal with flooding and runoff. Allouez officials also encourage residents to do their part by using rain barrels for their gardens, keeping leaves and grass clippings out of the street and avoiding fertilizers with phosphorus. 

“Everybody has a role to play in maintaining the safety and health of our community,” Marsch said. “We all have a role to play in doing what we can.” 

This story was produced as part of the NEW (Northeast Wisconsin) News Lab, a consortium of five news outlets.

Voters, scientists say candidates should dig into environmental issues is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

U.S. and Canadian experts are urging government agencies to take swift action to address the threats posed by more frequent harmful algal blooms on Lake Superior.

The post Experts urge swift action to address harmful algal blooms on Lake Superior appeared first on WPR.

A federal judge ruled Monday that New York cannot enforce its landmark “climate Superfund” law, a measure that sought to charge fossil fuel companies $75 billion over 25 years to help the state deal with the costs of climate change. 

While the legal battle is far from over, the ruling could give pause to lawmakers in many other states who have been considering similar legislation. 

Chief Judge Brenda Sannes of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York ruled that New York’s 2024 law is preempted by the federal Clean Air Act, calling the measure “simply beyond the limits of state law.” Fossil fuel companies have long argued that federal regulations governing emissions supersede states’ authority to punish companies for their role in causing climate change. 

“It is precisely because the (state) Climate Act operates within an area of law ‘in which the federal interest is so dominant’ that it cannot be enforced,” Sannes wrote in her ruling. 

The case against New York’s law was brought by fossil fuel companies and the attorneys general of 22 Republican-led states. 

“This is a major victory in the fight against liberal states, trying to balance their budgets on the backs of our hard-working men and women in the coal, oil and gas industries,” West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey said in a statement. 

Environmental advocates called on New York Attorney General Letitia James to appeal the ruling. 

“The fossil fuel industry would like nothing more than for one district court ruling in New York to scare lawmakers across the country into backing down, but this decision doesn’t bind other states or stop them from passing their own laws,” Cassidy DiPaola, communications director for Make Polluters Pay, an advocacy campaign supporting climate Superfund bills and lawsuits against fossil fuel companies. 

“New York should fight this ruling, and every other state should keep moving until we make polluters pay their fair share.”

New York was the second state to pass a climate Superfund law, following a measure in Vermont. A lawsuit against Vermont’s law is still pending. 

The laws are modeled on the federal Superfund program, which requires polluters to pay for the cleanup of toxic waste sites. 

Lawmakers in at least 12 other states have proposed similar bills this session, although none has advanced so far. While the policy has gained significant attention and support in recent years, experts said that some legislators were likely waiting to see how the legal battles over the New York and Vermont laws would play out. 

Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org.

Dozens of southeastern Wisconsin residents, community organizers, local leaders and environmental activists voiced their opposition to a proposal from the electric utility We Energies to raise rates during a series of meetings in Milwaukee Tuesday. 

At a rally outside the We Energies offices Tuesday morning and at a public hearing on the rate increase held by the Wisconsin Public Service Commission on the Marquette University campus in the afternoon, opponents of the planned increase by as much as $22 per month by 2028 complained that the company was raising money that would go to building data center infrastructure and executive salaries on the backs of Milwaukee residents struggling to get by. Opponents also demanded that Wisconsin change direction as the state continues to fall behind its neighbors in renewable energy development. 

The proposed rate increase comes as public attention has focused on the structure of Wisconsin’s energy system and the sources of its power due to widespread opposition to the construction of hyperscale data centers — particularly in the communities of Port Washington and Mount Pleasant. The issue has become a major topic in the ongoing race for governor as both Democrat David Crowley, the Milwaukee County executive, and Republican Tom Tiffany, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, argue for their vision for the future of data centers and energy in the state. 

Crowley has said he wants to require that data center developers pay the cost of their own energy use while pushing them to construct renewable sources of energy such as utility-scale solar and wind. Tiffany, whose campaign  ads attack “data center David,” has argued that data centers, wind and solar farms are all taking too much of the state’s farmland. 

Voters across Wisconsin have expressed frustration recently with the lack of oversight or regulation of polluting industry. A group of activists in western Wisconsin recently successfully challenged the state Department of Natural Resources’ decision to grant a controversial Pierce County factory farm a permit to expand on the grounds that there weren’t enough protections for local groundwater. 

We Energies’ request to raise rates would increase monthly bills by $13.35 per month in 2027 and another $8.69 per month in 2028, adding up to about $22 more per month after two years, for a household that uses 660 kilowatt-hours per month. 

At the rally in Zeidler Union Square Park, directly in front of the We Energies headquarters, attendees complained that the PSC hearing was being held on the first day of school, when many of the working families who will be most affected by the rate increase are too busy to attend; that the utility has increased rates several times in recent years as the company’s profits have continued to go up; that, on a hot and muggy late summer day in Wisconsin, poor residents in the city would have to choose between cooling their homes and other necessities and that the state’s utility companies have continued to extend the lives of coal and natural gas power plants. 

“I didn’t come here to complain. Y’all know we do not complain. That’s not what we do. We have a reason to be angry, though,” Antonio Butts, executive director of the local non-profit Walnut Way Conservation Corps, said. “They’re asking for $480 million —  $480 million on top of hundreds of millions that they’ve asked for in previous years. We have a right to be angry. We literally have a right to be angry. But being angry has never reduced our energy bill. Not one time.” 

Most of the speakers complained that the utility has continued to reap massive profits and returns to shareholders — and paid its CEO $12 million in 2025 — while many Milwaukee families are struggling to make ends meet. 

“We have a runaway monopoly that are supposed to be stewards of a necessity, a necessity that we all need,” Rev. Steve Tipton, pastor of El Bethel Church of God in Christ on the city’s northwest side, said. “We need to be warm in the winter, and you know how Milwaukee is. Y’all know how Milwaukee is. And we need to be comfortable in the summer. You see how we are sweating right now. So imagine how homes and families and people that are working, people that are working with two and three jobs that are trying to take care of their children and still keep their household together, and still have to deal with a bill where they got to make a choice whether it’s going to be groceries, their medication, or the necessity of energy.” 

Throughout the rally, speakers explicitly tied the fight against the rate increase to the broader fight against climate change and pushing Wisconsin’s energy system to use more renewable energy. 

“Climate change is no longer some distant environmental problem, it is an issue of public health, infrastructure affordability, and ultimately human safety,” Yusuf Adama, a Beloit common council member and environmental justice advocate with Walnut Way, said. “And we continue to see another reason why we need to move from our dependence on volatile fossil fuels like methane gas when our energy systems depend on fuels whose prices can fluctuate because of markets and events far outside the control of other Wisconsinites.”

State Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee) was at the rally and hearing Tuesday, arguing that government officials should listen to the demands of the activists in Milwaukee on Tuesday and Wisconsinites who are fighting against data centers across the state. With Democrats confident they’ll win control of state government in November, he said he wanted to push for protections against data center-caused increases in energy and water use, cap utility rate increases at 2%, bar utility companies from lobbying and forcing more renewable energy development. 

Larson made that argument as Tiffany’s campaign for governor argues explicitly against renewable energy and for the increasing Wisconsin’s use of fossil fuels. 

“Tom Tiffany is lying through his teeth, or maybe he’s too dumb to realize,” that he’s been deceived by fossil fuel “propaganda,” Larson told the Examiner. “The cheapest form of energy is solar.” 

Adama, of the Beloit common council and Walnut Way, told the Examiner that while Tuesday’s hearing was about the rate increase, it’s important to keep the focus on the “cohesive set of circumstances” that form the state’s energy policies and push for broader policies to fight climate change.

Scientists say the strengthening El Niño is likely to be the largest ever recorded, increasing the chances of a warmer fall and winter in Wisconsin.

The post Strong El Niño may bring greater chances of warmer fall and winter in Wisconsin appeared first on WPR.

There’s no bigger issue in the Wisconsin governor’s race than data centers. Republican candidate Tom Tiffany, who was hoping to run on not canceling Thanksgiving, quickly pivoted after democratic socialist candidate Francesca Hong lost the primary, moving to capture the issue that galvanized Hong’s supporters: opposing data center development. Tiffany spent the first week of the general election campaign attacking his Democratic rival by labeling him “Data Center David Crowley,” warning that Crowley’s pro-data-center policies would mean “our lakes run dry, family farms paved over.” 

Crowley, meanwhile, has not come up with a message that satisfies the Hong supporters who embraced her call for a statewide moratorium on data center construction. Neither he nor Tiffany favors a moratorium. In fact, as Baylor Spears reports, despite Tiffany’s attacks, the two candidates don’t appear to be very far apart on data center regulation. Both say they will protect communities’ right to reject new data center construction; both say the state must ensure that ratepayers aren’t stuck with higher utility bills; both promise to protect Wisconsin’s land and water and insist on transparency in data center contracts. Both have also taken money from data center supporters — Crowley from the building trade unions that want to construct the new facilities, and Tiffany from the lobbyist for the Wisconsin Data Center Coalition, which supports nondisclosure agreements and data center tax exemptions.

Crowley, as the county executive of an industrial hub that has suffered from the loss of manufacturing jobs, has a more optimistic view of the job-creation and economic development potential of new technology than many voters in Wisconsin, a majority of whom see proposed hyperscale data centers as eyesores and energy hogs. But Tiffany, as Spears reports, is not that different. He voted for a bill in Congress that would have banned states from regulating AI and has called data centers “exciting new technology.”

What specific policies should Wisconsinites demand from their political leaders on data centers?

“There’s a simple answer,” says Joel Rogers, a University of Wisconsin professor who created a center for the study of “high-road” development based on shared prosperity, environmental sustainability and democracy. “First, inspect everything that has already been approved and make sure it conforms to labor, environmental and design standards,” Rogers says. “Second, no public money for people who are richer than Mammon. We are spending hundreds of millions on tax breaks we can’t afford on these data centers. That should stop immediately.”

Rogers is not against data centers in general. “Water and noise are the big issues,” he says. He wants to see strict regulation that compels companies to design structures that dampen noise pollution. Water use, he says, is not a big concern inside data centers with closed-loop, water recycling systems. Rather, it’s the massive generation of electricity that, without intelligent planning, will tax Wisconsin’s water supply. “If you produce energy in an inefficient way, it creates lots of excess heat,” he explains. “The way to cool it is with water. That’s catastrophic.” Discharging warm water into lakes and streams causes thermal shock, fish kills and algal blooms. 

But creating a more efficient and sustainable electric grid is, in Rogers’ view, a big potential upside of data center development. His hope is that data centers could spur serious investments in renewable energy and reduce the tremendous waste involved in our current electricity-generation system. That could mean more plentiful, cheaper power for ratepayers and a more rational, environmentally friendly energy grid.

“If you increase power production investment, that should be good for ratepayers, not bad,” Rogers says. “A bigger base means lower rates.”

The problems with data center development currently is “intermediate,” in Rogers’ view. “States are trying to attract data centers, there’s inappropriate siting, like in dry areas. It messes up farming and ordinary water usage.” 

“But if we are serious about climate we should be for heat pumps for all … electrify everything,” he adds.

Rogers’ position is similar to that of a candidate who didn’t get a lot of traction in the Democratic gubernatorial primary — state Sen. Kelda Roys. 

Roys’ plan to stop unregulated data center development includes passing a bill that gained 49 cosponsors in the Legislature, laying out sturdy environmental, labor and transparency regulations. In addition, Roys called for repealing tax subsidies and incentives for data center developers (something Crowley has declined to endorse), creating a statewide public negotiation team to help local communities drive a harder bargain with Big Tech firms, and demanding big upfront payments from those firms to fund a clean energy infrastructure bank. 

“Wisconsin has no fossil fuels, so every dollar we spend on hydrocarbons leaves our state,” Roys points out. Investing in clean energy is good for the state economy as well as the climate. Her plan leverages data center development to make a faster transition to a green economy. 

That’s a step further than Crowley has gone, although he is campaigning on a pledge to make data center developers “bring your own clean energy.” Tiffany has been attacking Crowley precisely for his clean energy pledge, warning that it will disfigure the landscape by blanketing Wisconsin with solar panels. A recent Tiffany campaign press release declared that “using solar to generate the equivalent annual electricity needed for just the Mount Pleasant and Port Washington data centers would consume roughly 100,000 acres of Wisconsin land.”

But just saying no to both renewable energy and data centers does not amount to a plan. For one thing, there are already 47 existing data centers in Wisconsin. Local communities are struggling over how to regulate them separately all over the state. Melissa Scanlan, the director of UW-Milwaukee’s Center for Water Policy, told the Examiner’s Henry Redman that Wisconsin’s failure to address data centers comprehensively will soon put a big strain on the state’s utilities.

“Doing it in a piecemeal way, where you’ve got local governments deciding about hosting, but then utilities that are committed to supplying the electricity and water, is going to very quickly bump up against the realities of our ability to generate electricity in a responsible way,” Scanlan told Redman. 

Rogers remains optimistic. “Data centers are coming, whether they are in Wisconsin or nearby it doesn’t matter,” he says. He doesn’t favor a moratorium in one state that drives massive hyperscale data center development over the border, when everyone in the region relies on the same water resources. “I’m not for rivalry and scarcity,” he says.

Instead, he maintains, thoughtful policymakers could address worries about data centers by creating policies that address the larger, existential environmental issues that confront us all. 

Imagine that.

Last week’s record-setting and hazardous wildfire smoke that covered much of the state for days limited several outdoor activities.

The post How wildfire smoke impacted Milwaukee Zoo animals and Apostle Islands economic activity appeared first on WPR.

The U.S. has had a busy tornado season so far, and the majority of the storms are blasting through the Midwest, east of what’s traditionally thought of as Tornado Alley.

The post Tornadoes are breaking records in Midwest states as Tornado Alley moves east appeared first on WPR.

The "super" El Niño the world is facing will mean a warmer winter in Wisconsin, but also potentially more pests, diseases and world-wide hunger.

The post How effects of a ‘super’ El Niño will feel in Wisconsin appeared first on WPR.

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Wisconsin needs to step it up and hold major climate polluters responsible for the damage they have caused. Fossil fuel corporations are polluting our world at the public’s expense, causing increasingly frequent climate disasters. The U.S. government provides an estimated $29.4 billion a year in direct subsidies, according to the Center for American Progress, a liberal-leaning think tank. While oil companies are gobbling up taxpayer money, the public is footing the bill for disaster cleanup. The good news is that there is a straightforward fix. Wisconsin can follow Vermont and New York’s lead by making the polluters pay. 

Vermont and New York have already created climate superfunds, which hold polluters accountable for their share in the billions of dollars in damages climate change is causing. These funds are accounts into which fossil fuel companies must pay, with the money used to help communities become more resilient to climate change.

The number of billion-dollar weather and climate disasters continues to grow in the U.S., with 23 occurring in just last year, according to Climate Central, a nonprofit organization that researches and reports facts about the changing climate. These disasters are not only happening in the South. They are right here in the Midwest. Wisconsin has been battered by an increasing number of extreme climate events in recent years. From tornadoes to hailstorms, it feels as though Wisconsin cannot catch a break. In April, another devastating hailstorm hit the east side of Madison and damaged hundreds of homes and cars with its baseball-sized hail.

Wisconsinites need to talk to their representatives and let them know that they are fed up with paying for climate-disaster-related damages while the fossil fuel companies earn record profits. The state needs resources to prepare for future climate disasters, and a Wisconsin climate superfund would fill that need. Please urge your state representatives to make polluters pay for climate damages.

Leo Rain is a Madison resident and member of the Madison chapter of Climate Changemakers, which describes itself as a “modern climate advocacy program built for busy, productive people who are looking for meaningful civic engagement.”

Guest opinion: Wisconsin should make polluters pay is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

If you think you're seeing less nature on your nature walks or fewer birds while birding, you're not wrong. WPR's Lee Rayburn spoke with a researcher on Wisconsin's striking biodiversity loss — and how we can get it back.

The post Biodiversity biopsy: How we can reverse species loss in Wisconsin appeared first on WPR.

As heat blazes across Wisconsin, a new analysis finds that the state’s hottest month has been growing even hotter due to climate change.

The post New analysis says Wisconsin’s hottest month is growing hotter for some cities appeared first on WPR.

A state climatology specialist breaks down what to expect for Wisconsin’s summer weather outlook, including the impact of El Niño.

The post ‘Precipitation ping-pong’ in Wisconsin leads to summer outlook challenges appeared first on WPR.

Despite regional variability in climate, electricity sources, congestion, and the wide variation in individual driving patterns, electric vehicles generate less greenhouse gas emissions and do not cost more than comparable gas-powered vehicles for drivers and vehicle fleet owners in most parts of the United States, according to a new study by MIT researchers.

The team’s approach captures many key factors that contribute to regional and individual differences in the life-cycle emissions and ownership cost of electric vehicles, including meteorological data, the distance and duration of trips, and fuel prices.

To paint a fuller picture of emissions and costs than was previously available, the researchers sourced data from thousands of U.S. zip codes and drilled down to the level of individual drivers within those locations. Their study considers time-averaged fuel prices so as not to be overly influenced by fluctuations in prices at any one point in time. They finalized their analysis at the end of 2024 and early 2025.

Their results indicate that a person’s driving behaviors can matter as much as regional factors like the local electricity mix when it comes to the emissions savings of an electric vehicle, compared to a similar gas-powered vehicle. In most locations, a battery-electric vehicle reduces emissions between 40 and 60 percent, with larger impacts in urban areas. 

They also found that colder climates do not reduce overall emission benefits as much as some media reports assume.

The researchers utilized this detailed analysis to update a public tool they previously developed, carboncounter.com, which enables individuals to compare the life-cycle emissions and total ownership costs of nearly any car on the market. A new version of carboncounter.com is also being released today.

“There are a lot of statements being thrown around, like that electric vehicles don’t reduce emissions very much in cool climates, and we wanted to analyze these factors systematically and evaluate these statements against one another simultaneously. Rather than simply asking, ‘Are EVs better?’, this paper helps answer ‘better for whom, and under what conditions?’” says Marco Miotti PhD ’20, a senior researcher at ETH Zurich who completed this research while a graduate student in the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS) at MIT. 

He is joined on the paper by senior author Jessika Trancik, a professor in IDSS. The research appears today in Environmental Research Letters.

A holistic approach

Many prior studies that compare emissions and costs of electric vehicles (EVs) to combustion-engine vehicles cover a few factors, like the amount of renewable energy in the grid and how gas prices impact affordability, Miotti says.

“To our knowledge, there have been few efforts so far that bring all these factors together. But if someone wants to buy a car and have a better understanding of the factors that affect emissions and costs, this holistic approach is important,” he adds.

The researchers focused on two types of EVs: battery-electric vehicles, which only operate on electricity, and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, which also have a combustion engine that works in tandem with the battery to optimize fuel savings.

The team expanded and improved a set of previously developed vehicle cost and emissions models to incorporate a wider variety of factors and data types.

For instance, they refined an existing model that estimates energy use and gas mileage so it could capture more nuances of local climate variability. 

“But the real effort was not just in extending these different models, but in bringing together all these different data and making them work with the models in a consistent manner,” Miotti says.

The team sourced data on a wide variety of factors for each U.S. zip code, such as typical drive cycles, the amount of traffic, local gas and electricity prices, makeup of the regional electricity mix, meteorological profiles, and more. They used statistical approaches to amalgamate different types of data. 

For example, the team used a probabilistic matching technique to combine data on how often people drive, which was drawn from nationwide travel surveys, with more detailed GPS data that includes factors like drivers’ acceleration patterns and the distance they usually drive on each day of the week.

The researchers designed their analysis to focus on the spatial picture of emissions and costs, based on U.S. zip codes, while simultaneously considering the impact of the size and features of each specific vehicle model.

“At the end of the day, it’s the vehicle and fleet owners who make decisions about vehicle purchases. So, we wanted to make sure to consider their wide-ranging individual perspectives rather than simply performing a region-by-region comparison,” says Trancik.

Lower emissions, comparable costs

In the end, their modeling framework revealed that all factors they analyzed matter about equally in determining emissions-reduction potential of EVs compared to internal combustion vehicles. 

EVs reduce emissions the most in areas with a cleaner electricity mix, denser traffic, higher annual travel distances, and a mild climate, in decreasing order of importance. In each area, emission reductions increase for drivers who drive more often, drive larger vehicles, and are more frequently stuck in traffic. 

In a colder area like North Dakota, fuel economy of battery-electric vehicles might be reduced by as much as 50 percent on a particularly frigid night, but the effect on annual emission benefits is minimal. 

“We even did a sensitivity study to see if the range is reduced in very cold climates, and we found that, even in the most unfavorable conditions, EVs still reduce emissions by a substantial amount,” Miotti says.

On the cost side, the models show that, in most places across the U.S., EVs are competitive with comparable combustion-engine vehicles in terms of lifetime ownership cost, even without clean vehicle tax credits. And in areas where electricity is relatively affordable, battery-electric vehicles tend to cost less than their plug-in hybrid or combustion-engine counterparts.

In the future, the researchers want to expand this analysis to include a temporal dimension, so the framework also considers how changes in vehicle, fuel, and electricity prices affect emissions and costs over time. 

“While we found that the electricity mix is a big driver of the spatial variation in emissions savings of EVs, the electricity grid is decarbonizing everywhere. As that happens, emissions savings across space will become more homogenous for EVs, but the differences across one driver to another will remain,” Miotti says.

They could also use the framework to explore regions outside the United States or incorporate data on hybrid-electric vehicles that cannot be plugged in.

This work was funded, in part, by the MIT Martin Family Society of Fellows for Sustainability.

© Credit: iStock

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Climate researchers predict storms that produce golf ball-size or larger hail will become more frequent, thanks to climate change.

According to a 2024 study by Northern Illinois University, a warmer climate increases water vapor in the air, which provides energy for thunderstorms like those seen April 14, 2026, in Wisconsin that produced large hail.

Hail is created when strong updrafts of air are pushed up into the colder atmosphere, freezing water droplets and pushing them around, making the droplets bigger and bigger. Eventually, those hailstones get too heavy and fall to earth. 

“Our study suggests golf ball-size hail or larger will become more common because of more atmospheric instability, which leads to stronger thunderstorm updrafts,” NIU Atmospheric Science Professor Victor Gensini said.

A 2017 study in Nature that looked at historic patterns and forecasts also found hailstone size is expected to increase due to climate change.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• Nature journal Climate and Atmospheric Science: Hailstone size dichotomy in a warming climate
• Nature Climate Change: The changing hail threat over North America in response to anthropogenic climate change
• Accuweather: Is climate change making hailstones larger?
• BBC: How climate change is leading to bigger hailstones

Is golf ball-sized hail expected to increase due to climate change? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Four New Nuclear Reactors and Forever Radioactive Waste in Calhoun County, Texas First Intervention Against SMRs in the U.S. LONG MOTT, Texas – This week, San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper (Waterkeeper) intervened to stop four proposed experimental nuclear power reactors targeted for Long Mott, Texas – a community in coastal Calhoun County – the first …

The post San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper Challenges  appeared first on Alternative Energy HQ.

Jessika Trancik, a professor in MIT’s Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, has been named the new director of the Sociotechnical Systems Research Center (SSRC), effective July 1. The SSRC convenes and supports researchers focused on problems and solutions at the intersection of technology and its societal impacts.

Trancik conducts research on technology innovation and energy systems. At the Trancik Lab, she and her team develop methods drawing on engineering knowledge, data science, and policy analysis. Their work examines the pace and drivers of technological change, helping identify where innovation is occurring most rapidly, how emerging technologies stack up against existing systems, and which performance thresholds matter most for real-world impact. Her models have been used to inform government innovation policy and have been applied across a wide range of industries.

“Professor Trancik’s deep expertise in the societal implications of technology, and her commitment to developing impactful solutions across industries, make her an excellent fit to lead SSRC,” says Maria C. Yang, interim dean of engineering and William E. Leonhard (1940) Professor of Mechanical Engineering.

Much of Trancik’s research focuses on the domain of energy systems, and establishing methods for energy technology evaluation, including of their costs, performance, and environmental impacts. She covers a wide range of energy services — including electricity, transportation, heating, and industrial processes. Her research has applications in solar and wind energy, energy storage, low-carbon fuels, electric vehicles, and nuclear fission. Trancik is also known for her research on extreme events in renewable energy availability.

A prolific researcher, Trancik has helped measure progress and inform the development of solar photovoltaics, batteries, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and other low-carbon technologies — and anticipate future trends. One of her widely cited contributions includes quantifying learning rates and identifying where targeted investments can most effectively accelerate innovation. These tools have been used by U.S. federal agencies, international organizations, and the private sector to shape energy R&D portfolios, climate policy, and infrastructure planning.

Trancik is committed to engaging and informing the public on energy consumption. She and her team developed the app carboncounter.com, which helps users choose cars with low costs and low environmental impacts.

As an educator, Trancik teaches courses for students across MIT’s five schools and the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing.

“The question guiding my teaching and research is how do we solve big societal challenges with technology, and how can we be more deliberate in developing and supporting technologies to get us there?” Trancik said in an article about course IDS.521/IDS.065 (Energy Systems for Climate Change Mitigation).

Trancik received her undergraduate degree in materials science and engineering from Cornell University. As a Rhodes Scholar, she completed her PhD in materials science at the University of Oxford. She subsequently worked for the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, and the Earth Institute at Columbia University. After serving as an Omidyar Research Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute, she joined MIT in 2010 as a faculty member.

Trancik succeeds Fotini Christia, the Ford International Professor of Social Sciences in the Department of Political Science and director of IDSS, who previously served as director of SSRC.

(WASHINGTON, DC) — Today, it was reported that the Trump administration is preparing to cancel $7 billion in federal solar grants intended to help low- and moderate-income families access rooftop and community solar. The decision would eliminate the Solar for All program, a cornerstone of recent federal efforts to lower energy costs and expand access to clean …

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New Poll: American Voters Support Federal Investments in Electric Vehicles Broad, Bipartisan Support for EV Investments and Incentives that Lower Costs, Expand Access, and Help the U.S. Beat China in the Race for Auto Manufacturing WASHINGTON, D.C. – A new bipartisan national poll conducted by Meeting Street Insights and Hart Research finds broad public support …

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As a major contributor to global carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, the transportation sector has immense potential to advance decarbonization. However, a zero-emissions global supply chain requires re-imagining reliance on a heavy-duty trucking industry that emits 810,000 tons of CO₂, or 6 percent of the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions, and consumes 29 billion gallons of diesel annually in the U.S. alone.

A new study by MIT researchers, presented at the recent American Society of Mechanical Engineers 2024 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, quantifies the impact of a zero-emission truck’s design range on its energy storage requirements and operational revenue. The multivariable model outlined in the paper allows fleet owners and operators to better understand the design choices that impact the economic feasibility of battery-electric and hydrogen fuel cell heavy-duty trucks for commercial application, equipping stakeholders to make informed fleet transition decisions.

“The whole issue [of decarbonizing trucking] is like a very big, messy pie. One of the things we can do, from an academic standpoint, is quantify some of those pieces of pie with modeling, based on information and experience we’ve learned from industry stakeholders,” says ZhiYi Liang, PhD student on the renewable hydrogen team at the MIT K. Lisa Yang Global Engineering and Research Center (GEAR) and lead author of the study. Co-authored by Bryony DuPont, visiting scholar at GEAR, and Amos Winter, the Germeshausen Professor in the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering, the paper elucidates operational and socioeconomic factors that need to be considered in efforts to decarbonize heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs).

Operational and infrastructure challenges

The team’s model shows that a technical challenge lies in the amount of energy that needs to be stored on the truck to meet the range and towing performance needs of commercial trucking applications. Due to the high energy density and low cost of diesel, existing diesel drivetrains remain more competitive than alternative lithium battery-electric vehicle (Li-BEV) and hydrogen fuel-cell-electric vehicle (H2 FCEV) drivetrains. Although Li-BEV drivetrains have the highest energy efficiency of all three, they are limited to short-to-medium range routes (under 500 miles) with low freight capacity, due to the weight and volume of the onboard energy storage needed. In addition, the authors note that existing electric grid infrastructure will need significant upgrades to support large-scale deployment of Li-BEV HDVs.

While the hydrogen-powered drivetrain has a significant weight advantage that enables higher cargo capacity and routes over 750 miles, the current state of hydrogen fuel networks limits economic viability, especially once operational cost and projected revenue are taken into account. Deployment will most likely require government intervention in the form of incentives and subsidies to reduce the price of hydrogen by more than half, as well as continued investment by corporations to ensure a stable supply. Also, as H2-FCEVs are still a relatively new technology, the ongoing design of conformal onboard hydrogen storage systems — one of which is the subject of Liang’s PhD — is crucial to successful adoption into the HDV market.

The current efficiency of diesel systems is a result of technological developments and manufacturing processes established over many decades, a precedent that suggests similar strides can be made with alternative drivetrains. However, interactions with fleet owners, automotive manufacturers, and refueling network providers reveal another major hurdle in the way that each “slice of the pie” is interrelated — issues must be addressed simultaneously because of how they affect each other, from renewable fuel infrastructure to technological readiness and capital cost of new fleets, among other considerations. And first steps into an uncertain future, where no one sector is fully in control of potential outcomes, is inherently risky. 

“Besides infrastructure limitations, we only have prototypes [of alternative HDVs] for fleet operator use, so the cost of procuring them is high, which means there isn’t demand for automakers to build manufacturing lines up to a scale that would make them economical to produce,” says Liang, describing just one step of a vicious cycle that is difficult to disrupt, especially for industry stakeholders trying to be competitive in a free market. 

Quantifying a path to feasibility

“Folks in the industry know that some kind of energy transition needs to happen, but they may not necessarily know for certain what the most viable path forward is,” says Liang. Although there is no singular avenue to zero emissions, the new model provides a way to further quantify and assess at least one slice of pie to aid decision-making.

Other MIT-led efforts aimed at helping industry stakeholders navigate decarbonization include an interactive mapping tool developed by Danika MacDonell, Impact Fellow at the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium (MCSC); alongside Florian Allroggen, executive director of MITs Zero Impact Aviation Alliance; and undergraduate researchers Micah Borrero, Helena De Figueiredo Valente, and Brooke Bao. The MCSC’s Geospatial Decision Support Tool supports strategic decision-making for fleet operators by allowing them to visualize regional freight flow densities, costs, emissions, planned and available infrastructure, and relevant regulations and incentives by region.

While current limitations reveal the need for joint problem-solving across sectors, the authors believe that stakeholders are motivated and ready to tackle climate problems together. Once-competing businesses already appear to be embracing a culture shift toward collaboration, with the recent agreement between General Motors and Hyundai to explore “future collaboration across key strategic areas,” including clean energy. 

Liang believes that transitioning the transportation sector to zero emissions is just one part of an “energy revolution” that will require all sectors to work together, because “everything is connected. In order for the whole thing to make sense, we need to consider ourselves part of that pie, and the entire system needs to change,” says Liang. “You can’t make a revolution succeed by yourself.” 

The authors acknowledge the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium for connecting them with industry members in the HDV ecosystem; and the MIT K. Lisa Yang Global Engineering and Research Center and MIT Morningside Academy for Design for financial support.

© Photo: Bob Adams/Flickr