heat-trapping greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, which will favor additional warming,” says Steve Vavrus, senior scientist and state climatologist at the Nelson Institute Center for Climatic Research with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, based in Madison, Wisconsin. “Whether that expresses itself as global temperature increase every year in the next few years is hard to say. That depends more on other factors, such as whether we have an El Nino or a La Nina, whether there’s any big volcanic eruptions and things like this.” These warming tempera-


tures have a direct effect on the severity of several types of natural disasters. “When it comes to say wild-


fires, we’re creating hotter and often drier conditions that are favorable for wildfires,” Vavrus says. “When it comes to hurricanes, we’re creating warmer ocean surface waters that provide fuel for hurricanes above and beyond what they already have. When it comes to heavy rainfalls, we’re putting more moisture into the atmosphere so that when weath- er conditions are suitable, we can wring out more rainfall.” Vavrus says Hurricane Helene


and Milton were good recent ex- amples of this occurring as these hurricanes rapidly strengthened while passing over the warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico. “These Category Four, Catego-


ry Five hurricanes may become more common than they have been in the past, but the overall number of hurricanes may not increase,” Vavrus says. Similarly, Vavrus expects more


extreme rainfall in the future as physically warmer air can hold more moisture. “If there’s more moisture in the


air, a big, juicy, humid air mass, and a thunderstorm erupts that means that that thunderstorm has a lot more moisture to draw from to produce torrential rainfall,” Vavrus says.


Another possible concern is mild winters, which can confuse plants and lead to premature develop- ment.


“In the winter, the plants are


tricked into thinking it’s spring, even though it may only be February, and then they’re very vulnerable to a subsequent cold wave,” Vavrus says. Cold winters are also effec-


tive at killing off detrimental insects that harm plants, and if it doesn’t get cold enough for the winter kill-off, that can create real problems. “I know certain types of tree beetles have become a nuisance in parts of the country because there’s just not enough extremely cold air anymore as there used to be to kill off those pests,” Vavrus says. Vavrus says the trend toward


more wildfires, more intense rain- falls and more extreme heat will likely continue. He says landscape companies should seek out heat tolerance in plants as well as those that can handle higher precipitation variability. He says there’s evidence we’ll


start seeing more flip-flops between extremely dry and wet conditions. “That is more of a challenge because that means you have to adapt to two different types of changes instead of just one, but that’s important,” Vavrus says. “In Wisconsin, we’ve seen some dramatic examples of that, just in the last year and a half, going from very, very wet to very, very dry very quickly.” Vavrus adds that landscape companies can help by pre- venting de-vegetation and soil erosion on properties. He says adding any sort of plant life helps and increasing canopies in cities can help offset the intensity of heat waves. “Anything that any of us can


do to reduce our carbon footprint is a good idea,” Vavrus says. He encourages thinking about landscapes and plants like trees in the long term. “It’s not just what’s a good


climate for a certain tree species locally, but thinking ahead to what type of climate is going to exist in this location in 20, 30, 50 years during the lifetime of a tree,” Vavrus says. TE


National Association of Landscape Professionals 23


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