On Tuesday March 17, EPN hosted a Zoom Webinar-based program instead of our standard EPN in-person breakfast program.

This EPN Zoom Webinar-based program, co-hosted with the Water Management Association of Ohio (WMAO), the Ohio Water Resources Center, and TerrAqua (a multi-disciplinary student organization at Ohio State), occurred through an online format instead of our standard EPN in-person breakfast program.

Numerous research agencies, including the U.S. Global Change Research Program, find that in the U.S. Midwest a variety of weather-related challenges are currently, and will increasingly, impact our local communities through such issues as extreme precipitation events and flooding, decreases in lake ice and snow cover, and increases in urban heat islands and drought nca2018.globalchange.gov/chapter/21/). These water-climate relationships are complex, dynamic and can be challenging to communicate.

Join this program as we learn about the interactions between the water cycle, changing weather patterns, and how to understand and communicate these issues in natural resource management. This program is in alignment with the March 22, 2020 World Water Day theme, which is “about water and climate change – and how the two are inextricably linked.” (learn more at worldwaterday.org). Thanks to our colleagues at the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center at Ohio State for helping to frame this program’s agenda.

This program features:

Joe Campbell, Ph.D. director, EPN, Hannah Comune, president, TerrAqua, and Eugene Braig, program director of aquatic ecosystems (SENR) and board president, WMAO, provide welcome remarks and program introduction

Bryan Mark, Ph.D., professor, Department of Geography and State Climatologist of Ohio, and Michael Durand, Ph.D., professor, School of Earth Sciences, present on the changing cryosphere in Earth's water cycle

Kim Channell, climatologist, Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments presents Climate Change in the Great Lakes

Robyn Wilson, Ph.D., professor, SENR, presents Communicating climate change and promoting action in the Great Lakes

Audience Q & A with Dr. Durand, Ms. Channell, and Dr. Wilson

Concluding remarks by Jeff Sharp, Ph.D., director, School of Environment and Natural Resources, and Karina Peggau, education and outreach program coordinator, Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center