By TYLER ELLYSON
UNK Communications
KEARNEY – The Weather Channel’s Greg Forbes will discuss climate change and its impact on severe weather during an upcoming event at the University of Nebraska at Kearney.
The panel discussion is scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday (April 9) in Copeland Hall Room 142 on the UNK campus.
It also includes Nebraska State Climatologist Martha Shulski, an associate professor of applied climate science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and director of the Nebraska State Climate Office; Al Dutcher, an agricultural climatologist with UNL Extension and the Nebraska State Climate Office; and William Wozniak, a psychology professor at UNK.
Forbes has been a severe weather expert for The Weather Channel since 1999, studying and forecasting dangerous thunderstorms and tornadoes.
He received his Bachelor of Science degree in meteorology from Penn State University and Master of Science and doctorate degrees from the University of Chicago, where he studied tornadoes and severe thunderstorms under professor Tetsuya “Ted” Fujita, who developed the Fujita Scale, or F Scale, used to rate the severity of tornadoes and discovered microbursts and their link to commercial airline crashes.
Forbes also served as a faculty member in the Department of Meteorology at Penn State and is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society.
The panel discussion, hosted by the Sigma Xi Scientific Research Honor Society at UNK, will be followed by a question-and-answer session for audience members. The event is free and open to the public.
“In the Midwest, it is expected that extreme heat, heavy downpours and flooding will affect infrastructure, health, agriculture, forestry, transportation and air and water quality,” said event organizer Allen Thomas, an assistant chemistry professor at UNK. “The UNK chapter of Sigma Xi hopes this panel discussion will provide the public with important information about climate change, its effect on weather and how it will impact their lives in the coming years.”
Other panel members:
- Shulski runs a statewide weather network with 64 reporting stations in 44 counties, including four in Buffalo and Kearney counties. She has been an applied climatologist for 16 years with a background in meteorology, agronomy and soil science.
- Dutcher, who has been a state climatologist since 1991, is a Nebraska expert in crop-climate relationships, soil moisture and drought monitoring and climate and precipitation forecasting.
- Wozniak is a cognitive psychologist who has taught at UNK for 40 years. He recently co-edited the book “Psychological Specialties in Historical Context: Enriching the Classroom Experience for Teachers and Students.” His presentation will address factors that cause personal beliefs to stray from scientific findings.
