With Better Climate Data, A Push To Use It To Prepare For Climate Impacts
Scientists are getting more and better data on our changing climate. Now, there's a push to use it to help people cope with the extremes we know are coming.
In a cow pasture near Shawnee in central Oklahoma, Kirk Wilson parks his work truck, grabs a harness, and prepares for a 30-foot climb.
"We're changing the sensor at the top of the tower that measures the wind direction," explains Wilson, a burly meteorological electronics technician with a big beard and a booming laugh. On the ground, anotherOklahoma has 120 of these stations scattered across the state, one of the country's largest and most sophisticated "mesonets," a moniker that references the meteorological term "mesoscale," describing where most storms and atmospheric events occur.
