How should Minnesota approach climate change action in the years to come?

Minnesotans can have a voice in that process by commenting on the state's latest proposed Climate Action Framework, a comprehensive plan laying out steps Minnesota should take to address climate change and reach a carbon-free future.

The last framework was released in 2022 and established a statewide target to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. That framework was adopted into state law in 2023.

Kate Knuth, climate director for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, shared more about the framework and how people can get involved on this week’s Climate Cast.

Click play on the audio player above to listen to this episode or subscribe to the Climate Cast podcast.

Almost 15 million acres in the Midwest grow corn on the same land year after year. That’s about 20 percent of all Midwest cropland.

Growing corn in this way produces more greenhouse gas emissions than crop rotation because it releases more nitrous oxide — a greenhouse gas 300 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.

That’s according to a new report from the Environmental Working Group.

But cost-effective, climate-smart practices can reduce these emissions in a big way.

Anne Schechinger is lead author of the analysis, and she shared more about the findings as well as solutions to offset the climate impacts of continuous corn with Climate Cast host Paul Huttner.

Click play on the audio player above to listen to this episode, or subscribe to the Climate Cast podcast.

Seasonal migration is underway, and Minnesota's landscape is playing an important role in guiding birds down south.

But milder winters across the state can impact the migration process, as well as disrupt food availability and breeding opportunities.

“This [is] what we call migratory connectivity,” said Lynn Schofield, a biology instructor and staff biologist at St. Olaf College, “which is to connect all the dots between where the birds are spending their summers, where are they spending their winters and all of the places that they need to go between their summer and winter habitat.”

MPR News meteorologist Paul Huttner talked with Schofield about warmer winters in Minnesota and how it’s disrupting summer and winter habitats.

Click play on the audio player above to listen to this episode, or subscribe to the Climate Cast podcast.

Federal tax credits for solar projects are expiring at the end of this year, and some smaller towns in rural Minnesota have tapped into the benefits.

For Climate Cast this week, MPR News meteorologist Paul Huttner talks to Minnesota Star Tribune reporter Kristoffer Tigue about the skepticism around solar power that many small and local governments had adopted over the years and the economic benefits that changed their minds.

Minnesota continues to bask in warmer temperatures, blurring our seasons together.

“If you break it up month by month, the biggest change we've seen is Septembers,” said Pete Boulay, assistant state climatologist with the Minnesota State Climate Office. “September is evolving into an extension of summer.”

Average temperatures for the fall season have been warming up about one degree a decade since 1970.

“Averages used to be, statewide, about 55 degrees,” Boulay said. “Now we’re about 61 degrees for September temperatures, and we’ve had a lot more warmer than cooler Septembers since 2010.”

MPR News chief meteorologist Paul Huttner talked with Boulay about the state’s fastest warming month and how it could impact fall colors.

To hear the full conversation, click play on the audio player above or subscribe to the Climate Cast podcast.

New research indicates warmer oceans may change ocean currents and atmospheric patterns in a big way.

In this episode of Climate Cast, MPR News chief meteorologist Paul Huttner continues his conversation with John Abraham of the University of St. Thomas about shifting currents in the Atlantic Ocean and the importance of measuring ocean temperatures.

Climate scientists have known about connections between oceans and the atmosphere for decades, but new research indicates warmer oceans may change ocean currents and atmospheric patterns in a big way.

MPR News chief meteorologist Paul Huttner talked with John Abraham of the University of St. Thomas about shifting ocean currents in the Atlantic Ocean.

The following has been lightly edited for clarity. Click play on the audio player above to listen to this episode, or subscribe to the Climate Cast podcast.

There’s what's called a conveyor belt in the ocean, and this is water that travels up the East Coast of the United States and then goes toward Greenland, Iceland and Northern Europe. The water gets cold, sinks to the bottom of the ocean and then it travels backward.

It sort of goes in a like a loop — or a conveyor belt. That passageway of water is really, really important because it brings heat up to Europe, and it’s the reason why England’s temperatures are much more mild.

These scientists discovered that this conveyor belt of water is slowing down, and it will likely stop in the future. It's going to have really crazy consequences for our climate.

This event will likely make Europe colder. If this current shuts down, the heat from the ocean won’t go up all the way to Europe. But the paradox is that this is a result of global warming. So, as the Earth warms, we’re going to have some parts of the planet get really, really hot, and we’re actually going to have some parts get colder.

Europe will be one part of the planet that will have this paradoxical outcome of getting colder as the rest of the world gets warmer.

It's going to make our weather more wild. We’re going to have more extremes, especially the hot extremes. It’s going to increase temperatures in the Midwest, and it’s going to also make precipitation events more extreme. In Minnesota, we’ve seen this weather whiplash recently — where we go from cold and dry to hot and wet, back to maybe hot and dry — and we go from one extreme to the other. That is going to become even more significant as climate change continues.

But one of the problems we’ve found is what's called a tipping point. And it’s a tipping point where, once you cross it, you can’t stop. It's like a locomotive going down a train track. You can’t just pull the brakes and stop it instantaneously.

So this process has started, and it’s going to evolve over about 100 years. Even if humans take drastic action to reduce greenhouse gasses, that’s not likely going to stop this shutdown of this current.

It looks like we’ve passed over a threshold, and the natural tendency of the ocean is to change its circulation in a way that redistributes heat. It looks like there’s not much we can do to stop it.

The second part of this conversation about shifting ocean currents and climate change will be published next week.

The jet stream, a fast-moving river of air thousands feet above Earth, steers storms and weather systems around the globe.

Scientists have been studying how climate changes impact the jet stream for decades. Now, one study in the scientific journal Nature, discovered a jet stream behavior change.

“The jet streams are shifting,” said Larry Di Girolamo, professor and climate researcher with the University of Illinois.

Di Girolamo worked with NASA to gather statistics from Earth’s atmosphere through the launch of a satellite carrying a Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer. Over the span of 25 years, his research showed that both subtropical and polar jet streams are shifting position and speed, leading to a change in weather patterns.

“And this will continue as long as we continue to increase carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,” Di Girolamo said.

To hear the full conversation, click play on the audio player above or subscribe to the Climate Cast podcast.

Summer is in its waning weeks and weather at the Great Minnesota Get-Together has been fair — for the most part. 

MPR News meteorologists Paul Huttner, Sven Sunggard and Mandy Thalhuber hosted their annual Climate Cast conversation in front of an audience at the Minnesota State Fair. 

Together, they reflected on weather patterns from all four seasons. Audience members shared their questions, too, about Minnesota’s changing climate and shifting climate patterns.

This discussion was recorded at the Minnesota State Fair on Aug. 27. To hear the full conversation, click play on the audio player above or subscribe to the Climate Cast podcast.

Fireflies across the U.S. have seen a robust surge in growth this summer in part to a wetter weather pattern.

But those fiery little critters — which some call lightning bugs — might be in a steady decline.

“Insect populations are known to vary from year to year,” said Eric Berger, a freelance journalist for The Guardian. “A one-year increase is not enough to indicate that there has been a reversal in the downward trajectory of fireflies.”

Berger added that scientists do not have baseline data for firefly species and only recently started to monitor populations.

“A lot of what they're using is anecdotal evidence, but they have started to set up monitoring sites to inventory fireflies so that they can determine whether the population has increased or decreased,” he said.

Of the studies conducted so far, Berger says fireflies face a number of threats from extended periods of drought due to climate change, light pollution, habitat destruction and the use of pesticides.

To hear the full conversation, click play on the audio player above or subscribe to the Climate Cast podcast.