Deb Bathke:
Nebraska State Climatologist
Wachiska Program and General Meeting —
Thursday, April 10, 7:00 p.m., Unitarian Church,
6300 A Street, and also via YouTube
In 2008, Dr. Deb Bathke relocated from New Mexico to join the NDMC, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s School of Natural Resources and Department of Geosciences. Bathke spent the previous three years as the assistant state climatologist in New Mexico, where she chaired the state’s Drought Monitoring Working Group. She represented New Mexico in the Climate Assessment for the Southwest program, or CLIMAS, which is one of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Regional Integrated Science Assessment programs.
Among the projects she collaborated on were adapting the Dynamic Drought Index for Basins in the Carolinas to the Southwest; implementing a western version of the AgClimate Tools developed by the Southeast Climate Consortium; and convening technical workshops on tree-ring reconstructions of streamflow.
Bathke is supervising ongoing student research on urban landscaping and drought, and is on the Program Implementation Team of the National Integrated Drought Information System. She was the lead author of the state’s 2014 climate change impact assessment, Understanding and Assessing Climate Change: Implications for Nebraska. Before working at UNL, she served as the Assistant State Climatologist for New Mexico. Originally from Ponca, Dr. Bathke is a native Nebraskan. She earned her BS and MS from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a PhD in Atmospheric Sciences from The Ohio State University.
Join Wachiska on Thursday, April 10, at 7:00 p.m. at Lincoln’s Unitarian Church, 6300 A Street, to learn more about Dr. Deb Bathke. This free, public, in-person talk will also be live-streamed on YouTube at:
https://youtube.com/live/MDayra_UvkI?feature=share
No registration needed. This program can also be viewed at a later time. Check Wachiska’s website for links to past programs.
Lincoln City Council Candidate Forum March 20
by Mark Brohman
Several conservation and environmental organizations, including Bluestem Chapter of Nebraska Sierra Club, Citizen Climate Lobby, Climate Justice Team - Saint Paul United Methodist Church, Coalition for Environmental Improvement, Elder Climate Legacy, Friends of Wilderness Park, Green@Heart - Westminster Presbyterian Church, Green Sanctuary Committee - Unitarian Church of Lincoln, Nebraska Interfaith Power and Light, First Plymouth Congregational Church Climate Action, Nebraskans for Peace, and Wachiska Audubon are sponsoring a Lincoln City Council Candidate Forum on March 20.
All candidates are invited to attend the forum from 7:00 - 8:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Church of Lincoln, 6300 A Street. The event is free and open to the public with light refreshments being served. The event will be live-streamed and recorded on Zoom. Following the forum, there will be a brief social to connect with fellow attendees and chat with the candidates. Randy Bretz will serve as moderator. Please RSVP at https://forms.gle/HgNFXpwuMkNtUuxp9 if you can.
Candidates will be allowed opening and closing statements and will be given 1.5 minutes to respond to each question. People will be able to submit questions on index cards, and those online can submit questions in the chat box during the forum. Volunteers will screen them and provide them to the moderator. The filing deadline for the City Council is March 7.
We have a couple of events coming up this month with Return of the Thunderbirds: April 5 at the Lincoln Indian Center, Lincoln Earth Day:April 19 at Innovation Campus, and Arbor Day celebration: April 27 in Antelope Park. The 50th annual Great Plains Conference is taking place April 8-10, at Innovation Campus and I will be moderating a panel on bison with speakers from Nebraska and South Dakota giving updates on bison on the Great Plains.
