Steve Vavrus is a Senior Scientist in the Nelson Institute Center for Climatic Research at UW-Madison and is the Wisconsin State Climatologist. He is an expert on Wisconsin climatology, extreme weather, global climate change, and Arctic climate. Most of his research involves computer climate models, which provide quantitative estimates of changes in Earth’s climate in the past (paleoclimate) and future.
Steve serves as director of the State Climatology Office, which provides climate services to stakeholders across Wisconsin. He is also co-director of the Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts (WICCI) and a member of its Climate Working Group. Steve is the assistant director of the Nelson Institute Center for Climatic Research and the former chair of the American Meteorological Society's Polar Meteorology and Oceanography Committee. He earned an M.S. and Ph.D. in atmospheric sciences from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and received a B.S. degree in meteorology from Purdue University.
