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Climate change has registered barely a peep in the presidential contest between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. But no matter who wins on Nov. 6, the next occupant of the Oval Office is likely to become the first "climate president."

Nature, it seems, is poised to force the issue onto the national agenda, casting its vote through record-shattering heat waves, droughts, floods and wildfires. In 2012 - a year expected to break the record for the highest global average temperature:

Nearly two-thirds of the United States suffered moderate to severe drought, with more than half of all counties declared drought disaster zones. Corn production was the lowest in 17 years, driving prices to an all-time high.

A heat wave covered most of the country for much of the summer, with July the hottest month ever recorded in the continental U.S.

Wildfires, driven by heat, drought and last winter's minimal snowpack, broke out across the West, totaling an estimated half-billion dollars in damage.

Other anomalies included record flooding in Florida, the driest winter ever in California and a July windstorm that tore a 700-mile path from the Midwest to the East Coast, costing hundreds of millions of dollars and cutting electrical power for days.

Climate change can't be proven to cause any particular event, but global warming greatly increases the odds of extreme weather - and the world's temperature has been rising since we began burning fossil fuels and pouring carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping pollutants into the atmosphere. The rate of warming turned sharply upward in the 1970s and continues to accelerate.

The incidence and severity of extreme weather also have been rising, and people are taking notice. A recent survey by Yale University found that a large and growing majority of Americans - 74% - believe that global warming is affecting weather in the U.S. Twenty percent of poll respondents said they had "suffered harm to their health, property and/or finances from an extreme heat wave in the past year." Another 15% claimed to have been directly affected by drought.

That number is likely to rise in the years ahead as climate change hits people in their pocketbooks. Drought-induced crop losses mean higher food prices. Severe storms inflict property damage, which now averages $36 billion per year - a fourfold annual increase since the 1980s - driving up insurance rates. Heat waves boost electric bills for those who have air conditioning,and illness and mortality among those who do not.

Whoever wins this election will take office in a rapidly changing environment, and while we should take action to slow climate change, the reality is that there is no going back. The first climate president will face policy choices governing coastal zones, federal lands, agriculture and energy, all within a new climate.

For example, the administration will need to consider forest management policies in the face of radically changing wildfire risks. What resources will be needed for federal entities like the Forest Service as well as states and communities?

Floods and rising sea levels pose new problems in planning. What support or development standards might be required for public infrastructure to address risks and what revisions in federal flood insurance might be necessary?

Drought is likely to become normal in areas where it has never been seen and critical where it was already common. What agricultural policies and price supports best align with conditions of scarce rainfall and water shortages?

And climate extremes in urban centers mean new health risks. What public health measures and emergency plans will need to be put in place?

Inevitably, the federal government will be forced to allocate resources, make hard decisions and adapt to new climate conditions. The question is, will Congress and the executive branch respond reactively in a grim game of whack-a-mole? Or will they get ahead of change, develop a plan to respond and even begin to imagine new and better ways to organize our communities and economy?

Ready or not, this new reality - and all its challenges and opportunities - will force its way onto the agenda of the first climate president.

Paul Robbins is a geographer and the director of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.