Watch a Special Extended Edition of "WX Geeks" This Sunday @ 12P, Only on The Weather Channel

For the full interview, tune in this Sunday at 12P for a special hour-long Wx Geeks!

Jane Goodall’s name is synonymous with chimpanzees. She’s been studying the primates since 1960, when she left England and headed for what is today Tanzania, in eastern central Africa. In the decades Goodall’s been an advocate for these animals, she’s noticed weather, temperature and climate changing around her. The Weather Channel sat down with the legend, to discuss these shifts, her work with chimps and whether there’s still cause for hope.

WX Geeks: What changes have you noticed in the climate and weather?

Jane Goodall: I’ve noticed a lot. I’m traveling 300 days a year around the world. Everywhere I go, whether it’s Africa, Europe, North America, South America or Asia, people are saying the same things. ‘This is very weird weather.’

(MORE:Forecasting 2050! WatchAMHQWeekday Morning @ 7AM)

The droughts coming from the southern parts of Africa, the droughts are getting just so much worse, and the flooding. The U.K., the floods there are unbelieveable. Birds are nesting earlier. Plants are coming out earlier. It’s just completely crazy, completely weird.

Is there one story that really stands out to you about people affected by these changes?I was in Greenland, and I was with some Inuit elders. We were up by this great ice cliff that goes up to the ice cap. It was very early spring. It should’ve been cold; it wasn’t cold. The Inuits were saying, ‘When we were children, the ice here never melted, not even in the summer.’ Water was pouring out. Huge icebergs were breaking off.

I went by chance directly to Panama [from there]. When I was there, again it was indigenous people, they were moving their people off the offshore islands. Because of high tide, they were no longer habitable.

How do the chimps respond to these changes?

In the wet season — and it rains for about six months of the year in Gombe [Stream] National Park — they get a lot of respiratory illness. They huddle and hunch in the rain. They’re totally miserable. They have not learned to make a roof over their nests, so they just sit up looking miserable. Sometimes at the start of really heavy rain, the adult males and sometimes some younger ones will do this charging display. It’s as if they’re defying the rain.

(More: Love Science? Step Inside!)

What do you say to people who argue that saving animals isn’t as important as maintaining their current way of life?We’re treating these natural resources as though they’re infinite, and they’re not. They will come to an end. We see places, you know, where forests have gone and then you get terrible soil erosion, you get terrible flooding, it’s just so obvious we need the forest. We need the animals because they’re part of the whole biodiverse system.

What about climate change skeptics?They usually argue, ‘But oh, it’s a cycle.’ Indeed, weather has cycled… But the scientists have worked out that these changes are so much faster, they’re happening so quickly, and I just happened to believe the huge body of scientists who have studied for several years and have come together with their conclusions. Human activities are speeding it up.

(MORE:Let's Geek Out Together with "WX Geeks"Every Sunday at 12P Only on The Weather Channel)

Is there cause for hope?We have to first of all become aware, and that’s growing fast. But being aware isn’t enough. We have to roll up our sleeves and do something about it and change the way we live.

My reasons for hope are the resilience of nature — nature coming back given the chance — animal species rescued, the human brain, all the great technology that will help us live in greater harmony if we use it. Finally the indomitable human spirit, people who tackle the impossible and won’t give up.

More on Weather.com... Satellite Images of Climate Change

The Ash Creek Fire seen here is one of some 27,000 fires which have destroyed nearly 2 million acres of the western U.S. since the start of 2012. Extremely dry conditions, stiff winds, unusually warm weather, and trees killed by outbreaks of pine bark beetles have provided ideal conditions for the blazes. (Credit: NASA)