Newsletter ~ May 2018 by Woodwell Climate Research Center

MONTHLY NEWSLETTER MAY 2018

Woods Hole Research Center I went to Congress and found consensus Dr. Philip B. Duffy President & Executive Director

As many of you know, last week I testified at a hearing of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology – supposedly a discussion of technologies to address climate change.

Having seen hearings of this committee before, I was not surprised that Republican members devoted their time to trying to cast doubt and sow confusion about the reality of climate change, its causes and consequences. At least one member claimed repeatedly that there’s great uncertainty and debate about the human role in climate change, even within the scientific community. This of course is simply false. The best scientific estimate is that humans caused essentially all of the warming observed over that past 60 years or so. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Alabama) contributed the helpful suggestions that the main cause of sea level rise is erosion (not even close), and that warming will make the Antarctic ice sheet grow larger (it’s shrinking). These claims are now infamous as a result of extensive negative media attention.

Many observers, myself included, were surprised that the two Republican-called witnesses do accept the human role in climate change and support action to address the problem. (It is of course sad that this should be remarkable.) This common ground provided the basis for some constructive moments during the hearing – with representatives and witnesses agreeing on the need for more clean energy, and more research funding.

Instead of sparring over unscientific or misleading contentions made by some of the members, I wish we could have spent more time discussing the nominal subject of the hearing: the role of technology in addressing climate change. In my oral and written

testimony I emphasized that the need for these technologies presents opportunities for leadership on the part of the U.S. research and business communities. I fondly hope and fervently pray that the federal government will help our universities, research labs, and corporations to take advantage of these opportunities and profit from them, while helping to address a major global challenge. It saddens me to realize that if we don’t do this, someone else will—quite possibly one of our economic rivals. So what good has come from this? First, I understand that Rep. Brooks’ original theories about sea level rise have not played well in his district. I hope that this will motivate him and other members to have a more serious discussion next time. Second, I’ve invited a Republican member of the committee to visit WHRC, and he seems interested in doing that. An opportunity for rapprochement! Finally, I have opened a dialog (trialog?) with the other two witnesses. We’re discovering that while we agree on certain basic premises, there’s a lot we don’t agree on, particularly the need for immediate and decisive action to slow climate change. Still, we’re talking. I am proud to have had the opportunity to represent the scientific community and WHRC in particular in this forum. We can hope that future hearings may be more evidence-based and constructive. Thanks as always for your interest and support.

WHRC is an independent research institute where scientists investigate the causes and effects of climate change to identify and implement opportunities for conservation, restoration and economic development around the world. In June 2017, WHRC was ranked as the top independent climate change think tank in the world for the fourth year in a row. Learn more at www.whrc.org.

New report shows 94 million metric tons of carbon went up in smoke during the Northwest Territories megafires of 2014 By Zander Nassikas A new analysis of the historically large 2014 wildfires in the Northwest Territories of Canada revealed that 94 million metric tons of carbon burned into the atmosphere. Those emissions are equivalent to 200 Deepwater Horizon disasters— considered to be the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history—if all the spilled oil was burned instead. It is also equal to about half of the amount of carbon sequestered each year by Canada’s trees and soils.

“You cannot think about using land to mitigate climate change without accounting for wildfires, and right now fires are not integrated into any climate mitigation plans,” said WHRC’s Dr. Brendan Rogers, who was the second author on the paper. “Intensifying fire regimes in northern forests from climate warming represent a serious threat to climate mitigation goals.”

The study, published in Global Change Biology, was led by post-doctoral researcher Xanthe Walker at Northern Arizona University’s Center for Ecosystem Science and Society and is one of the first products of NASA's ABoVE project (above.nasa.gov). “It is vital that scientists can more accurately estimate the carbon emissions from these large wildfires so they can assess the implications of these climate feedbacks on a continental scale,” Walker said. “As climate warms, we predict large fire years like this will drive boreal ecosystems to be a global source of carbon to the atmosphere, a feedback that will amplify climate warming.”

To help understand the complex dynamics of wildfires and their impact on climate, the authors focused on Canada’s Northwest Territories, an understudied region of the boreal forest. Using high-resolution remote sensing in concert with hundreds of field plots, the authors identified black spruce stands in areas of intermediate drainage— not too wet, not too dry—as a Goldilock’s zone that contributes most to wildfire carbon emissions.

While there is some debate as to whether the size of individual fires is changing, according to Rogers the total area burned each year is unmistakably increasing in North America’s carbon-rich boreal forests. As a result, the cumulative impact of more fires is leading to an increase in carbon emissions and a lost sink in forests. Canada spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year on fire management, protecting houses, property, people, utility conveyances, the timber industry, and cultural resources. But according to Rogers, policymakers are not considering the climate impacts of wildfires when making decisions about fire management. “The work we have done here uncovers which parts of the of the boreal landscape are most vulnerable to large carbon emissions, and helps us scale field observations to the large areas ultimately needed for climate-smart fire management and national accounting,” Rogers said. “Our ultimate aim is to figure out if and how land management can keep an appreciable amount of these massive carbon stores in the forests, and out of the atmosphere.” He said, however, that any fire management efforts would only be a stopgap measure.

“Management can only do so much,” Rogers said. “Without a steep reduction in fossil fuel emissions, climate-fueled wildfires will ultimately overwhelm forest management, and many of our land-based mitigation measures will go out the window.” The research was funded by the NASA Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment and the Government of the Northwest Territories.

News Briefs On Cape Cod’s Coonamessett River, Dr. Linda Deegan tagged more than 300 herring and trout this month with an antenna receiver to track individual fish as they navigate dams and other obstructions en route to their spawning grounds. Deegan works with NOAA’s Andrew Jones and the Coonamessett River Trust to monitor the behavior and health of herring and trout populations in this ecosystem. State Senator Viriato deMacedo visited the Woods Hole Research Center earlier this month to learn about river water monitoring and climate change, speaking with Dr. Max Holmes and WHRC President Phil Duffy.

WHRC Research Assistant Hillary Sullivan ran a coastal ecosystem outreach event on May 16-17 with 7th and 8th graders from Old Rochester Junior High School at the Cape Cod Canal.

Dr. Marcia Macedo and her colleagues Drs. Mike Coe, Alicia Peduzzi, and Andrea Castanho wrapped up a forest monitoring workshop in Bogota, Colombia last week, the third in a series of workshops in Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia, and Peru. These are designed to help land managers, indigenous leaders, technicians, and policymakers use the latest climate science for better decision-making.

Congress holds climate change technology hearing By Dave McGlinchey WHRC President Phil Duffy took center stage in the national climate policy debate last week when he testified about climate change to the House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology and pushed back against unsupported speculation about sea level rise and Antarctic ice melt. Duffy was called to testify on May 16 as part of a committee hearing on using technology to address climate change. The Republican majority on the committee had two witnesses in the hearing, while the Democratic minority was able to call only Duffy.

Remarkably, all three witnesses agreed that climate change is real, is caused by humans, and is happening now. The hearing also included strong consensus between Republican and Democratic members on the need for policies to address climate change, including clean energy deployment and increased research funding. That agreement, however, was overshadowed by unexpected comments from Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Alabama) and Rep. Bill Posey (R-Florida).

Brooks made national headlines by suggesting that sea level rise was not caused by melting land ice and warmer ocean temperatures, but instead by erosion and rocks falling into the ocean.

Duffy told the hearing that “the last 100-year increase in sea-level rise… has clearly been attributed to human activities, greenhouse gas emissions."

"What about erosion?" Brooks asked. "Every single year that we are on earth you have huge tons of silt deposited by the Mississippi River, by the Amazon River, by the Nile, by every major river system and for that matter creek, all the way down to the smallest system. And every time you have that soil or rock, whatever it is, that

is deposited into the seas, that forces the sea levels to rise because now you've got less space in those oceans because the bottom is moving up."

year, we’d need to take the top five inches of the United States, roll it in a ball and drop it in the ocean to get the sort of sea level rise we’re currently seeing.”

"I'm pretty sure that on human time scales those are minuscule effects," Duffy said.

Duffy was later asked, by Posey, how he would respond to the idea that perhaps the Earth is warming up to its “normal temperature.”

Brooks also speculated that “where you have the waves crashing against the shorelines, and time and time again you have the cliffs crash into the sea, all of that displaces water which forces it to rise, does it not?”

The Washington Post’s Philip Bump analyzed Brooks’ claims, and determined that “Duffy is correct.” Bump found that to cause 3.3 millimeters of sea level rise—the current annual rate—would require 1.2 trillion cubic meters of “soil or rock or whatever.”

“Put another way, it’s a volume of earth equivalent to taking the top five inches of every one of the United States’ 9.1 million square miles of land area and using it to coat the bottom of the world’s oceans,” Bump wrote. “But, remember: That sea level rise happens annually. So every

Brooks later suggested that climate change was causing the amount of ice on Antarctica to increase. Duffy pointed out that measurements from NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center show exactly the opposite phenomenon.

"Look, if you want to characterize a temperature above today's temperature as normal, you're free to do that,” Duffy said. “But that doesn't mean that's a planet we want to live on." “I don’t want to get philosophical,” Posey interjected.

“I’m not getting philosophical, I’m getting extremely practical,” Duffy replied. “If we let the planet warm two or three degrees, we will have tens of meters of sea-level rise, and the community where I live will essentially cease to exist."

Fact checking five claims made during the House Committee hearing on climate change 1. Claim: Falling rocks are causing sea-level rise. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Alabama) asked, “What about erosion? Every single year that we’re on Earth, you have huge tons of silt deposited by the Mississippi River, by the Amazon River, by the Nile, by every major river system — and for that matter, creek, all the way down to the smallest systems. And every time you have that soil or rock whatever it is that is deposited into the seas, that forces the sea levels to rise. Because now you’ve got less space in those oceans because the bottom is moving up.” “What about the white cliffs of Dover?” Brooks continued. “California, where you have the waves crashing against the shorelines and time and time again you have the cliffs crash into the sea. All of that displaces the water which forces it to rise, does it not?”

WHRC: Sea-level rise is caused by the melting of glaciers and the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheet, the thermal expansion of the oceans (as water gets warmer, it takes up more space, and 93% of the excess heat generated by greenhouse gas emissions has been absorbed by the oceans), and changes in land water storage (additional water is being added to the oceans from increased groundwater mining and runoff). The table below is from the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report that estimates the global mean sea level (GMSL) rise budget for three different time intervals. Both observed and modeled GMSL contributions show that melting of land ice and thermal expansion of the ocean are the dominant cause of sea-level rise.

2. Claim: Sea-level rise has risen linearly over the last 100 years. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chair of the House Committee on Science, Space, & Technology, said that, “For the last 100 years, sea-level rise has been basically constant.” WHRC: Global sea-level rise has accelerated four-fold since 1900. Sealevel rise averaged 0.6 mm/yr from 1900 to 1930, increasing by more than 4x to 2.6 mm/yr from 1993-2015. This acceleration is demonstrated in the figure below from Hansen et. al. (2016).

3. Claim: The human contribution to climate change is uncertain. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said “the climate is always changing, but what remains uncertain is the extent to which humans contribute to that change.”

Dr. Phil Duffy addressed this false claim in his written testimony, reproduced here:

“The scientific consensus on human causation of observed warming is as strong as on the fact of warming itself. The latest scientific estimate presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is that humans are responsible for essentially all of the warming observed over the past 60 or so years. This is supported by the latest US National Climate Assessment, the first volume of which was released by the Trump administration in November 2017. This Assessment found that “…based on extensive evidence, …it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.”

In fact, as Dr. John Holdren pointed out in this lecture at Brown University, nature was going the other way. We should be in a long-term cooling phase, but instead the quantity of greenhouse gases released by humans has caused the earth has rapidly warmed.

5. Claim: The Paris climate agreement will have negligible impact on environment. Rep. Smith claimed in his opening statement that, “even if fully implemented by all 195 countries which isn’t and won’t happen, [the Paris climate agreement] will only reduce global temperature by 3/10 of a degree Fahrenheit over the next century.”

WHRC: While current emission reduction commitments to the Paris Agreement are not enough, there is an built-in ‘ratchet mechanism’ designed to steadily increase the ambition over time until the world can definitively keep global temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius. Therefore, the Paris Agreement contains the political architecture to reduce global temperature by more than 12 times what Rep. Smith claims here. Source: Carbon Brief

4. Claim: The Antarctic ice sheet is gaining mass. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) said that “there are plenty of studies that have come out that show that with respect to Antarctica that the total ice sheet, particularly that above land, is increasing, not decreasing.”

WHRC: Antarctica’s ice sheet is losing mass, and that loss is accelerating. This figure from NASA demonstrates an accelerating loss of the mass of Antarctica’s ice sheet since 2004. below left

Additionally, the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report concludes the following: “The Antarctic ice sheet has been losing ice during the last two decades (high confidence)… The average rate of ice loss from Antarctica likely increased from 30 [–37 to 97] Gt yr–1 (sea level equivalent, 0.08 [–0.10 to 0.27] mm yr–1) over the period 1992–2001, to 147 [72 to 221] Gt yr–1 over the period 2002– 2011 (0.40 [0.20 to 0.61] mm yr–1).” below right

Scientists and religious leaders announce formal partnership on climate action By Zander Nassikas Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley, the Archbishop of Boston, led a press conference yesterday to announce a joint appeal signed by a Massachusetts faith leaders and scientists, calling for immediate action to address climate change. The joint appeal was the first product of a fledgling science and religion coalition. WHRC President Dr. Philip Duffy helped develop the coalition, and spoke at the press conference to represent the scientific community. “The power of the partnership is simple and self-evident,” Duffy said. “Folks recognize that the scientific community and the religious community look at things differently. One might say we have different worldviews – certainly we don’t agree on a lot of issues. But the fact that we have joined hands and are working together to address this particular challenge I think says a lot that about the importance that we attach to the issue.”

More than one hundred scientists and five hundred religious leaders from Massachusetts signed the joint-appeal.

WHRC in the news

The scientists included Dr. Naomi Oreskes, professor of the History of Science at Harvard University, and Dr. Kelly Gallagher, director of the Center for International Environment & Resource Policy at Tufts University. WHRC founder Dr. George Woodwell also signed. Religious leaders from a wide array of faith groups signed, including representation from multiple Christian denominations, Judaism, Islam, and Bahá’í. The press conference marked the beginning of an ongoing effort between scientists and religious leaders seeking action on climate change in Massachusetts, while also carving out a framework for similar collaboration in other states.

Rev. Mariama White-Hammond, Minister for Ecological Justice at the Bethel AME Church in Jamaica Plain, spoke after Dr. Duffy, saying that “if we do not address

Can we burn our way to a cleaner planet? WHRC President Phil Duffy warned against relying on BECCS technology to deliver the planet from catastrophic climate change in this CleanTechnica article. May 21. bit.ly/2GGiRcD The Energy 202. Dr. Phil Duffy’s exchange with Alabama Representative Mo Brooks during the recent House Committee hearing on “Using Technology to Address Climate Change” was also covered in this Washington Post article. May 18. wapo. st/2s0U0vH U.S. House of Representatives Science Committee Hearing on Climate Change. Dr. Phil Duffy’s testimony to the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology was covered in more than a dozen news and media outlets including the Washington Post (wapo.st/2katRq2), CNN (cnn.it/2rZSpp2), The Guardian (bit.ly/2Gxuq5U), The Hill (bit.ly/2LmoMXR), MSNBC (on.msnbc.com/2x8Agvo), Science (bit.ly/2J4tLhA), and E&E News (bit.ly/2IXau1I). May 17.

Congress moves to restore NASA’s Carbon Monitoring System. Dr. Duffy was quoted again by Science, a week later, applauding bipartisan efforts to restore funding for the monitoring program. May 17. bit.ly/2kgCxeI At 9th spot, India fast losing mangrove cover, but at half of world average. Dr. Jonathan Sanderman’s mangrove forest soil carbon research was featured in this HindustanTimes article. May 12. bit.ly/2x2P8uT

this climate crisis, science tells us that the rising tides will sink all of our boats.”

White-Hammond continued with a forceful plea to recognize the moral dimension of climate change.

“This winter we experienced the reality that climate change is now. It is here,” she said. “If we do not face it together and do something, it will get worse. But today we realize that the rising tides, while they may sink all boats, will be most challenging for those who are already trying to plug so many holes in the little dinghies that they are floating on.”

White-Hammond said that the scientists and faith leaders who signed the appeal—and joined the coalition—have “chosen to raise our common voices in common cause in an effort to save our common wealth.”

Students join scientists in the field. Dr. Max Holmes was mentioned in this Falmouth Enterprise article about the sixty Cape Cod Academy students who joined WHRC scientists for a day of fieldwork in Cape Cod rivers and watersheds. May 11. bit. ly/2J4CU9U Trump Administration quietly slates NASA’s Carbon Monitoring System for graveyard. Dr. Phil Duffy was quoted in this Science article criticizing the decision to kill a program that improves our ability to measure greenhouse gas emissions. May 9. bit.ly/2jL83AY

Scientists try out acting skills at science communication workshop. The Falmouth Enterprise wrote about an Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science workshop in Woods Hole (co-sponsored by WHRC). May 4. bit.ly/2kdEZT8

Communicating climate change through artwork. Heather Theresa Clark, a former WHRC Artist-in-Resident whose art is intended to communicate climate change, was covered in this Washington Post article. May 4. wapo.st/2IG68MU New study finds mangroves may store way more carbon than we thought. Dr. Sanderman’s new global high-resolution map of mangrove soil carbon was featured in this Mongabay article. May 2. bit.ly/2s5tIrz

UN forest accounting loophole allows CO2 underreporting by EU, UK, US. Dr. Rich Birdsey’s new study reviewing the impacts of burning wood for fuel is covered in this Mongabay article, which also features WHRC Board Chair William Moomaw. May 2. bit.ly/2Lgtre9

Artist will join scientific research expedition to Arctic By Dave McGlinchey

The Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC), the Anchorage Museum, and artist and environmental activist Justin Brice Guariglia announced on May 24 a collaboration to tell the story of the Arctic’s thawing permafrost through a long-term artist residency.

The Museum and WHRC will send Guariglia to the Alaskan tundra with scientists this summer to begin an investigation of the Arctic’s rapidly thawing permafrost. The permafrost holds as much as much as 1,500 gigatons of carbon, twice the amount of carbon found in our atmosphere today. As the carbon-rich frozen soil thaws, it releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, accelerating global warming, causing more polar ice to melt, and sea levels to rise, impacting millions of people around the world.

As part of the residency, Guariglia will make multiple trips across Alaska over the next few years to gather materials and to study permafrost first-hand, culminating in an exhibition at the Anchorage Museum in 2021, which will subsequently travel to additional venues. “I’m excited to work with Justin because this will it provide an opportunity to reach new audiences, which is critical given the rapid rate of change in the Arctic and the impacts of these changes on the planet,” said WHRC permafrost expert Sue Natali. “I think there’s a power in communicating through art, that isn’t always accessible through data and scientific results, particularly when communicating the complexities of climate change. I’m also excited for the opportunity to see the Arctic landscape and permafrost through the lens of Justin’s artwork.”

In 2015, Guariglia was the first artist to fly on missions with NASA, and is scheduled to continue flying with NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Oceans Melting Greenland Mission through 2020.

Staff Picks!

“We continually invest in collaborations with contemporary artists and designers who are working to examine and respond to the world. Artists do not limit what

they can imagine and by which means they prompt others to look at the world, the environment, and the future in new ways,” said Julie Decker, director and CEO of the Anchorage Museum.

New York-based artist Guariglia works across the mediums of photography, painting, video and sculpture, and is known for working closely with scientists, philosophers, and journalists to inform his work. The interdisciplinary design of his work allows him to communicate some of the most complex ecological challenges of today. For Earth Day 2017, under the advisement of NASA scientists, Guariglia created the free sea-level rise iOS app “After Ice “which received 13 million impressions in its first week in the iTunes store. His traveling exhibition “Earth Works: Mapping the Anthropocene”, which was awarded a 2017 National Endowment for the Arts grant, recently debuted at the Norton Museum of Art, and will open this Fall at the Fisher Museum of Art at USC, in conjunction with the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. Guariglia is also a Howard Foundation Fellow in photography at Brown University, and is part of the 2018 show “Indicators: Artists on Climate Change” at Storm King Arts Center.

Below is a collection of books our staff members highlighted as generating important insight into their work, the world around them, or both.

Thank You for Being Late by Thomas L. Friedman Friedman is awed by the speed and scale of technological development and by the potential for us to do great things with technology. However, “... we will get the best of these technologies only if we don’t let them distract us from making these deep human connections, addressing these deep human longings, and inspiring these deep human energies. And whether we do that depends on all that stuff you can’t download – the high five from a coach, the praise from a mentor, the hug from a friend, the hand up from a neighbor, the handshake from a rival, the totally unsolicited gesture of kindness from the stranger....” He writes that we are at a “... moral fork in the road – where one of us could kill all of us and all of us could fix everything if we really decided to do so.” So, what will it take? Friedman is optimistic, but it’s not clear how our closest friends include the global tribe that needs to get together for fixing everything. Thank You for Being Late is an appreciation of not being connected, even if only briefly. – Senior Scientist Dr. Richard Houghton

Jane (nationalgeographic.com/jane-the-movie) This showed never before seen footage of a determined female scientist who broke boundaries and expectations in a male-dominated field. The film is beautifully done and really transports the viewer so that they feel like they are right in the field with Jane Goodall. Her book, In the Shadow of Man, is captivating and here writing style connects you to the chimps she studies. As with the film, you are truly immersed in her experience as if it were your own. Both of these really illuminate the struggles of women in science and leave hope for generations to come. – Research Assistant Hillary Sullivan

What is the What by Dave Eggers Told from the perspective of one of the “Lost Boys” of Sudan, What Is The What alternates between immensely tragic and incredibly uplifting moments. For me, it underscored the importance of thoughtful local action when trying to make lasting positive differences on a global or regional scale. – Research Assistant Kylen Solvik

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River herring churn upstream to spawn in Stony Brook on Cape Cod. photo by Paul Caiger