MONTHLY NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER 2018
Woods Hole Research Center “The effects of climate change have never been more obvious.” Dr. Philip B. Duffy President & Executive Director This is becoming a truism, but like many truisms, it is in fact true. The latest example to hit us over the head is wildfire. I am writing this from London, but I am closely following the devastating fires in California, which are already the largest and most costly in terms of human life ever seen there. They are also, of course, costly economically.
The area burned by wildfire in the Western United States has increased roughly ten-fold over the past few decades. The exact number depends on exactly where and over what time period one measures it, but the take-away is always the same: wildfire has increased massively. The science connecting this increase to climate change is robust and at its heart dead simple: more hot, dry weather means more and bigger fires. As always, of course, there’s nuance, but that’s the essence. In the United States during the past two years, we’ve had record heat, record wildfire, and a series of powerful hurricanes which exhibited many of the specific characteristics expected from storms turbo-charged by climate change. To scientists who look at the data rigorously, the connection to climate change is clear. Opinion polling shows that many of those unlucky enough to experience one of these horrific events become believers in human-caused climate change. Of course, the public is already largely on board, the latest polling done at Yale shows that majorities of adults in all but five states believe humans are the primary cause of climate change. And yet…
While all of this has been happening, our federal government has busied itself walking back climate policies put in place by the Obama administration and others. This includes contesting California’s right to set its own auto mileage standards, even though this is written into the Clean Air Act.
This is dismaying, of course, but as long as it remains the case—and even afterwards—we will have no choice but to do as much as we can with the tools we have. And that’s actually a lot. At WHRC we are stepping up our work with state and local policymakers, and with national country governments (sadly, not including the United States). We’re also more engaged than ever before with the private sector, and with policy groups from across the political spectrum in the United States. WHRC is also on the cusp of expanding our own efforts to communicate. Together, the groups we are working with are already accomplishing a lot, and I have every confidence that they will do even more, with the help of WHRC and other groups who understand the value of science-based policy. This morning I visited Winston Churchill’s underground war room (actually many rooms) in London. He and his colleagues certainly faced an imposing external threat (together with domestic political difficulties) but thanks to steely resolve and tireless work they ultimately prevailed. We can do the same. Thanks as always for your interest and support.
WHRC is an independent research organization where scientists study climate change and how to solve it, from the Amazon to the Arctic. Learn more at www.whrc.org.
National Climate Assessment puts focus on lack of federal leadership by Dave McGlinchey
The White House released the federal government’s quadrennial National Climate Assessment on November 23, revealing a sharp divide between science and policy in the Trump Administration (https://nca2018.globalchange.gov). The congressionally mandated report was an exhaustive assessment of climate change trends and impacts. This is the fourth edition of the assessment, which is often referred to by its acronym, NCA4. The authors were mostly federal scientists, with occasional expertise from outside academics and researchers. The report described the daunting challenge of reducing atmospheric green-
house gases quickly enough to avoid the worst climate change impacts. It also found that climate change was on track to cause enormous economic damage to the US economy by the end of the century— including $141 billion in losses from heatrelated illness and mortality, $118 billion from sea level rise, and $32 billion from infrastructure damage. “Climate change impacts are already being felt in the United States and are projected to intensify in the future—but the severity of future impacts will depend largely on actions taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” the report said. “Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are the only factors that can account for the observed warming over the last century; there are no credible alternative human or natural explanations supported by the observational evidence.”
It was reviewed by 13 federal agencies before being released. The White House, however, chose to release the report on the day
after Thanksgiving in what was widely seen as an attempt to bury the news on a day when most Americans were shopping or spending time with family. Despite these efforts, the report was featured on the front pages of the New York Times and Washington Post, and received media attention across the country. Much of the reporting focused on the fact that Trump Administration policies are at odds with the federal government science on climate change.
“Administration climate policies, and statements from its political leaders, seem to come from a parallel universe of alternative facts,” said WHRC President Phil Duffy in a November 23 statement. “No amount of creative interpretation can reconcile those policies or statements with the science in the NCA4, or in other reports like the recently-released Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). If U.S. climate policies were not developed upon this science, then we have a right to know what they are based on.”
National Academy report pushes forests, soils for climate change mitigation by Alison Smart
A new report from the National Academy of Sciences identified land management as the most cost-effective and reliable mechanism currently available for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (https://bit.ly/2EIXhsj). However, in order to meet climate goals laid out in the Paris Agreement, the report recommends substantial investments in research and development of additional carbon-removal technologies, and soon.
While most climate mitigation efforts necessarily focus on reducing emissions of CO2 to the atmosphere, recent research has shown that emissions reductions alone will not be enough to keep global warming below 2°C. This report, and the committee of experts behind it, aimed to identify knowledge gaps and map out a national research agenda for a supplemental approach to controlling climate change: carbon dioxide removal and sequestration. “This report provides important guidance for research agencies and for
the US government,” said WHRC senior scientist Dr. Richard Birdsey, who was an author of the report. “It also puts a stamp of approval on the case that land is an important part of the equation to control climate change, and can be effective without compromising other benefits of land management such as food production and biodiversity.” The committee reviewed six negative emissions technologies—or NETs— to assess their costs, limitations, and potential impact. Four NETs were called out as being immediately deployable and cost-effective: afforestation and changes in forest management, uptake and storage by agricultural soils, biomass energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), and coastal blue carbon. While these approaches could be scaled up to capture and store substantial amounts of carbon, other under-developed and lessunderstood NETs like direct air capture, carbon mineralization, and geological sequestration would likely be needed to
fill the remaining gap in order to meet emissions reductions targets.
The committee also concluded that NETs are not receiving the public investment they warrant, relative to their potential to mitigate dangerous levels of climate change. As a result the report calls for “a substantial research investment...as soon as is practicable.” In the meantime, Birdsey said significant progress can be made on CO2 removal by implementing better land management strategies, particularly at the state and local level, and with private land owners and corporations. Social science research and financial incentives would facilitate deploying land management changes on a large scale.
“The key to implementing successful land-based CO2 removal initiatives is good monitoring,” says Birdsey. “...and thanks to recent advances at WHRC and elsewhere, the technology needed to implement these kinds of programs is readily available.”
Study shows natural solutions can reduce 21% of U.S. emissions by Dave McGlinchey
Trees, soils, and coastal wetlands could absorb more than one fifth of U.S. greenhouse gas pollution, according to a comprehensive national assessment released this week.
WHRC scientists Dr. Jonathan Sanderman and Dr. Richard Houghton were coauthors on the study, which was published in Science Advances (https:// bit.ly/2TrQOoX). The paper was led by The Nature Conservancy’s Joseph Fargione, and also included former WHRC research assistant Seth Spawn as a co-author. According to Sanderman, this report revealed significant potential for climate mitigation on agricultural lands. "Cropland and rangeland management represent more than half of the estimated mitigation potential from natural climate solutions in the United States," Sanderman said. "This is a
major difference from the global natural climate solution analysis, which found that reforestation and avoided forest conversion, both dominated by tropical forests, represented about two thirds of the total potential."
The report focused on the use of cover crops and improved cropland nutrient management, as key carbon sequestration opportunities in agriculture.
farmers to improve soil health, yields, and yield consistency.” The report noted that natural sequestration efforts receive less than one percent of public and private climate financing but offer – globally – approximately 37 percent of potential mitigation needed through 2030.
“Cover crops, grown when fields are normally bare, provide additional carbon inputs to soils. Growing cover crops on the 88 Mha [million hectares] of the five primary crops in United States not already using cover crops presents a substantial opportunity for mitigation,” the report said. “Cover crops are increasingly used by U.S.
New research partnership explores climate benefits of fighting wildfires in Alaska by Dave McGlinchey
The Union of Concerned Scientists and Woods Hole Research Center have launched a new initiative to assess the potential climate change benefits from modified wildfire management strategies in Alaska. Alaska represents about 18 percent of U.S. land area, but stores approximately half of U.S. land carbon and emits roughly half of all U.S. fire emissions. If the carbon being lost to the atmosphere from fire in Alaska were priced, it would be roughly 100 times what we currently spend on fire management.
“Given that Alaska receives at most 5-6 percent of the federal fire suppression budget, we may have an important tool at our fingertips for keeping carbon in the ground and out of our atmosphere,” said Dr. Brendan Rogers, the WHRC scientist overseeing the project.
Dr. Carly Phillips has been hired to lead the work, and she has already traveled to Alaska once to meet with fire managers. “We are trying to figure out if fire management is a feasible climate mitigation strategy,” Phillips said. “We are using carbon pricing to get a value of the carbon stored in boreal forests of Alaska, and then seeing if there is an argument that investment in fire management and fire suppression makes sense from an economic perspective.”
To make these calculations, the project will also consider the social cost of carbon, although Phillips said that she might use a figure that was derived under the Obama Administration. Under the Trump Administration the social cost of carbon has been devalued by mandating that it only consider impacts on the United States. Phillips recently received her Ph.D in ecology from the University of Georgia. Her doctoral research focused on shrub expansion in the Arctic and how that affects carbon cycles. She has studied carbon cycling in arctic ecosystems at
the Odum School of Ecology and Center for Permafrost in Copenhagen, Denmark. She worked in both Arctic Alaska and Sweden investigating how soil processes respond to a rapidly changing climate.
“I, along with our talented and motivated collaborators at the Union of Concerned Scientists, are absolutely delighted to have Carly Phillips lead this initiative,” Rogers said. “Carly has the unique ability to understand and contribute to the complex relevant science, navigate the state and federal policy networks, develop relationships with a wide variety of stakeholders, and communicate this effort to audiences with diverse backgrounds.” In Alaska, Phillips developed connections with agencies and partners who could help implement recommendations later in the project. “One of the things that makes fire management in Alaska so complicated is that you are dealing with 15 agencies plus private land owners,” Phillips said. “We are meeting with people who are designating how the fires are initially attacked, as well as the people who are actually fighting fires and making decisions about where to deploy resources and people.”
Follow us! #ScienceForTheWorld woodsholeresearchcenter WoodsHoleResCtr woodsholeresearchcenter
News briefs
In the news
On November 15, Andre Guimaraes, executive director of IPAM Amazonia, spoke to a full house at WHRC about the recent Brazilian presidential election and the potential impact it will have on the Amazon forest and global climate change. Guimaraes said that carbon equivalent to about 10 years of global emissions is stored in the Amazon. https://bit.ly/2ReJLi9
U.S. Climate Report Warns of Damaged Environment and Shrinking Economy. WHRC President Dr. Philip Duffy was quoted in The New York Times article about the 4th National Climate Assessment. November 23. https://nyti.ms/2KtF0ib
From October 26-28, WHRC Senior Scientist Dr. Richard Birdsey attended a symposium in Nanjing, China on “Terrestrial Ecosystems and Agricultural and Forest Meteorology.” Birdsey delivered a presentation that was largely based on the recent National Academy of Sciences report about negative emissions technologies.
Sandwich forum focuses on spiritual collaboration in efforts to fight global warming. The forum with Dr. Duffy and faith leaders was also covered by the Cape Cod Times. November 4. https://bit.ly/2P0xRGE
WHRC President Dr. Philip Duffy spoke with two faith leaders at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Sandwich, MA, about the moral case for climate action. Duffy appeared on November 4 with the Reverend Margaret BullittJonas, missioner for creation care of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts; and the Reverend Paul Minus, co-chairman of the Cape and Islands Faith Communities Environmental Network.
Woods Hole Research Center 149 Woods Hole Road Falmouth, MA 02540 508-540-9900 www.whrc.org
Please help us to conserve paper. To receive this newsletter electronically, please send your email address to info@whrc.org.
Trump administration criticized over timing of climate change report. Duffy was also quoted in an article by The Hill about the timing of the National Climate Assessment release and apparent attempts to bury the scientific report. November 23. https:// bit.ly/2SglGHR