Unequal heat
A visit to Worcester, Massachusetts in the heat of summer highlights the inequities of rising temperatures
It’s a hot, humid day in late August and we’re all already sweating as Arman Bajracharya begins to tell us about his project.
Bajracharya is a second year Ph.D. student in the geography department at Clark University in Worcester, MA, where we’re standing now. He pulls out a green and orange map of the city and points to our location on one of the orange blocks that signals industrial land use and impervious land cover.
We’re standing in the sparse shade of some trees ringing the edge of an old millpond, but we had to walk across a hot, cracked parking lot to access it. The neighborhood is called Webster Square. It is located in the southern reaches of Worcester, which was once a vibrant epicenter of the industrial revolution.
That industrial heritage is evident both on the maps Bajracharya shows us as well as in our surroundings. Truck beds and spare pvc piping and gravel piles rest at the edge of the water. It’s also scorching hot.
Temperature varies with land cover. In cities, the presence of impervious surfaces like asphalt, concrete, and metal trap heat, while natural surfaces—water or vegetation—can help buffer it. The distribution of these hotspots and heat buffers in Worcester, as in many cities, is not equal. Some neighborhoods endure much higher temperatures than others during the summer months.
Bajracharya’s research during the Summer of 2021 made possible by the Edna Bailey Sussman Fund employed remote sensing and census data to determine what features make a neighborhood more susceptible to extreme heat. He mapped temperature, land cover, and land use onto areas of greatest social vulnerability in Worcester, as well as two other post-industrial cities in Massachusetts, Haverhill and New Bedford. The results show that as climate change warms cities, the communities that have already experienced environmental inequities are likely to face more.
A gateway to the American dream
Worcester, Haverhill, and New Bedford are designated as gateway cities. These places, often important centers of the industrial revolution, have served as “gateways to the American dream,” offering job opportunities and housing for many who immigrated to the region.
Worcester began its industrial life as a mill town but soon grew into a manufacturing center for a variety of goods. It was also a crossroads of canal, and later, rail thoroughfares connecting the rest of Massachusetts with Providence and New York. Today, at the edge of the millpond in Webster Square, the remnants of an old rail bridge are still visible and active trains can be heard traveling the present day rail lines in the distance.
Industrial neighborhoods built to serve mills and factories often filled in with minority populations, and over time, wealthier families moved to quieter and more suburban areas of town. In the case of Haverhill, some communities also suffered the consequences of redlining, a discriminatory Federal Housing policy during the post-Depression era that limited financial services available to people, overwhelmingly African-American and people of color, deemed “hazardous to investment,” limiting social mobility and enforcing racial housing segregation. These factors often intensified the overlap between areas of high social vulnerability and industrial infrastructure.
“In the 1930s, these practices delineated which areas were defined to be good for financial services like loans,” Bajracharya says. “Which is why there is a historical divide between which areas are favorable and which areas are not. That can impact how we see the land being used today, especially where the greenspaces are.”
Mapping the heat
Bajracharya used available satellite data to show the relationship between land cover and social vulnerability. Examining the imagery, he created an index of relative heat in the city. Areas with high tree cover correlated with lower land surface temperatures. He then overlaid social vulnerability and environmental justice datasets that index communities in Massachusetts based on socioeconomic status, minority status, primary language, and other demographic information.
“Throughout many or most U.S. cities, neighborhoods facing greater environmental risks (such as from heat waves, urban flooding, and hazardous wastes) were historically settled by poorer families or racial and ethnic minorities,” Bajracharya says. “And there really is a lot of evidence for communities of color, or low-income communities, continuing to be disproportionately exposed to risk.”
According to Bajracharya, the analysis showed a startling overlap between the hottest areas of the city and the most vulnerable. Neighborhoods classified as Environmental Justice Communities tended to have a lower percentage of green vegetation (especially tree cover), with higher average temperatures. The most vulnerable areas are clustered in the core of the city.
The satellite maps only tell part of the story, however, which is why Bajracharya and his advisor Dr. Rinku Roy Chowdhury have brought us out onto the streets of Worcester. A few blocks away from the millpond, a grassy field rolls out behind a chain-link fence. In Bajacharya’s maps, this appears as a patch of vegetation interspersed among the developed land uses. The field sits under metal towers belonging to a nearby power station.
Often, Roy Chowdhury reminds us, the “green” and “blue” spaces that do exist in vulnerable areas may be inaccessible to residents, either cordoned off as private property or unsuitable for use due to safety concerns or an absence of trails or paths. The sign on the chain-link fence here warns of danger from high voltage.
This is where the distinction between land cover and land use becomes important. Land cover refers to what is currently on the land— whether that’s forest, grassland, or concrete. Land use data shows how humans are interacting with an area of land. For example, an area of grassy land cover could be used for conservation, residential or commercial purposes.
When natural land covers such as trees and water bodies are present but inaccessible, it limits potential social co-benefits that green and blue spaces can offer. Beyond regulating temperature, these spaces can reduce air pollution and provide recreational opportunities. Bajracharya and Dr. Roy Chowdhury emphasize the importance of field trips like this one, along with more in-depth work to ground truth satellite image analysis in local realities.
“There’s a really interesting mix of industrial and commercial uses interspersed with areas important for conservation and recreation, that could also potentially help in bringing down surface temperatures,” Dr. Roy Chowdhury says. “Tree cover and water are really helpful for buffering against the urban heat island, but so much more needs to be done to understand and steward such ‘ecosystem services,’ especially in underserved areas of cities.”
Building an Emerald City
With climate change accelerating, every patch of green and blue on the map will become indispensable in regulating city temperatures. To prevent a crisis of infrastructure failures and heat-related illnesses and even deaths from unfolding during brutal summers, cities like Worcester are going to have to get greener, faster—and do so in a way that benefits residents equitably.
Dr. Roy Chowdhury and Bajracharya are interested in investigating further to figure out the most promising pathways towards greener, more equitable cities. Questions still remain around finding the best proportion and distribution of land cover and implementation strategies that will improve environmental equity and encourage citizen participation. Woodwell’s Dr. Chris Neill has been collaborating with Dr. Roy Chowdhury and Clark University over the last decade to analyze land cover and ecological structure of urban vegetation in several US cities.
“Every tree makes a difference, but there are scale effects as well. What is the minimum threshold to make a difference? What’s the mix in different cities or neighborhoods? What do local residents value and want? These are really interesting and important questions to ask,” says Dr. Roy Chowdhury.
Research into the interactions between these green spaces and rising temperatures could help city planners make more conscious decisions about climate adaptation. Baracharya’s future projects may also examine flooding risk in cities, which adds another dimension to potential inequities in climate risk. Future research could also incorporate social interviews in different neighborhoods to understand residents’ concerns regarding their environment, climate change, and quality of life.
The last stop on our Worcester tour is Beaver Brook Park— an example of what’s possible when a city decides to reinvest in its natural spaces. The neighborhood surrounding the park was a primary destination for Black Americans moving north after the Civil War and has a history as a vibrant minority community. The titular brook had been paved over years ago, running in darkness under the city until 1990, when it was daylighted again to serve as a central feature of the park.
The area is now a green haven for recreation in the neighborhood and a stop on Worcester’s East-West trail, which Dr. Roy Chowdhury describes as “an emerald necklace” running through Worcester—one of the ways the city and numerous environmental stewardship organizations are working towards broader greenspace protections and access.
The feel of the air here contrasts sharply with where we started the day—a hint of the power urban greenspaces hold. Despite the heat warping off the street pavement, in the shade of old oak trees by the gurgling brook, it’s easy to stop sweating for a moment and just feel the breeze.
Following Woodwell’s ‘North Stars’
The Polaris Project began in 2008 as a way to shepherd a new generation of Arctic and climate scientists into their careers. Each summer, Woodwell has selected a cohort of capable and motivated students, bringing them on a two-week field excursion guided by leaders in the field of Arctic science. Students explore the landscape, design a research project, and collect data, before returning to the Center to analyze their results.
In the United States, Women make up only 28% of the STEM workforce—a trend that is reinforced by lack of support for women and girls to explore a career in science. Polaris aims to combat this. For the women of Polaris, the experience has provided valuable mentorship, built confidence in their skills, and sparked their motivation to forge ahead into their future as scientists. Alumnae of the Polaris Project have gone on to pursue doctorate degrees in climate research, influence climate policy, and some have even returned home to the Center. Here, we meet just a few of the impressive women of Polaris.
Dr. Claire Griffin
Polaris Years 2008, 2013
Dr. Claire Griffin was part of the very first Polaris expedition. In the early days of the program, the field site was located in the far northern region of Kolyma, Russia. She sampled lakes and used remote sensing to map organic matter in the Kolyma River and its major tributaries. Her research grew into a published paper co-authored with Clark University Professor of Geography, Dr. Karen Frey, and Woodwell’s Acting President and Executive Director, Dr. Max Holmes.
Dr. Griffin’s experiences in the Polaris Program have guided her throughout her career. She recalls one afternoon walking back from the homemade lab where students were analyzing their samples, talking with one of the expedition’s leaders, Dr. John Schade.
“I was saying that I found pipetting to be pretty meditative in some ways,” Dr. Griffin says. “You get into a rhythm and the lab work can be kind of soothing. And he said that one of the things in science is that no matter what you’re doing, there is going to be something that is kind of boring, so find the tedium that you like and be able to do that.”
Dr. Griffin says she thought a lot about this when she was making decisions about where to go next. Considering two graduate programs, Dr. Griffin chose the direction of lab chemistry because she couldn’t see herself enjoying the tedium of counting tree rings. She has been working on aquatic chemistry ever since, studying how terrestrial material moves from land into aquatic systems— specifically carbon and nitrogen.
“I would not be doing what I’m doing today if I had not gone through Polaris. The most effective way to learn science is to actually do it, and the learning-by-doing model that Polaris espouses is something that definitely had an effect on me.”
Dr. Griffin wants to share that model with students of her own. She is currently looking for faculty positions at teaching-focused colleges.
“I enjoy teaching and talking about science,” Dr. Griffin says. “If we are going to enact climate change policies for the better, then we need to be able to reach students who are not going into the environmental sciences.”
Dr. Blaize Denfeld
Polaris Year 2009
Throughout her career, Dr. Blaize Denfeld has made her decisions based on spark.
“I feel like every step of the way, something I’ve done has sparked something in me that I realize, ‘maybe this is the next step that I want to pursue.’ So it’s been an interesting journey starting with the Polaris project to today,” says Dr. Denfeld.
After completing the Polaris Project and her undergraduate studies, she applied for a Ph.D. program in Sweden, thinking “I was in Siberia for a month and a half, I can live in a foreign country for a few years.” It was there she felt a spark for the aspects of science that involved collaboration and coordination, so she accepted her next position at NASA’s Earth science division. After NASA, she felt the spark for combining science and policy and moved on to the US Global Change Research Program, and finally, her current position as Deputy Director of the Swedish Infrastructure for Ecosystem Science (SITES). SITES runs nine ecological research stations across Sweden that monitor the Arctic and Boreal environment. Some of the stations contain ice records that extend back to the 1940s, which Dr. Denfeld says provide a powerful image of just how much the climate is changing.
In her current role, Dr. Denfeld coordinates scientific collaborations across all SITES’s research stations. For Dr. Denfeld, the best part of her position, and of all the jobs she’s held, has been her fellow scientists.
“I think for me it always comes back to the people and the collaborations. Of all the positions I’ve had, the thing I enjoy the most is getting to work with passionate people that are really intelligent and have really good ideas,” says Dr. Denfeld.
Dr. Denfeld says that, whatever direction her career takes next, she hopes to be a model for other women in STEM.
“As my career has progressed, I’ve benefited from really strong women in science, and so I feel a stronger passion now for paying it back for all the female scientists that helped me get to where I am now.”
Emily Sturdivant
Polaris Year 2011
Emily Sturdivant joined the 2011 Polaris expedition to Siberia with an interest in GIS and an open mind about where the experience might lead. Her project involved collecting data on carbon fluxes with a homemade flux chamber that she would later use to ground truth satellite data observations.
“I would go out to a patch of water, anything from a tiny stream to a lake, tip my bucket upside down onto the water and track the change in gas concentration inside the bucket as I measured wind speed and other variables in the surroundings,” Sturdivant says.
Sturdivant recalls the days of field work alternating between chaos and tranquility.
“One of my favorite memories is of when another participant and I headed out to collect samples at a lake across the river from the barge where we were bunked. They dropped us off with an inflatable boat that, along with my bucket and other equipment, we hauled through the bushes and pumped up with one foot or the other sinking through the vegetation,” Sturdivant says. “After the chaos of setting up, drifting on the lake as we collected our measurements in the midst of the wilderness was so peaceful.”
Though Sturdivant didn’t carry on with Arctic research after graduating from Clark University, she still carries what she learned from the experience into her work as a Research Assistant and Geospatial Analyst Consultant at Woodwell where she works on forest carbon analyses.
“That experience became an invaluable reference as I continued in science and remote sensing. Now as I work with pixel values and ground data collected by others, I understand the work and complexity involved in collecting those data,” says Sturdivant.
As she grows in her career, Sturdivant says she is looking forward to being a positive influence on all her fellow colleagues.
“I want to keep being involved in the institution and mentorship,” Sturdivant says. “As Polaris did for me, I want to help others find moments of inspiration and guidance.”
Darcy L. Peter
Polaris Years 2017, 2018, 2019
The universe seemed to conspire around Darcy Peter to bring her to the Polaris Project. The application was forwarded to her by professors and friends alike and she soon found herself on the 2017 expedition examining greenhouse gas emissions from water bodies in Alaska’s Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.
Peter is an Koyukon & Gwich’in Athabascan from the village of Beaver, Alaska and during that summer, she noticed the Polaris Project did not have much interaction with the Indigenous communities nearby. She brought this feedback to Woodwell Arctic Program Director Dr. Sue Natali.
“I said if Polaris is going to continue for years, we need to have a relationship with the people, and if we are going to train the next generation of Arctic scientists, we should be making sure the research questions we are forming are impacting Alaska Natives in a positive way,” says Peter.
Peter returned as a student mentor in 2018 and worked with Dr. Natali to implement changes to the program that would build stronger relationships with locals in the community of Bethel where Polaris participants stay before heading out to the field site.
Peter organized a meeting where scientists and students could listen to the concerns of community members and apply them to students’ projects. Peter also went on the local radio station to promote the meeting and spearheaded the creation of a newsletter about the project that was translated into Yupik, the traditional language spoken in the region. She volunteered her time in 2019 to lead the community meeting in Bethel again, and joined Woodwell full-time as a Research Assistant in 2020.
“The first community meeting in Bethel was very impactful—seeing seasoned, more experienced scientists have questions for the community… I think it really painted the picture for a lot of the scientists traveling with us that year of the power their research has to truly help people,” Peter says.
Peter is now the face of Woodwell in Alaska, working from Fairbanks surrounded by friends and family to continue building bridges between Woodwell and Alaska Native communities and non-profits, as well as facilitating the Center’s ongoing Arctic fieldwork. She says she intends to dedicate her career to ensuring science is conducted ethically, in a way that benefits people.
“All research has the power to affect change,” Peter says. “What good is research if it only benefits other researchers? I want to keep serving Alaska Native communities and amplifying the voices of my people and my relations, whose voices have been put down their entire lives.”
Dr. Bianca Rodríguez-Cardona
Polaris Years 2017, 2019
Dr. Bianca Rodríguez-Cardona was an experienced Arctic researcher by the time she joined Polaris in 2017. She had been conducting her Ph.D. research on how fires influence stream chemistry in Russia’s Central Siberian Plateau when she heard about the program from Dr. John Schade, one of Polaris’s founding faculty members, at an AGU meeting, and he convinced her to apply.
Dr. Rodríguez-Cardona was confident in her field skills when she arrived in Alaska that summer. But the tundra of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta was different from the boreal forests of her field site in Siberia. Flowing water was much harder to find and she spent days hiking in search of a stream to take her measurements. When she did eventually find one, adding the carefully measured mix of salts she uses to track how nutrients flow through the water, they slipped by so fast she couldn’t jog downstream quickly enough to take a second measurement.
“I was sitting in mud up to my elbows and just thinking ‘this can’t be happening.’ I totally freaked out,” Dr. Rodríguez-Cardona says.
But she had been hiking that day with Dr. Schade, who helped her calm down, reassess the situation, and figure out how to get a second measurement with the supplies she had left. She looks back on that moment as a lesson in inner strength.
“We limit ourselves in whatever we think we can do until we’re there and we have to do it. It’s either now or nothing.” Dr. Rodríguez-Cardona says. “The Polaris Project helped to show me that I’m a lot more capable, stronger, and resilient than I think I am.”
Dr. Rodríguez-Cardona returned to Alaska as a mentor in 2019 and went on to a postdoctoral position at the University of Québec at Montréal. She hopes to find a permanent position after her postdoc that keeps her working and learning in the Arctic.
“I never imagined I’d be an Arctic scientist, but I’ve spent four summers now in the Arctic and Boreal regions. So, there is something to be said about chances and serendipity.”
Natalie Baillargeon
Polaris Years 2018, 2019
For Natalie Baillargeon, 2018 was full of new experiences— it was her first year in Polaris, her first summer research experience, her second ever plane ride, and her first time going camping. But it was not her last. Polaris sparked her passion for ecological research.he returned again in 2019, but to a very different Arctic.
Record-breaking heat, rolling thunder, and dry lightning storms—in Bethel, the heat literally shattered the thermometer.
“There were days where Polaris leaders had to call days short due to fieldwork being dangerous,” Baillargeon says. “To be doing fieldwork in the Arctic and have to worry about heatstroke is not normal. It was sad and depressing.”
Baillargeon returned back to her college studies, determined to carry the research she began with Polaris through to its conclusion. She was examining the short- and long-term impacts of wildfires on vegetation. After four long years, through transferring colleges and moving her lab twice in the middle of the pandemic, Baillargeon recently submitted her paper for publication; her results show sustained impacts of wildfire on the ecosystem.
She began working at Woodwell Climate, as External Affairs Coordinator—before she graduated—and joined full time in June of 2021. According to Baillargeon, seeing the smoke of wildfires clouding the camp, and feeling the unusual heat of 2019 clarified her desire to affect change through policy as well as science.
“I actually think that 2019 Polaris was another pivotal experience for me because it reinforced my desire to work more on climate policy. I want to help make change instead of documenting the destruction of ecosystems.”
Ellen Bradley
Polaris Years 2019, 2020
Ellen Bradley’s drive to study climate science comes from her Indigenous background. She is Tlingit and was searching for research opportunities close to her homelands when she found Polaris. During the summer of 2019, she marveled at the heat and smoke of a record-breaking season, listened to the concerns of the local communities in Bethel, and played the informal role of an Indigenous educator among her fellow students. Her experience solidified her desire to not only conduct research but to add an Indigenous voice to it.
“My passion about all of this, climate research, climate communication, science communication, comes from my being Tlingit, from my Indigenous background, from my connection to the land, and knowing that the actions that have caused us to be where we are have come from colonization,” Bradley says. “If we are going to solve something like climate change, we are going to need the assistance of the Indigenous people who have lived in these places for, in many cases, over 20,000 years.”
Bradley based her project on the concerns she was hearing from community members around fishing, and used phytoplankton as a proxy for the health of aquatic ecosystems. She intended to return to carry on this research in 2020, but the pandemic postponed expedition plans. Instead, Bradley graduated from Gonzaga into a world altered by COVID-19
Searching for her next step, she got involved in the winter sports community and began skiing for outdoor advocacy groups. She is an athlete for NativesOutdoors, Protect our Winters, and Deuter, as well as a ski ambassador for Crystal Mountain, Washington.
“I know I want to keep skiing as part of my career, using skiing to tell stories about Indigenous people’s joy on the landscape and why outdoor recreation is important for our fight against climate change,” Bradley says.
She began work at Woodwell as a research assistant for the Arctic program in 2021 and she will return to Alaska in 2022 with the other 2020 Polaris students. When she looks towards the future of her career, Bradley says she wants to use the opportunities she’s had to represent Traditional Ecological Knowledge in the climate space.
“I’ve had a lot of privilege to go to school and I’m also really nerdy about science, so it just feels like the best way for me to use the tools I have,” Bradley says. “Incorporating my values into science is helpful to more than just myself and my passions. It’s a voice that has to be out there, or it won’t exist.”
Alma Hernandez
Polaris Year 2020
Alma Hernandez was accepted into the Polaris Project just before the world closed down due to COVID-19. In the uncertainty following lockdowns and rising cases, it became clear that the 2020 cohort wouldn’t be able to travel to the Arctic. Polaris, like everything that year, went virtual.
Though the field components of Polaris were postponed, Hernandez was still able to join Zoom meetings with other students and project mentors. She found the meetings just as meaningful, talking with others whose passions and backgrounds differed from her own, but converged around climate and the environment. Her interests lay in the unique Arctic soil that holds a wealth of information about our Earth’s changing climate.
“The composition of Arctic soils is really unique. They are extremely affected by global warming and have long-term implications as they release more greenhouse gasses that contribute to climate change,” says Hernandez.
Since the completion of the program, Hernandez graduated from University of Texas, El Paso, and has been accepted to a Master’s program at the University of New Hampshire. She was also the recipient of the NSF’s Graduate Research Fellowship award and Woodwell’s own inaugural John Schade Memorial Fund award. Hernandez says she feels indebted to the mentorship she has received from Polaris.
“There were many instances when I felt overwhelmed by the thought of not having the qualifications to apply for graduate school or fellowships. I almost gave up, but Sue [Natali] and the Polaris Alumni were all so encouraging. My success in these applications wouldn’t have been possible without their support,” says Hernandez.
Members of the 2020 cohort will be completing their field experience this summer. Hernandez is looking forward to her long-awaited trip to Alaska, excited to finally see the Arctic soils she has been studying so diligently. After that, she plans to complete her master’s degree and, perhaps after a well-earned break from school, earn a Ph.D.
“I want to be able to contribute at least a little portion of knowledge to serve people in the future. My dream was always to be a researcher, and I plan to keep pursuing this goal.”
This week, Woodwell hosted the second of three virtual events in conjunction with the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General and NYU State Energy and Environment Impact Center. The “Seeing the Dangers Ahead” series convenes climate, finance, and policy experts for discussions about how regulators and advocates can better understand the physical risks of climate change, and use that knowledge to propel decision making.
The first event “Understanding and Harnessing the Latest Climate Physical Risk Data and Tools” delved into the practicalities of climate risk assessments— who is generating them, how we generate them, and what cutting-edge tools can help refine our calculations.
“We’re seeing the impacts of the climate emergency every day in our communities with high tides swamping our waterfront, extreme storms damaging our infrastructure, and heat waves killing our residents – especially people of color and those in low-income communities,” said Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healy, who provided a keynote address to kick off the first event of the series earlier this month. “We must act now, and need the best science and analysis to do so, which is why my office is proud to partner with NYU Law School’s State Energy and Environmental Impact Center and Woodwell Climate Research Center on this important series. Together, we are committed to putting what we learn into action, to help us protect people, our communities, and our future.”
Tuesday’s event, “How Regulators and Advocates Can Harness Physical and Financial Risk Data to Tackle the Climate Emergency”, focused on providing advocates and regulators with an understanding of the tools and data needed to assess climate risk and integrate it into decision making as the impacts of climate change hit communities across the nation and the world. Panelists discussed questions around the United States Securities and Exchanges Commission’s proposed ruling on corporate disclosure of climate risk.
“Because the United States is still catching up to the world and the market on this subject, getting this right is crucial,” said Robert Jackson, Professor of Law at New York University. “The nature of the American government is that you might not get more than one try at this, so I am certainly hopeful that the proposal the SEC comes out with will stimulate a robust discussion among panels like this one.”
The final upcoming event in the series will be held March 1 at 1PM ET, and the conversation will focus on how climate risk information can enable vulnerable communities in developing greater preparedness and resilience. Factoring climate risk data into infrastructure and planning decisions can help ensure communities are able to adapt to a warmer world.
Speakers at that final event will include former congressman Joe Kennedy III, Heather McTeer Toney, VP of community engagement at the Environmental Defense Fund, Robin Bronen, executive director of the Alaska Institute for Justice, Joyce Coffee, founder and president of Climate Resilience Consulting, Jennifer Jurado, chief resilience officer for Broward County Florida and Effie Turnbull-Sanders, environmental justice commissioner for California Coastal Commission. The discussions will be moderated by Woodwell’s chief communications officer, Dr. Heather Goldstone.
Though droughts and bad harvest years are occasional risks for farmers, modern agriculture is built on the assumption of a predictable and stable climate. Rising temperatures are breaking down that assumption, leaving the future of food uncertain. Two new studies put the increasing risks in sharp relief.
Seventy-two percent of today’s staple crops—maize, wheat, soybeans and rice—are grown in just 5 countries, in regions of the world known as breadbaskets. From the plains of North America to the river valleys of India and China, these regions earned their distinction for supporting hundreds of years of agricultural production with their climatic suitability.
“These regions have developed this way for centuries in the same way that human settlements have developed around water, because that’s where the resource was,” says Woodwell Research Assistant, Monica Caparas.
Caparas works on agricultural risk models. Last year, she led an analysis of crop failures in global breadbaskets, projecting the likelihood of declining yields in the upcoming decades. Her results conjured a world where these centuries-old food producing regions may no longer be so reliable. By 2030, crop yield failures will be 4.5 times higher. By 2050, the likelihood shoots up to 25 times current rates.
By mid-century, the world could be facing a rice or wheat failure every other year, with the probability of soybean and maize failures even higher. A synchronized failure across all four crops becomes a possibility every 11 years.
If that sounds like rapid, drastic change, that’s because it is. The immediacy of increasing failures surprised even Caparas.
“The fact that by 2050—which we are almost halfway to already— there could be a wheat failure every year. It’s startling.”
One major component of crop failure predictions is water scarcity. In a warmer world, water is a critical resource. Climate change will shift precipitation patterns, drying out some regions and inundating others. Most of the world’s breadbaskets are headed in the drier direction.
Caparas factored water availability into her analysis, finding the likelihood of crop failure much higher in water scarce sections of breadbaskets. Wheat is especially water dependent, particularly in India where 97% of wheat crops are growing in areas already experiencing water stress. Irrigation could make up for some lack of rain, but groundwater stores are already overdrawn in many places.
Farms beginning to feel the impacts of climate change in Brazil
In Brazil, agriculture is already showing signs of declining productivity from changing precipitation. Woodwell Assistant Scientist Dr. Ludmila Rattis works in Mato Grosso, where she researches the impacts of agriculture and deforestation on the regional climate. Central Brazil is a major breadbasket for soybeans and maize—as well as cattle— and as crop demand increases, farms and ranches have advanced into the Amazon rainforest and the Cerrado, the Brazilian Savanna.
Clearing and burning forests not only releases carbon that contributes to rising global temperatures, it can also have drying effects on the local watershed. In recent years, farmers in Mato Grosso and the Cerrado have reported issues with dry spells, though they would not attribute it to climate change. Dr. Rattis wanted to quantify these anecdotes to show that they were connected.
“I was trying to see why they were denying the climate changing at the same time they were feeling the climate changing. Were they feeling that in their pockets? Was it affecting the finance of their business?”
Dr. Rattis modeled temperature and precipitation changes along Brazil’s Amazon-Cerrado frontier. Her results not only predicted that by 2060, 74% of the region’s agricultural land would fall outside of the ideal range of suitability for rainfed agriculture, they showed that nearly a third of farms already did.
The changes are affecting crop productivity. When the temperature gets warmer, plants grow faster, releasing more water vapor into the air from their leaves as a byproduct of photosynthesis. If there isn’t a steady supply of soil moisture available to replace the lost water, plant growth is stunted. Rainy seasons are also starting later, limiting the possibility for planting two rounds of crops in a single season, which cuts into farmer’s profits and encourages further expansion via land clearing.
Ideal climate for agriculture migrating north
Caparas notes that increasing crop failure doesn’t necessarily mean we are headed for a world without maize or soybean. But it does mean a drastically different agricultural system— one where hard decisions have to be made about land use.
“Increasing crop failures doesn’t mean that these crops won’t ever be able to grow in these areas again, or that they should be abandoned, just that it’s going to be much harder for them to be as productive,” Capraras says. “There might be a certain threshold of losses that would lead people to leave these croplands.”
There is some potential for migration of the most productive lands as northern latitudes begin to warm. Caparas’s projections showed the greatest likelihood of breadbasket migration from the United States into Canada.
However, just because the climate suitability is migrating, doesn’t mean agricultural production will shift along with it. Other factors including soil fertility or existing land uses could limit the practicality of moving to new regions, especially if it jeopardizes existing climate solutions as the case in Brazil has shown. Clearing forests is only accelerating warming, drought and declining productivity.
Future of food depends on drought resilience
Shoring up food security in a changing climate will require system-wide changes to our current agricultural system. Part of that starts with adjusting farming strategies to mitigate the effects of the warming that’s already unavoidable. Dr. Rattis has begun outreach to the farmers whose land she collected data on, giving them a picture of what their farms will look like if nothing changes.
“We need to make them feel that they’re part of the research, because they are. If we do, once we get the results, the probability of them using those results to adapt the way that they produce food will increase,” Dr. Rattis says. “They can see themselves in the historic part of the graphic and then I show them where, climatically speaking, their farm is going,”
She’s hoping these conversations will open Brazil’s farmers up to practices that leave more native vegetation on the landscape, which would help stabilize the local climate and keep the natural watershed intact.
Caparas takes hope from the fact that the outcomes of her models are not set in stone. In the planet-wide experiment of climate change, we can affect the results.
“These projections are due to changes in climate. They don’t account for adaptation strategies. The agricultural technology industry is fast-growing and so I think that there is hope, as long as adaptation techniques are implemented equitably,” Caparas says.
Much of the innovation, Caparas says, will have to involve developing drought resistant crop varieties and less water intensive agricultural processes. In the long term however, securing a productive agricultural future for the Earth’s nearly 10 billion people by 2050 will depend on securing a stable climate.
“First and foremost it always has to be getting climate change in check,” says Caparas.
Tune in to PBS NOVA on February 2 to watch Arctic Sinkholes, an original documentary that explores the hidden dynamics of thawing permafrost and the emissions it releases. The documentary features Woodwell Arctic Program Director, Dr. Sue Natali, alongside other prominent climate scientists working to better understand how climate change is impacting the Arctic.
The film centers on the 2014 discovery of methane craters in the Arctic. These features of the landscape are formed as permafrost thaws, and trapped greenhouse gasses expand, pushing the soil up. When the pressure becomes too great, these bubbles of earth can explode suddenly, creating massive craters on the Arctic landscape and releasing a burst of atmosphere-warming gasses.
“There’s a lot of discussion about carbon dioxide and its relationship to climate, but the impact of
methane coming out of the Arctic is potentially enormous,” says NOVA Co-Executive Producer Julia Cort. “Making accurate predictions about the future depends on good data, and Arctic Sinkholes reveals what scientists have to do to get that data, as they try to measure an invisible, odorless gas that’s underground in some of the most remote and challenging environments in the world.”
To better understand the extent and significance of these craters, Dr. Natali and Woodwell Senior Geospatial Analyst, Greg Fiske, devised a method of mining satellite imagery data for key characteristics that would indicate a recent explosion. A sudden shift from vegetation to water, for example — often, craters quickly fill up with rain, becoming lakes that obscure their own origins.
Outgassing from the craters themselves represents only a small subset of the larger potential emissions from permafrost thaw. Current estimates show that thawing permafrost could contribute as much to warming this century as continued annual emissions from the United States.
Methane craters make evident the speed at which the Arctic is warming, and the changes permafrost thaw is causing on the landscape. In their research, Dr. Natali and Fiske uncovered other impacts of permafrost thaw— slumping ground, sinkholes, and coastal erosion are destabilizing the ground on which many Arctic communities are built.
“These abrupt changes that are occurring in this once-frozen ground are happening faster than we expected,” said Dr. Natali. “And that is not only going to accelerate warming, but also affect the lives of millions who make their home in the Arctic.”
Future research will work towards more precise estimates of permafrost thaw emissions and a better understanding of the changing Arctic.
Arctic Sinkholes premieres Wednesday, February 2, 2022 at 9pm ET/8C on PBS and will be available for streaming online at pbs.org/nova and on the PBS video app.
Woodwell earns Platinum Seal of Transparency
This year, GuideStar, an organization that provides trusted information on non-profits for donors, updated their rating of Woodwell Climate Research Center from a Gold Seal to a Platinum Seal of Transparency.
This is the organization’s highest award, granted to non-profits that are exemplary in transparency surrounding their goals, strategies, and indicators of success and are the most widely used symbol of transparency for non-profits in the U.S. Woodwell had previously earned a Gold Seal in 2019.
This honor certifies Woodwell as an organization with a strong commitment to accountability and a proven track record of achieving our organizational goals. The Platinum Seal means that donors can be confident that their donations are affecting positive change, directly contributing to Woodwell’s mission of combating climate change.
“As donors weigh where to invest their philanthropic dollars to solve the climate emergency, they want to be sure that they are supporting a well-run organization with sound finances and governance. Woodwell Climate’s Platinum Seal of Transparency with GuideStar, combined with our 4-star rating from Charity Navigator, provide that assurance, “ said Woodwell’s Acting President and Executive Director Dr. Max Holmes.
To contribute to Woodwell Climate Research Center, visit woodwellclimate.org/give. Other options include incorporating Woodwell Climate in your will or estate plans, contributing from your IRA tax-free, and gifts of securities or real estate. To discuss those or other options, contact Leslie Kolterman, Chief Development Officer, at 508-444-1584 or lkolterman@woodwellclimate.org.
This year in climate, 2021
A look back at a turning point year for climate change
As another year passes with mounting emissions, we take stock of the big moments for climate change in 2021, from extreme weather events to steps forward on policy. Here’s is a look back at a potentially pivotal year for climate change:
Climate change is now front and center due to deadly weather
This year, the clear repercussions of climate change were impossible to ignore. Climate change worsens extreme weather, making Earth’s formerly reliable systems much more unpredictable. Widespread extreme weather events in 2021 had deadly consequences for the people caught in their paths.
In February, Texas experienced a cold snap that killed 210 people across the state and left millions without power for several days. The freeze was exacerbated by the stretching of the stratospheric polar vortex—a pool of cold air high over the poles that is usually hemmed in by strong westerly winds. When the polar vortex is disrupted from its typically circular shape, it can cause the jetstream to waver and plunge farther south, which can bring unusually cold temperatures farther south. Research has connected rapid warming and sea-ice loss in the Arctic north of western Russia with more frequent warping of the polar vortex, which could mean more of these extreme events in the northern hemisphere.
In the summer, temperatures swung in the extreme opposite direction as a heat wave settled over the Pacific Northwest, breaking records. Temperatures neared 120 degrees Fahrenheit, melting power cables, buckling brick roads, and causing sudden deaths to spike across the region. This phenomenon was also caused by a wavering jetstream that allowed an intense and persistent high-pressure system to trap the heat over the Northwest.
Hotter than average weather also led to record fires this year. In Siberia, the return of the fire season to the boreal forests brought with it blazes larger than concurrent fires in Greece, Turkey, Italy, the U.S. and Canada combined. Drought in Brazil, paired with rising deforestation rates, led to increased fires in the Amazon.
And finally, just this month the Midwestern U.S. was hit by a devastating string of tornadoes, more severe than usual for this time of year, marking the deadliest December tornado outbreak in history. Tornados are tricky to study, so an understanding of how their prevalence will fluctuate with climate change is not yet clear, but the conditions fostered by a warmer atmosphere are amenable for tornado formation.
Increased awareness has led to increased momentum
The undeniable severity of the climate impacts of 2021 has enforced the urgency of cutting emissions. This year, climate action began building the momentum it should have had two decades ago, with more than half of Americans concerned or alarmed about the issue, and governments and private sector organizations across the globe stepping up their commitments to tackling it.
In November, Glasgow, Scotland hosted the 26th annual COP—hailed by some as our “last, best, hope” for successful international cooperation on Climate Change. Although the larger negotiations were not as ambitious as necessary to confidently limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, several steps still pushed the world forward. The conference opened with a pledge from 141 nations to end deforestation by 2030, accompanied by $19 million from governments and private sector groups—a large portion of which was dedicated to supporting Indigenous groups.
Earlier in the year, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) made a request for public comments on a potential requirement for companies to disclose climate risk to their investors. With the impacts of climate change becoming more immediate, the demand for greater certainty around personal risk has grown. The SEC’s inclusion of climate risk in its regulations indicates a broader acknowledgement of the need to prepare for the changes to come. The new presidential administration in the U.S. also signaled its intent to address climate in its first 100 days, staffing up with science and policy advisers and calling an Earth Day summit with leaders from 40 nations.
What to watch for in 2022
So what can we expect as we enter another year?
As long as emissions continue at their current pace, so too will warming and its consequences. Storms, fires, and extreme temperature swings will become a more frequent fixture next year and into the future.
On the international stage, next year’s COP will be one to watch. Nations are expected to return with even more ambitious targets than agreed upon this year. The timelines for formal climate action will accelerate. In the U.S. we can expect to see a ruling from the SEC in early next year.
To match demand for more information on climate risk, Woodwell will be spearheading a collaborative climate risk coalition. The goal of the coalition is to produce an annual climate risk assessment for policymakers to aid future decision-making. Woodwell is also continuing its work conducting risk analyses for climate-related heat, flooding, and fire at the municipality level in several new cities. In 2022, Woodwell will be leading the push for more, transparent climate risk analyses.
2022 will also be a year of expanded research into the impacts of climate change, particularly the rapidly warming Arctic. Woodwell projects will expand our understanding of emissions from thawing permafrost and the behavior of Arctic fires, as well as impacts on extreme weather events. Researchers will also be working closely alongside Indigenous communities to both understand how climate change is impacting vulnerable communities, and support them to take part in climate solutions.
Arctic communities and infrastructure under threat from thawing permafrost
The Arctic has warmed twice as fast as the rest of the globe in the last two decades. In this region where the ground in some places is literally made of ice, rapid warming poses a serious threat to the lives, livelihoods and infrastructure of Arctic communities. A new review led by Dr. Gabriel Wolken from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks and Woodwell Associate Scientist Dr. Anna Liljedahl details the biggest hazards that could result—and in some cases already have—from permafrost and glacial thaw.
The paper was released as a special addition to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Arctic Report Card, an annual report on the status of the Arctic region. In it, the authors outline what we know, and the much larger gaps in our knowledge, about how thawing permafrost and melting glaciers are impacting Arctic communities.
Ice holds the Arctic together. An estimated 23 million square miles of land in the Northern hemisphere is permafrost, soil that traditionally stayed frozen solid year-round. When it begins to thaw, the land slumps, which can cause sinkholes, erosions, and landslides. Retreating glaciers can also destabilize mountain slopes. When collapsing glaciers or mountainsides fall into a nearby water body, they can set off a chain of cascading hazards, including outburst floods, debris flow, and even tsunamis.
Events like these have already been documented, with serious impacts on Arctic residents, yet research and monitoring of these hazards have been lacking.
“Houses are already collapsing, communities are already being impacted by permafrost thaw and having to adapt, including in some cases, to relocate. That’s been happening for a decade, at least, and it’s not getting the attention it should be,” says Woodwell Arctic Program Director Dr. Sue Natali, who also contributed to the Report Card.
And there is vast potential for unstable Arctic ground to have far-reaching global impacts. The collapse of an oil tank in Norilsk, Russia was partly attributed to the extremely warm conditions of 2020. Roads, pipelines, and shipping lanes are all at risk from thaw-related hazards.
“It’s not only affecting someone living near a glacier or on permafrost, it also extends farther than that,” Dr. Liljedahl says. “It includes national security. And we do not have broad-scale hazard identification and detection across the Arctic, or near real-time tracking of permafrost thaw and unstable slopes. We can do a lot more in utilizing the vast amounts of remote sensing imagery and observations made by people living in permafrost and glacier-affected landscapes.”
What’s desperately needed, Dr. Liljedahl says, are early warning systems that can alert residents of imminent threats, especially ones designed in tandem with the communities being affected. But, without more research and widespread monitoring of permafrost and unstable slopes, building such a system would be nearly impossible—akin to taking precautions against a volcanic eruption without knowing where the volcano is.
The behavior and rate of thaw is also likely to change as climate change progresses. Permafrost itself releases emissions when it thaws and that accelerates the warming process, increasing the urgency for the necessary systems to be put into place.
“The rate of hazard formation and the combined effects of these hazards is much higher than it has been in the past, which will make it more challenging to respond to without accelerated efforts to monitor and map these hazards, and develop cohesive response plans,” says Dr. Natali.