1.5°C is a physical limit: Here’s why this target can’t be negotiated
The 2023 El Nino year has taken global temperatures close to the 1.5°Celsius mark above pre-industrial levels and was the hottest year since records began. In response, the Global Collaboration Village (GCV), a World Economic Forum initiative, in partnership with Accenture and Microsoft, is convening leaders at the 2024 Annual Meeting to explore the global consequences.
The Village uses extended reality technology and immersion to bring the stark realities of the climate crisis to the forefront of global consciousness and explore appropriate response pathways.
Continue reading on the World Economic Forum’s website.
Valuing Indigenous knowledge in permafrost research
In the Canadian Arctic, two ambitious research initiatives try to strengthen climate data through community engagement.
Over the last two years, Emma Street has taken trips to Canada’s North to places such as Tuktoyaktuk, a hamlet of less than a thousand people in the Northwest Territories, and Ulukhaktok, a small community on the west coast of Victoria Island. In these remote towns, Street, a Ph.D. student at the University of Victoria, has been meeting with Indigenous community members to learn about the Arctic’s changing landscape and how it is affecting their way of life.
“This is people’s lives and livelihoods and cultural connection,” said Street.
In March, she interviewed Irma and Ernie Francis, a Gwich’in couple who live in Inuvik, a town located about 120 miles north of the Arctic circle. Along the Mackenzie River, they saw houses sinking, the ground eroding beneath them. Community members shared how they’ve had to relocate due to the damage caused to their houses.
‘It’s a scary time’ as world shatters temperature record
And 2024 may bring more of the same.
The Earth notched up its warmest year on record last year — but even that new peak is in danger of being surpassed in 2024.
The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service confirmed a milestone Tuesday that scientists had long predicted: 2023’s average global temperature surpassed the previous peak set in 2016, and reached the highest mark since record-keeping began in 1880.
Earth shattered global heat record in ’23 and it’s flirting with warming limit, European agency says
Earth last year shattered global annual heat records, flirted with the world’s agreed-upon warming threshold and showed more signs of a feverish planet, the European climate agency said Tuesday.
The European climate agency Copernicus said the year was 1.48 degrees Celsius (2.66 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times. That’s barely below the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit that the world hoped to stay within in the 2015 Paris climate accord to avoid the most severe effects of warming.
Read more on Associated Press News.
Weather whiplash, wildfire smoke, and flooding rains — a look back at the extreme weather of 2023
It’s been a wild ride, with weather extremes that had us running the Shop-Vac in our basements, seeking refuge from unhealthy air, and scratching our heads at a cold snap in the midst of a mild winter. Climate experts say there’s more to come.
The past year has been marked by extreme weather across New England — punctuated by an extreme Arctic blast, followed by relentless rains that even now aren’t letting up.
Scientists say many of these events track with what’s expected with a warming — and already warmer — planet.
The mid-December storm, which inundated the East Coast under as much as 7 inches of rain and battered it with high winds, seems to be yet another bullet point in this relentlessly rainy year, which also has the distinction of being Earth’s hottest year in recorded history.
Read more on The Boston Globe.
Yes, the climate crisis is now ‘gobsmacking.’ But so is some progress
This is the year that “absolutely gobsmackingly bananas” summed up the climate emergency. But dramatic descriptors extend to the huge gains humanity has made too.
Scientists are running low on words to adequately describe the world’s climate chaos. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration could already say earlier this month that there was more than a 99 percent chance that 2023 was the hottest year on record. That followed September’s sky-high temperatures—an average of 0.5 degrees Celsius above the previous record—which one climate scientist called “absolutely gobsmackingly bananas.” When one of this summer’s rapidly intensifying hurricanes, fueled by extraordinarily high ocean temperatures, leapt from a 60-knot tropical storm to a 140-knot Category 5, one scientist simply tweeted: “Wait, what???”
1. Collaborating with Communities
This year, Woodwell Climate’s Just Access Initiative went global. Just Access works in close partnership with communities to provide tailored, actionable climate risk reports for Rio Branco, Brazil; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Summit County, Utah; and Lawrence, MA. At COP28, Just Access released their latest report in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development of the DRC, which focused on climate risks and potential solutions in the country and identified carbon markets as a potential funding mechanism for adaptation efforts.
Just Access collaborates with local officials and advocates to ensure the final reports cover information critical to their community’s planning. So far, 14 reports have been completed and more are on the way.
Read the report.
2. Tongass National Forest Protection
In January of 2023, the Biden Administration restored protections against logging and road-building for more than 9 million acres of the Tongass National Forest, the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest.
This came after Woodwell Climate’s Dr. Wayne Walker and Geospatial Analyst Seth Gorelik, along with long-time collaborator Dr. Dominick DellaSalla of Wild Heritage, delivered a research report to the Biden administration showing massive carbon stores in Tongass National Forest and highlighting the importance of roadless areas.
3. Citizen Science with Science on the Fly
In 2023, Science on the Fly’s (SOTF) focused their activities on stewarding their community of scientists. Together they collected more than 3,000 water samples from hundreds of locations around the globe. SOTF leverages the passion and dedication of the global fly fishing community to gather data on the health of rivers across the world. With this data, SOTF can improve our understanding of how watersheds and river systems change over time due to climate change and local effects.
Read about the project’s activities this year.
4. Training the Next Generation of Researchers
We sent 10 Polaris Project students into the field this summer. The Polaris Project engages the brightest young minds from a diversity of backgrounds to tackle global climate research in one of Earth’s most vulnerable environments: the Arctic.
Students conducted their own research projects over two weeks at a field research station near Bethel, Alaska. Afterwards, they returned to the Center to analyze samples, and presented their findings at the American Geophysical Union meeting in December.
Woodwell Climate also hosted several interns through the Partnership Education Program. These undergraduate students participated in research and communications activities across the center.
Read PEP intern, Jonathan Kopeliovich’s story about research in Howland Forest.
5. Convening Critical Conversations
Woodwell Climate has been conducting tropical forest research in Brazil for nearly two decades alongside partner organization IPAM Amazônia. This year, Water Program Director, Dr. Marcia Macedo and collaborators, including Dr. Ane Alencar of IPAM, convened a multi-day workshop in Brazil that produced a policy brief on forest degradation. They then organized experts to submit public comments on Brazil’s updated policy for controlling Amazon deforestation, which for the first time also addresses forest degradation.
Read the policy brief here.
Across the globe, Permafrost Pathways partner, Alaska Institute for Justice (AIJ), hosted a “Rights, Resilience, and Community-Led Adaptation” workshop on Dena’ina homelands in Anchorage, Alaska. The two-day workshop created space for Tribes to share their expertise with each other and connect face-to-face with federal and state government representatives to access resources and technical assistance.
Read more about the workshop.
6. Representing Our Expertise
Our experts showed up as thought leaders this year at several high profile events. As just a few examples, Woodwell Climate’s Arctic Program Director Dr. Sue Natali and Senior Science Policy Advisor Peter Frumhoff both spoke on panels alongside other leading voices in climate at SxSW in Austin, TX. Senior Geospatial Analyst, Greg Fiske attended the Esri User Conference, where his topographic map of Alaska garnered two awards. And Assistant Scientist, Dr. Ludmilla Rattis gave a talk at TED Countdown about her research on the role of Tapirs in rainforest restoration. (Recording coming in early 2024)
7. Making Headlines
Woodwell Climate team members showed up in over 5,000 media stories this year. Our scientific leadership provided quotes for a broad range of high profile climate stories in New York Times, Reuters, Boston Globe, CNN and Grist, just to name a few. Senior Scientist Dr. Jen Francis was quoted over 4.2K times, appearing in major news outlets like the Washington Post and AP News to provide accessible context about the links between climate change and extreme weather events.
8. Rebuilding an Arctic Research Station
Last fall, Scotty Creek Research Station in Canada—one of the only Indigenous-led climate research stations in the world—was almost entirely consumed by a late-season wildfire. Woodwell Climate’s Permafrost Pathways project is providing rebuilding support to the Łı́ı́dlı̨ı̨ Kų́ę́ First Nation. Project scientists Dr. Kyle Arndt and Marco Montemayor visited the site for two weeks this spring to restore an essential carbon monitoring tower.
Read the story of Scotty Creek.
9. Advancing the Scientific Literature
Our researchers published 80 peer-reviewed scientific publications this year. From the Arctic to the Tropics, from soil concentrations to river concentrations, Woodwell Climate had a part in discovery.
Recent trends in the chemistry of major northern rivers signal widespread Arctic change
Grain-cropping suitability for evaluating the agricultural land use change in Brazil
Explore all our publications.
10. Leading on the World Stage
Woodwell Climate’s President & CEO Dr. Max Holmes brought Woodwell Climate to the main stage of CERAWeek, Green Accelerator Davos, GenZero Climate Summit in Singapore, Climate Week NYC, and Mountainfilm Festival. He discussed cutting-edge climate science alongside notable figures like Bill McKibben and former Colombian President Iván Duque Márquez.Read about Dr. Holmes’ time at Davos.
Here’s how experts graded US climate progress in 2023
Climate experts give the U.S. mixed grades on its efforts to mitigate climate change — but they all agree there’s room for improvement.
’Tis the season to be merry … and get graded. As students across the country anxiously await their report cards, we thought it would be a good time to ask climate experts to grade the United States’ efforts to address the issue over the last year.
They were more than happy to play along.