Woodwell Climate’s Government Relations team led the Center’s third annual D.C. fly-in this September, and you might say the third time was the charm.

“It was really impressive to see how we’ve built over the three years of doing the fly-in,” said Laura Uttley, Director of Government Relations. “The scale and scope of meetings, having five of 13 Congressional meetings be with Members themselves, and to have 17 Board members, senior leaders, and scientists participate—it’s just really exciting.”

Over the course of three days, the Woodwell Climate delegation tackled a range of near-term legislative priorities, such as the Natural Climate Solutions Research and Extension Act, standalone legislation that is currently being considered as part of Farm Bill negotiations and was adapted in the House version of the Farm Bill as “soil health research,” as well as longer-term policy development and relationship building.

Engagements spanned the full diversity of Woodwell Climate’s work. Meetings with leadership of the House Climate Solutions Caucus and Conservative Climate Caucus focused on the economic impacts of climate change and the need for expanded national climate services to make risk information available to all communities. A Permafrost Pathways delegation, including representatives of Alaska Native partner communities, shared a range of perspectives on rapid Arctic change with Alaska legislators and the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. One group talked with staff in the office of Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) of New York about carbon markets, and with Rep. Bill Keating (D-MA) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) about Massachusetts-based research, including river monitoring and wetland restoration. Woodwell Climate also met with Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA) and Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA), Chair of the Democratic Caucus, to discuss opportunities to advance and protect climate policies, especially as leadership considers agendas for the next Congress.

Across all the sub-teams and meetings, Uttley says three big takeaways stood out:

1. Relationships matter

That Woodwell’s delegation secured thirteen Congressional meetings—five of them with Members themselves, including leadership of key committees and caucuses—is a testament to the Center’s credibility and the depth of relationships that the Government Relations team is building. A summer of high-profile Supreme Court decisions, the end of the fiscal year looming, and a tumultuous election cycle all contributed to a chaotic energy on the Hill in September, and legislators were only in session for three weeks between their summer recess and a break for election activities. Despite those pressures, Uttley says lawmakers and their staff were enthusiastic and engaged.

She attributes that to months (years, really) of relationship building grounded in a “here’s where we agree, and here’s how we can help” approach. An enormous amount of time and thought goes into crafting meeting agendas and materials that meet legislators where they are, address their needs and interests, and highlight common ground and opportunities for progress.

Consistency is also key, Uttley says. While individual Members come and go, and the political climate shifts, Woodwell Climate’s annual fly-in and growing year-round presence in Washington, D.C. are reminders that we are a reliable resource of information, and in it for the long haul.

2. Caucuses and committees are impact amplifiers

Meetings with individual legislators and/or their staff can be incredibly productive, but time is limited. Briefing an entire committee or meeting with leadership of a caucus group can be an effective way to get scientific expertise and policy priorities to many legislators at once. For example, part of the Woodwell delegation met with leadership of the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus (more than 60 members), staff for the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition (100 Democratic members), and staff for the Conservative Climate Caucus, which has more than 80 Republican members, all interested in pragmatic climate solutions. These larger groups are also less susceptible to disruption through election cycles, which creates opportunities to work on policy agendas with a longer runway.

3. Accessible information makes a difference

Maps on the table, personal accounts of climate impacts, data tailored to a legislator’s district, and plain language science summaries were all on display during the fly-in, and Uttley says the Center’s commitment to making climate science relevant and accessible is a distinguishing feature that opens doors and builds relationships.

“To be able to find hooks and make climate science accessible for such a range of audiences on so many different topics is really impactful,” Uttley said.

Overall, Uttley said being in the room as scientists, community members, and policymakers —and seeing the energy they all came away with—left her with one overarching takeaway: Change is possible and “the Climate Science for Change motto is actually lived; it’s not just something we say.”

Thousands of fires are burning in the drought-wracked Amazon

Much of Brazil is burning as tens of thousands of fires rage around the country, half of them in the Amazon rainforest. Exacerbated by a severe drought, the fires threaten one of the world’s most crucial ecosystems and are consuming the Amazon’s vast stores of carbon, sending more of the damaging greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.

2.4 million hectares (about 6 million acres) of forests, fields and pastures in the Amazon burned between June and August. There were more than 95,000 hot spots in the Amazon biome this year to Sept. 18, according to data from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, known as Inpe.

Read more on Bloomberg.

On Wednesday, September 25, 2024 at 10:00 a.m EDT, representatives from Woodwell Climate Research Center and IPAM Amazônia joined Governor of Pará, Brazil Helder Barbalho, for a special Climate Week event to explore the impacts of climate change on the state of Pará, and launch a new partnership to develop an in-depth climate risk assessment for the state that can inform local adaptation plans and solutions.

“Three years ago, Woodwell Climate partnered with the UK COP 26 Presidency on research that showed the lack of access to tailored, actionable climate risk information was a critical barrier to climate mitigation and resilience planning at the national and sub-national level,” said Dr. Wayne Walker, Chief Scientific Officer for Woodwell Climate Research Center. “Now, we are proud to be partnering with next year’s COP 30 host on work that provides a clear example of how to bridge this important information gap for the state of Pará.”

In 2021, Woodwell Climate and IPAM conducted an initial climate risk assessment for Belém, the capital of Pará and host of next year’s UN climate negotiations, COP30. The study found that the hottest months in the region are getting hotter, and a growing number of days per year are hitting dangerously high wet-bulb – or “feels like” – temperatures, increasing risk of severe heat stress, especially in a city where most economic activities take place outdoors. It also found that the fire season in Pará is getting longer, exposing local communities to extended periods of worsening air quality. A new, more comprehensive climate risk assessment, the initial results of which were presented during Wednesday’s event, shows that Belém is, and will continue to be, at high risk of severe flooding.

“If climate change continues on its current path, Pará will face crises on multiple fronts—with forests devastated by drought and fire, and cities facing devastating extreme heat and flooding,” said Dr. Ludmila Rattis, Assistant Scientist in Woodwell Climate’s Tropics Program. “The roots of these challenges are global and understanding that can drive urgent action to both reduce greenhouse gas emissions and begin necessary adaptation efforts.”

Through this new agreement, Woodwell Climate, IPAM Amazônia, and the Pará government will build on the findings of these assessments to analyze the climate risks facing the Pará region and co-develop effective climate solutions to address them, including identifying areas where green infrastructure could be implemented, pathways to transition to new, more sustainable economies in Pará and across the Amazon, and other mitigation and adaptation strategies.

“The quality of science to support decision-making is fundamental,” said Governor Helder Barbalho. “As the capitol [of Pará] and as the host city of COP30 next year, Belém at this moment has the opportunity for major infrastructure works that will not be the whole solution, but certainly can improve water management, sanitation management, macro-drainage infrastructure to maintain the character of a city surrounded by rivers.”

As a part of this effort, Woodwell Climate will also work with IPAM and the Pará government to develop a case study, as a part of Woodwell’s Unlocking Land-based Opportunities for Climate Solutions (UnLOCS) initiative, to investigate how to effectively scale nature-based climate solutions in Pará leveraging mechanisms like the voluntary carbon market, with the goal of dramatically reducing emissions from land use while delivering meaningful benefits to local communities, ecosystems, and economies.

“We cannot imagine that looking at the forest requires [only] public policies for the forest,” said Governor Barbalho. “We need to be able to look at the forest, but know that the impact of them will require us to act in urban centers.”

“I want to reaffirm IPAM’s commitment to this partnership that we have had with the government of Pará, the State of Pará, and the people of Pará,” said André Guimarães, Executive Director of IPAM Amazônia (Amazon Environmental Research Institute). “We have to work collectively. There is no single solution to the problems we are facing today.”

“This is an incredible opportunity to focus the world’s attention on tropical forests, on Brazil, on Pará,” said Dr. R. Max Holmes, President and CEO of Woodwell Climate Research Center. “We all understand that the Amazon is an incredibly important region, not just for Brazil and for the people that live there, but for the entire world—for all of us.”

Historic rainfall inflicts chaotic floods across four continents

Severe rains bucketed down on central Europe, Africa, Shanghai and the US Carolinas this week, underscoring the extreme ways in which climate change is altering the weather.

Different meteorological phenomena are behind the series of storms, according to climate scientists, though they agree an underlying factor for the supercharged rainfall is global warming writ large. Research has shown that hotter air is capable of carrying more moisture and is more likely to cause intense precipitation.

Climate impacts on Amazon fire

Whether directly or indirectly, human activities are the root cause of fire in the Amazon.
In order for a fire to start anywhere, you need three things— favorable climatic conditions, a fuel source, and an ignition source. In the Amazon, each side of this “triangle of fire” has been exacerbated by warming temperatures and deforestation, creating flammable conditions that can allow fires to spread out of control deep into the forest once they are ignited.

Climate conditions

High temperature and dryness combine to create the right conditions for fires to spread through the Amazon. As global temperatures have risen, the Amazon region has become hotter and drier, more vulnerable to prolonged droughts and extreme climatic events. Most recently, a climate-driven drought spanning 2023 and 2024 has deeply impacted water levels in the forest— to the point of isolating riverside communities.

Wildfire danger days, or days considered hot and dry enough to increase the likelihood of fire, have become a much more common occurrence deeper in the Amazon, where previously it was just too wet to burn.

Fuel

Felled trees and dry vegetation form the fuel for more fires in the Amazon. How do the trees fall? Some are killed in extreme drought and previous fire, but many are intentionally cut, pushed over by bulldozers for conversion of forest to pasture land. Large-scale deforestation has been advancing into the Amazon for decades, fragmenting thick blocks of forest and replacing them with ranch or farm land. Scientists and activists have been pushing for an urgent stop in deforestation to achieve, among other benefits, a drop in fire numbers. However, despite slowly declining deforestation rates, fires are still increasing, pointing to another important piece of the puzzle – degradation.

When a forest is fragmented by deforestation, it degrades the vegetation that remains standing. Forests along the edges of clearings dry out and weaken, making them more susceptible to future burning. And burning weakens nearby forests yet again, creating more available fuel, setting off a chain of degradation.

Ignition

Ignition in the Amazon is almost entirely human caused— whether accidentally or intentionally. Ranch and farm operations both legally and illegally clearing Amazon rainforest use fire to burn away cut vegetation or prepare existing pasture land for other uses. With climate change creating hotter and drier conditions, and lengthening the dangerous dry season, any ignition becomes potentially risky, whether or not its use is legalized. Especially where forest edges have already been weakened.

However, a study led by Woodwell Climate Postdoctoral Researcher and fire ecologist Dr. Manoela Machado, found that long-term solutions to the Amazon’s fire crisis will require distinguishing between the complex uses of fire. One-size-fits-all fire bans, usually employed as emergency measures and not always strictly enforced, may reduce fire in the short term, but don’t adequately address the underlying reasons people have decided to burn the land.

Ending deforestation and supporting firefighters

Fire in the Amazon follows deforestation and degradation, namely from logging, fires, droughts and fragmentation. Climate change and human encroachment have worked in concert to foster a devastating annual burning regime in the Amazon rainforest that threatens one of the Earth’s most valuable mechanisms for keeping the planet cool.

Eliminating fire from the Amazon will require the elimination of deforestation and degradation sources, as well as the enforcement of strategic fire bans and support of firefighting brigades. Machado, has led several successful workshops with Indigenous fire brigades in Brazil, bringing together groups from across the country to learn about Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology they can use to monitor and manage their own forests.

According to Machado, a big part of fire prevention happens in the off-season. Support for activities like community outreach, building fire breaks in collaboration with farmers, and technical assistance to replace legal use of fire, can all help reduce the prevalence of catastrophic fires when the dry-season comes around.

The Amazon is a massive place, and firefighting can be a dangerous job. Especially on the frontiers of deforestation, where land grabbing and illegal deforestation are common and fire fighters are often threatened to stay out of an area. Ultimately, government support, bolstered enforcement of deforestation laws, and viable alternative livelihoods have a major role to play in bringing down fires, alongside continued global efforts to curb climate change.

Permafrost Pathways’ recommendations for urgent congressional action

Rising temperatures across the Circumpolar North are catalyzing more severe and intense environmental hazards in the US-Arctic region. Among the most dangerous trends is thawing permafrost, i.e., the loss of continuously frozen ground that underlies roughly 38% of land surface in Alaska. As permafrost thaws, it destabilizes critical infrastructure, destroying homes, schools, roads, and public utilities. Compounding effects of flooding, erosion, and thaw-induced ground collapse pose imminent environmental threats for at least 144 Alaska Native communities. Permafrost thaw also holds global significance, as it contains an estimated 1.4 trillion tons of carbon, or roughly twice as much carbon as is currently in the Earth’s atmosphere. Without aggressive, near-term climate mitigation, resulting greenhouse gas emissions (carbon dioxide and methane) from permafrost thaw and increasingly intense wildfires in the Arctic-boreal region may be on par with the highest-emitting countries. Fortunately, Permafrost Pathways understands these challenges and is working to leverage the best available science to avoid worst climate scenarios and to advance equitable adaptation responses to permafrost thaw.

The policy recommendations linked to the right are informed by active collaboration with Arctic communities, scientific experts, youth leaders, and innovators in both the public and private sectors. They are intended to align with current US federal policies, including those named in the 2022 National Strategy for the Arctic Region and its Implementation Plan (2023), which identified Permafrost Pathways as a key partner in US government efforts to advance a more resilient and secure Arctic region.

Learn more on Permafrost Pathways’ website.

Hottest summer on record could lead to the warmest year ever measured

A thermometer nailed to a fence post outside in a field

Summer 2024 sweltered to Earth’s hottest on record, making it even more likely that this year will end up as the warmest humanity has measured, European climate service Copernicus reported Friday.

And if this sounds familiar, that’s because the records the globe shattered were set just last year as human-caused climate change, with a temporary boost from an El Nino, keeps dialing up temperatures and extreme weather, scientists said.

How climate models help us see into the Arctic’s future

Asked to picture an Arctic scientist, you might first think of someone in a red field parka navigating sea ice in an inflatable dinghy or measuring snow depth on an expanse of treeless tundra. But much of what we’re learning about Northern ecosystems and what the region’s future could look like comes from scientists sitting before screens, working with code and supercomputers. These researchers train sets of complex equations called models that make valuable predictions about the future climate and its impacts based on what we know about how ecosystems work and what we’ve observed in the past.