In an interview yesterday, President Trump questioned whether climate change was real and claimed that polar ice had expanded to record levels. Read WHRC President Phil Duffy's statement about Trump's dangerously inaccurate comments: "President Trump’s recent interview comments about climate change and the polar ice caps are incorrect in every particular, and in fact they are remarkably close to the opposite of the truth. Land and sea ice are at record or near-record lows at both poles, and Arctic sea ice, at least, has disappeared much faster than predicted by climate models. One would think that someone who watches as much TV as the president reportedly does would have heard that 2017 was recently found to be one of the warmest years on record, and that the most recent four years have been the warmest four on record. Ted Scambos of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, has offered to brief the president on what U.S. satellite monitoring of the poles and other regions has taught us. That would be nice, but the president is supposed to be briefed before, not after, making public pronouncements. The effect of these gross misstatements is much more than political. It’s essential for people to understand that the polar regions are undergoing rapid change, and that these changes threaten to have catastrophic and irreversible global consequences, including massive sea level rise and rapid release of greenhouse gases from thawing permafrost. We must enact strong and immediate policy steps to prevent these outcomes." -WHRC President Dr. Philip Duffy ______________ #climatechange #climatescience #polarice #arctic #sealevelrise #data

NBC Boston aired a 30-minute report on climate change this week. It is great to see network television shine the spotlight on this critical issue. For this report, Meteorologist Michael Page came to our campus to speak with WHRC President Phil Duffy and scientist Dr. Sue Natali about climate change impacts, the threat of permafrost thaw, and the potential of forests to pull carbon out of the atmosphere. The show already aired on NBC10 Boston and NECN, but on Sunday, January 28, it will run on Telemundo New England (translated to Spanish) at 8:00 PM. Watch the permafrost section of the report here, which features Sue Natali and Phil Duffy: http://bit.ly/NBC10Boston_ClimateSpecial_WHRC ____________ #climatechange #climatescience #permafrost #NewEngland #Arctic #NBCboston #forest

This month, WHRC launched a new project to quantify the risks that climate change poses to global financial investments. WHRC scientist Dr. Christopher Schwalm and President Phil Duffy will be leading the effort, along with Spencer Glendon, senior vice president and director of Global Macroanalysis at Wellington Management, an investment firm that manages over $1 trillion. The project will identify the metrics that are particularly relevant to investor decisions, and then analyze how these metrics evolve over the next 20 to 30 years in global climate models. Visualizations of these data will help investors better evaluate climate risk in a language and timeframe that they understand. Melissa Flores, a recent graduate of The University of Texas at Austin, has been hired as a research assistant on the project. While this work is looking two and three decades down the road, climate change is unfolding around us now, and it is not cheap. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 16 separate billion dollar weather and climate disasters combined to make 2017 the most expensive year on record for the United States. // Photo by WHRC scientist Dr. Paulo Brando // Read more in our January newsletter here: http://bit.ly/WHRC_Newsletter_Jan18 ______________________________ #climatechange #climatescience #climaterisk #investmentrisk #fire #drought

THURSDAY NIGHT! Tune in to a climate change special on NECN at 8:00 PM. NBC10 Boston Meteorologist Michael Page came to our campus to speak with WHRC President Phil Duffy and scientist Dr. Sue Natali about climate change impacts, the threat of permafrost thaw, and the potential of forests to pull carbon out of the atmosphere. During the half-hour show you will also hear from other climate experts, as well as local fishermen talking about our rapidly changing world. The show will air three times through Sunday, once in Spanish. Remaining showtimes: Thursday, January 25 NECN 8:00 PM Sunday, January 28 Telemundo New England (translated to Spanish) 8:00 PM __________________ #climatescience #climatechange #climatespecialreport #Boston #NewEngland #CapeCod #Arctic #permafrost

A new WHRC study finds that stopping deforestation would remove 12 years of fossil fuel emissions. Read more in our newsletter here: http://bit.ly/WHRC_Newsletter_Jan18 “Reducing emissions of carbon dioxide is going to be difficult and take time,” said Dr. Richard Houghton, a senior scientist at WHRC and the lead author on the paper. “We will need to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to avoid further warming as we make these reductions. This paper offers an estimate of how much carbon could be taken out of the atmosphere if we managed the world’s forests for that purpose.” The study was published this month in the Journal Global Change Biology. _________________ #climatechange #climatescience #negativeemissions #carbonsequestration #carbonremoval #forests #deforestation

WHRC scientist Dr. Max Holmes launched the Cape Cod Rivers Observatory two years ago to monitor the health of the Cape's many rivers. With the help of Rob Stenson, a retired nurse practitioner, the project has flourished. Read more in today's issue of the Cape Cod Times. http://www.capecodtimes.com/news/20180119/cape-cod-rivers-observatory-offers-stream-of-information "The data is almost immediately available on the observatory website for use by researchers, scientists and municipal officials working on Cape Cod wastewater issues, as well as those who want to restore native brook trout to the region’s rivers and streams." www.caperivers.org #CCRO #CapeCod

The words of famed ecologist and our founder George Woodwell are on a plaque at the entrance to our main building: “Extraordinary efforts have been made in design and construction to incorporate into this building our principles of ecology. These principles, if rigorously applied universally in human activities, would make a major advance toward a stable human habitat.” Here are 20 of those efforts: 1. We have a 100 kW wind turbine that has produced more than 1 million kilowatt hours in its lifetime. 2. 88 solar PV panels sit atop our roof. Wind and solar combine to provide 60% of our annual electricity needs. With more solar coming online, we will soon be a 100% net zero facility. 3. We monitor our energy use and production at minute-level resolution. Data trends are used to guide the decision making process for efficiency changes and upgrades and to track our performance. 4. We are moving large portions of our scientific computing into Google’s cloud, whose data centers have been 100% renewably-powered for over a decade. 5. Where is the beef? Not at WHRC events. Because of the uniquely large environmental impact, we have installed a "no beef" policy at WHRC events. This would mean simply that at any event where WHRC is the host and providing food, we will avoid serving beef if at all possible. 6. A wastewater denitrification system removes 75% of the nitrogen in our wastewater. Excess nitrogen in the watershed can cause algal blooms, fish kills, and salt marsh degradation in a cascade of effects known as eutrophication. 7. A tight thermal envelope and icynene foam insulation enable our main building to use ~25% of the energy of a regular building of the same size. This also makes our renewable energy systems more effective, watt for watt. 8. Our buildings were constructed to maximize natural lighting. 9. Salvaged, recycled, or sustainably-harvested wood is used throughout the interior and exterior of our two buildings. Entire trees were used in the milling process (called Whole Tree Harvesting). 10. Paints and varnishes were selected for their low VOC content. 11. Offset stud construction in the roof and walls provides a thermal break to minimize energy loss. 12. Fresh air is circulated throughout the building via an energy recovery ventilation system (ERU). 13. A hydronic valence conductor makes the heating and cooling of our buildings much more efficient than the traditional baseboard. 14. All of the furniture contains high recycled content and low toxicity material. Aeron desk chairs in most of the offices are made from thirty-six 2-liter soda bottles. The fabrics are made from non-toxic dyes. We selected sustainably-made furnishings. 15. Argon-filled and double-glazed (south) or triple-glazed (north) windows are treated with a transparent coating to reduce heat loss by a factor of two. 16. Our lights are all compact fluorescent and LED light bulbs, complete with motion sensors. 17. We maintain an extensive recycling and composting program, turning our own compost into soil for use in our community garden below the turbine. 18. We use recycled paper products, compostable kitchenware, and environmental soaps and cleaning supplies. 19. WHRC Research Associate Paul Lefebvre maintains several beehives on campus, through which we are often sweetly rewarded. 20. Several bike racks and an electric vehicle charging station encourage zero-emission commutes. We have partnered with MassRIDES to promote more carpooling and low-carbon commuting in the Woods Hole and Falmouth community. 🌳 #AWorldToLiveIn #climatescience #cleanenergy #energyefficiency #climatesolutions #officespace

Just one month until WHRC Scientist Dr. Sue Natali's Antarctica expedition! Natali was selected for Homeward Bound, a 10-year project to build a 1,000-woman global network focused on climate and environmental leadership. Natali was selected last year to take part in the 2018 edition of the Homeward Bound project. She will depart from Ushuaia, Argentina, for Antarctica on February 18, and will participate in leadership skills workshops, as well as programs from top Antarctic scientists, who will deliver a cutting-edge program on global climate, biological, and earth system science. Natali is a permafrost expert and a leading authority on the impact climate change will have on the Arctic. You can support Natali’s expedition here: https://www.gofundme.com/women-climate-leaders-to-antarctic ___________________ #Antarctica #climatescience #homewardboundprojects

Class is in session. Late last year, WHRC's Max Holmes spent the day at Falmouth Academy leading successive groups of 7-12th grade students through wide-ranging discussions on climate change. By day's end, virtually every single student at the school had participated. To change everything, we need everyone. Especially the next generation. Photo: Susan Moffat, Falmouth Academy’s Photography Teacher _____________________ #climatechange #climatescience #climateclass

Early in her career, Dr. Linda Deegan was told that “you have to grow a mustache to be successful in this field.” Now a senior scientist herself at WHRC, she notes that while attitudes toward early-career female scientists have become less overtly hostile, “there’s still pressure that is pushing women out of the field.” That pressure is having a measurable effect on women in science careers. Across the scientific spectrum, the gender balance for junior researchers is roughly equal. According to the National Academies, there were more female than male graduate students in scientific programs in 2011. But as scientists move into more senior roles, that balance shifts dramatically. The lower proportion of senior female scientists in society is mirrored at WHRC. Among the research staff (including assistants, associates, post-docs, etc. but excluding primary investigators) women slightly outnumber men, 14 to 12. But for primary investigators, men outnumber women 15 to 3. “The under-representation of women in senior scientific roles means that we are not getting the benefit of a lot of talent, and hence we are underperforming as an institution,” said WHRC President Philip Duffy. This imbalance will not change overnight, not in our organization nor in society at large. But WHRC recognizes the need for our own policies and practices to foster a community of inclusion, to create more opportunities for women to advance their scientific careers, and to address complex global challenges like climate change with everything and everyone we’ve got. More on this, and other topics, from our latest Canopy Magazine issue, available here for free: bit.ly/CanopyMagazine2CF20Xh Pic: Deegan, #outstandinginherfield in #PlumIslandEstuary outside of #Boston. _________________________________________________ #womeninscience #stem #science #estuary #massachusetts #womeninstem #fieldwork #marsh #wecandobetter #ecology #ecosystem #PIE #CERF #NECSC

Applications for Polaris Project 2018 are due January 15th. This is a unique opportunity to conduct research alongside our scientists on the impacts of climate change & fire on ecosystems of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, Alaska. 9 out of the 12 participants in Polaris 2017 presented their findings at the American Geophysical Union’s annual conference. Many Polaris alums will go on to Ph.D. programs or other careers in conservation and environmental policy. The Polaris Project engages the brightest young minds from a diversity of backgrounds, propelling them on trajectories to solve the most pressing scientific and societal challenges. We hope you join us. Learn more, and apply, here: www.thepolarisproject.org In the attached pictures taken by WHRC's visiting scientist John Schade, Darcy Peter (2nd from the right in the group photo from Polaris 2017 in the Yukon) and Jordan Jimmie (far right) go from research in the permafrost-rich tundra to presenting a poster at AGU. #Polaris2018 #climatescience #climatechange #YukonDelta #Alaska

#WoodsHole: Dr. Kate Clancy's talk initially planned for tomorrow (January 4th) has been postponed tentatively to March 22nd. Her talk is titled: "Addressing Gender and Racial Harassment in the Sciences." Details and registration here: http://whrc.org/addressing-gender-and-racial-harassment-in-the-sciences/