The return of river herring
Every spring, river herring migrate from the ocean to freshwater rivers to spawn. Before Europeans arrived in this region, millions of fish could be seen in herring runs. But pollution, dams, and overfishing drastically reduced the number.
Over the past two decades, conservation groups, local towns, the state and Mashpee Tribal leaders have worked to restore river habitat. The herring are making a slow comeback. So much so that for the first time, people who are not members of a tribe are allowed to take herring from a run in Harwich.
Chaotic March weather has a surprising secret
Seemingly unrelated weather systems illustrate how connected we are by larger patterns that move around in our atmosphere. Meanwhile, “weather whiplash” could be evidence of the warming climate.
As its final days wind down, weather in March 2026 has been one for the record books. It showed why old sayings endure and rivaled college basketball for “March Madness.”
True to the proverb, the month came “in like a lion,” and later echoed Shakespeare’s warning to “beware the ides of March.”
Relentless, record-breaking heat persisted in the West. Powerful storms and bouts of polar air blew through the Central and Eastern U.S., bringing extreme swings in temperature within hours. Hawaii endured flooding rains in a string of kona lows.
It may come as a surprise, but these weather systems also illustrate how connected we are by larger patterns that move around in our atmosphere.
Continue reading on USA Today.
Beneath the frozen surface: How AI is uncovering the secrets of permafrost
Beneath the surface of the Arctic, frozen ground holds clues about our planet’s past and its critical information about its future. Known as permafrost, this ground remains below 0°C for at least two years at a time and stores massive amounts of ice, organic carbon, and environmental history accumulated over thousands of years. But understanding how permafrost is changing throughout the Arctic landscape is no small task.
These regions span millions of square kilometers, and the datasets used to study them (from satellite imagery to high-resolution terrain maps) are often too large for most researchers to access or explore. Now, researchers working with the Permafrost Discovery Gateway, a platform hosted by the Arctic Data Center at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), are using artificial intelligence to change that. In collaboration with Google.org, the gateway combines satellite imagery, high-performance computing, and machine learning, opening a new window into Arctic change. One that anyone with an internet browser can explore!
Statement on public availability of scientific information and scientific evidence on climate change
The American Meteorological Society and the scientific societies listed below are surprised and concerned with the decision by the Federal Judiciary Center (FJC) to remove the climate science chapter from the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, Fourth Edition and the subsequent letter of February 19, 2026 from 21 attorneys general to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM).
Read more on the American Meteorological Society.
Twelve women carrying the flame for climate action despite the headwinds
It’s been a tough year for anyone working on the climate agenda. The Trump Administration’s repeal of the endangerment finding, the legal underpinning of U.S. climate regulation, was a coup de grace, after a litany of regulatory cuts and other moves to remove any impediment to unfettered fossil fuel development in the world’s largest economy.
Where the U.S. has led, much of the world has followed, with action on the nature and climate crises losing steam as corporate and government leaders have been forced to respond to a new U.S. administration determined to up-end the collaborative, rules-based international order.
What changes for climate targets when permafrost emissions are included?
Permafrost and temperature targets
Permafrost, the permanently frozen ground found in large parts of the Arctic and boreal regions, holds enormous amounts of carbon, roughly twice as much as is currently in the atmosphere. As permafrost thaws, it releases carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere and adds significantly to further warming. Permafrost thaw is happening faster and faster and is no longer an issue of the distant future. The potential magnitude of permafrost carbon emissions means they directly affect estimates of remaining carbon budgets needed to keep Earth’s temperature increase below the 1.5° and 2° Celsius thresholds established by the Paris Agreement.
Thanks to the generosity of the Woodwell donor community, the first round of 2026 Fund for Climate Solutions (FCS) awardees has been announced. The FCS supports innovative, solutions-oriented climate science through a competitive, cross-disciplinary process. With more than $10 million raised to date, donor support has already fueled 84 research grants and leveraged millions of dollars in additional research grants since the program’s launch in 2018.
This most recent round of grants is supporting Woodwell experts working directly with communities to generate climate insights, bringing quality data on landscape carbon to international policy venues, and investigating links between climate change and winter weather.
Tracking water quality and empowering communities in the Amazon’s Arc of Deforestation
Lead: Allie Cunningham
The Kayapó people, Mẽbêngôkre (“People of the Water Hole”), are internationally recognized for their leadership in stewarding more than 9 million hectares of intact Amazon rainforest within a region known for rampant deforestation. This territorial defense is coordinated through the Kayapó Project (KP), an alliance of three Indigenous nongovernmental organizations which provides holistic governance and supports Kayapó communities with border patrols and community monitoring systems. Despite this extraordinary stewardship, a critical scientific gap persists, and KP has invited Science on the Fly and Woodwell Climate to help fill it. This FCS-supported project will establish a territory-wide, Indigenous-led scientific platform for water quality monitoring. Woodwell researchers and Kayapó community members will then use the baseline measurements taken to identify threats to the Xingu river ecosystem and Kayapó lands to understand other potential long-term, collaborative community science research.
Red Hook Climate Resilience Partnership: A collaborative initiative to strengthen community preparedness and adaptive capacity to climate risks
Lead: Dr. Nigel Golden
Climate change is making extreme weather events more intense across New York City, but some communities experience greater impacts than others. Red Hook, an area burdened by environmental, social, and economic inequities, was also one of the hardest-hit neighborhoods during Superstorm Sandy—floodwaters reached nearly every block. Despite state initiatives and city resilience plans, residents say their needs continue to be overlooked, and their voices go unheard. Through a partnership between Resilient Red Hook, Woodwell, and CUNY John Jay College of Criminal Justice, residents are leading the charge to change that. With community members as co-researchers, the team will assess climate risks at the neighborhood level and use the assessment to identify adaptation opportunities, with a focus on equity. With the partnerships, baseline data, and findings generated through this work, the team will be able to compete for larger, multi-year grants that can support real action on Red Hook’s terms. The project will also produce a research and engagement framework that other community-science partnerships can draw on.
From Arctic greenhouse gas budgets to policy: An opportunity to translate science to action
Lead: Dr. Bethany Sutherland
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has a well-recognized issue: its carbon accounting focuses on emissions and uptake due to human activity, without adequately considering natural lands. The Arctic region, which stores vast amounts of carbon, is a critical part of this accountability gap—many regions in the Arctic are already shifting to become net carbon emitters and emissions are projected to continue to rise. Previous Woodwell research has generated carbon budgets for the Arctic by evaluating modeled emissions against observations. With this FCS funding, the project team will amplify those findings and bring Arctic carbon budgets to international policy venues, including the Global Carbon Project and the UN’s Global Greenhouse Gas Watch. The grant will support travel to visit partner institutions and conferences, as well as a workshop hosted at Woodwell. In-person collaboration will strengthen the team’s connections with the global carbon accounting and reporting efforts that inform UN decision making.
Assessing the carbon cycle health and risk of global rangelands systems
Lead: Dr. Jennifer Watts
Rangelands’ soils and plants store large amounts of carbon, and millions of people directly depend on the goods and services these lands provide for well-being and survival. Rangeland ecosystems are also threatened by warming temperatures and land degradation, for example through overgrazing. However, the impacts of these changes on rangeland carbon is poorly understood, and science-informed data hasn’t been available to guide decision makers. The project team will model where rangelands are releasing or storing carbon, and where those lands are at heightened risk from future climate change impacts. This work will produce actionable insights for land management and policymaking at local, regional, and global scales. The team will also present their results at an official side event of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, representing Woodwell at the conference for the first time.
Hot blobs, cold blobs, and crazy weather: How are greenhouse-gas-fueled SST anomalies affecting Northern Hemisphere weather patterns?
Lead: Dr. Jennifer Francis
Climate change is causing shifts in regional ocean temperatures—both heating and cooling—as the water absorbs extra heat trapped by greenhouse gases while accelerated melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet adds buoyant fresh water to the North Atlantic. When differences in temperature between ocean regions change, wind patterns shift, affecting the jet stream and weather. This project will use artificial intelligence to compare patterns in sea surface temperature and winter weather regimes over North America as well as the North Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Recognizing and understanding how changing ocean temperatures are affecting weather patterns will improve seasonal weather forecasting and help decision-makers prepare for increasingly extreme weather conditions.
Why this US cold snap feels bone-shattering when it’s not record-shattering
The brutally frigid weather that has gripped most of America for the past 11 days is not unprecedented. It just feels that way.
The first quarter of the 21st century was unusually warm by historical standards – mostly due to human-induced climate change – and so a prolonged cold spell this winter is unfamiliar to many people, especially younger Americans.
Because bone-shattering cold occurs less frequently, Americans are experiencing it more intensely now than they did in the past, several experts in weather and behavior said. But the longer the current icy blast lasts – sub-freezing temperatures are forecast to stick around in many places — the easier it should become to tolerate.
