Climate Change

Hundreds of people rallied for action on climate change in Keene and Portsmouth this weekend.

They were part of demonstrations nationwide, ahead of a global climate summit in San Francisco this week.

Seacoast families and students filled Portsmouth's Market Square with electric vehicles and signs denouncing fossil fuels and President Trump’s climate policies.

They listened as mock-time travelers told stories from two potential futures. One came after inaction on climate in the present day:

The Portsmouth City Council has withdrawn its support of a conference on climate policy. 

The conference, titled "Climate Policy Choices: Payoffs and Trade-offs" once had the backing of the Portsmouth City Council.

But several residents raised concerns about the conference speakers, some of whom challenge policies that prioritize climate mitigation efforts, saying they're a big cost to the economy.

New England has seen a significant increase in heavy rain and snow events in recent years, storms delivering upwards of two inches of precipitation in a single day.

While human-caused warming is a major contributor to that shift, natural climate trends may be playing a role as well, said Jonathan Winter, a professor of geography at Dartmouth College. 

He recently published research looking at specific weather patterns driving precipitation in the northeast since 1996. 

A new study from Plymouth State University and the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest says New Hampshire ski areas will have fewer days to make snow each winter as the climate warms.

Co-author Geoff Wilson of the Cary Institute says they already knew the White Mountains were warming faster during the winter than at other times of the year.

For this study, he says they worked with nearby Loon Mountain Resort to see how warming is affecting ski areas.

Deb Bourbeau owns a home in Hampton Beach, and each morning, she checks how high the tides will be. Flooding's been an issue for her and her neighbors.

It's one reason she turned out for the New Hampshire Coastal Climate Summit on Wednesday.

A new study says rising seas could threaten more than 5,000 homes on the New Hampshire Seacoast by the end of the century.

The Seacoast properties at risk from chronic flooding pay more than $33 million in property taxes, according to the national report from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Climate change is leaving a mark on one of New Hampshire's springtime rituals: maple sugaring.

Scientists and farmers dug into the latest research over pancakes in Plymouth on Tuesday.

Mount Washington Observatory research director Eric Kelsey says maple trees face a lot of stresses: abnormal storms, droughts, excess road salt, acid rain and new pests.

"And that might explain the general 25 percent decrease in sap-sugar content we've seen over the last 40 to 50 years,” Kelsey says.

New studies say a decrease in snow days as the climate changes is taking an economic toll on states like New Hampshire—as well as an environmental one.

A national report commissioned by nonprofit Protect Our Winters says when snow falls and stays on the ground, spending on winter sports tends to increase. (Read the report here.)

Conservationists say two iconic New Hampshire animals – moose and loons – show how climate change will reshape the region in the years to come.

They talked about their latest research – and how they hope people will respond to it – at the Audubon Society in Concord Wednesday night.

It was the same day New Hampshire and Maine set new records for winter warmth. Highs were in the 70s in Concord, and the snowless Mount Washington summit reached 48.

Some New Hampshire towns hit hard by storms this year are still waiting for federal disaster relief funds. That's led to a proposal to offer short-term aid from state coffers to fill the gap. 

Orford, for example, suffered bridge damage and road washouts after storms in July and October. The Grafton County town is expecting to be reimbursed in part by FEMA funds, but there's a delay before that money comes through.

New research from UNH says the effects of climate change on New Hampshire could start to accelerate by the middle of the century.

Former Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy told an audience in Exeter Monday night not to be discouraged by rollbacks of policies she penned under President Obama.

Instead, she said, they should take their own action at the state and local levels.

McCarthy is now a fellow at Harvard University. She said it’s frustrating to see the Trump administration and the EPA under her successor, Scott Pruitt, try to dismantle many of her programs, including the Clean Power Plan.

Concord joins Portsmouth, Nashua, Keene, and Lebanon in announcing its support for the international climate agreement known as the Paris Accord.

President Trump said he would pull the U.S. out of the agreement earlier this summer.

Rob Werner is a Concord city councilor.

In light of the recent hurricanes slamming the Gulf Coast and Southeastern United States, The Exchange spoke with Perry Plummer, Director of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, Jonathan Winter, a Dartmouth professor who has studied increasing precipitation over the last two decades in New England, and two engineers, Jim Gallagher, who specializes in dams, and Fred McNeill, who works in wastewater treatment, about how well New Hampshire is prepared for major weather events. 

New Hampshire is unlikely to bear the direct brunt of a storm like Hurricane Harvey, but the state has experienced its share of disasters, from historic flooding to a tornado that killed a Northwood woman in 2008.

It’s those sudden or “no-notice” storms that keep Perry Plummer, director of New Hampshire Homeland Security and Emergency Management, on his guard. He wishes more people were prepared for major storms.

“We as citizens are under-prepared for disasters in this country,” Plummer said. “It’s a wake-up call for everybody.”

More than 100 people gathered on the Lebanon green Saturday to rally against a proposed natural gas development in town.

Democratic U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan says the Trump administration should endorse the findings of a federal report on climate change that was recently leaked to the New York Times.

At a League of Conservation Voters event in Portsmouth, Hassan told reporters that while she had concerns about the leaking of draft documents, she thinks the Trump administration should endorse the report’s findings.

The report, compiled by scientists from 13 federal agencies concludes that climate change is already affecting Americans’ daily lives.

The city of Lebanon has joined the growing list of New Hampshire communities signing on to the goals of the Paris Climate Accord.  

The Lebanon City Council vote was unanimous Wednesday night. Councilors acknowledge that the move doesn't mean any practical changes for the city -- they already have policies on the books to significantly reduce their greenhouse gas footprint. 

Climate change, which causes rising temperatures, increasingly severe weather events, and shrinking habitats, negatively impacts the moose and loon populations of New Hampshire more than any other factors -- including human interference from road construction or hunting and fishing practices.

That's according to longtime wildlife observers, who joined The Exchange to deliver an update on these two beloved new Hampshire species. 

Over a million dollars is headed to New Hampshire to help protect coastal communities.

A large, privately held piece of land in Hanover will be protected under a new agreement between the land's owners and the Hanover Conservancy, a private non-profit conservation group.

The land, just over 300 acres northeast of town, overlaps with the Appalachian Trail and is home to woods, streams and wetlands. Those features, plus its location and high elevation, made it particularly attractive to the Hanover Conservancy.