Kate Ng meets the people who have become increasingly aware of the impact of climate change following extreme weather events and rising pollution levels

Urban heat islands are metropolitan places that are hotter than their outlying areas, with the impacts felt most during summer months. About 85% of the U.S. population lives in metropolitan areas. Paved roads, parking lots, and buildings absorb and retain heat during the day and radiate that heat back into the surrounding air. Neighborhoods in a highly-developed city can experience mid-afternoon temperatures that are 15°F to 20°F hotter than nearby tree-lined communities or rural areas with fewer people and buildings.

Click here for city data and graphics

 

Climate change is making extreme heat events worse and more frequent, with summer temperatures stretching into the shoulder seasons of spring and fall. Heat events adversely affect health and quality of life—and this is especially acute in urban communities. Higher cooling demand strains the electric grid and raises electric bills. And heat-related impacts fall unequally, with historically underserved populations facing greater health threats.

This report will look at the factors that contribute to the heat island effect, and our analysis will show how they vary in places across the United States. We’ll discuss some of the impacts of higher temperatures on human health and the built environment. We’ll also take a look at how communities are adapting to these new normals and consider solutions for lessening some of the intensity of the urban heat island.

FULL REPORT

By Joe Martucci, Press of Atlantic City and Victoria Bouloubasis, Climate Central

A sign marks the height of the flooding inside Atlantic City's Vagabond Kitchen + Tap House during 2012's Superstorm Sandy. Vagabon and many restaurants on the Atlantic City coastline are facing increasing flooding risks. Edward Lea, Staff Photographer

This segment and story were produced through a partnership between Climate Central and The Press of Atlantic City.

ATLANTIC CITY — Whether it’s a nor’easter, tropical system or even a full moon with an east wind, restaurant manager Elvis Cadavid will survey the kitchen at Vagabond Kitchen + Tap House and brace himself.

“(Here) you’re in the worst possible flood zone,” Cadavid said.

About 1½ feet below the seating area inside, his refrigerators, prep tables, fryers and any other kitchen equipment are put on wheels and elevated a few inches off the ground. Nearly every part of the land beneath the popular brewpub and late-night venue on North Trenton Avenue faces a chronic risk of flooding, according to an analysis by Climate Central, a nonadvocacy science and news group. There’s one exception: the patio on the Trenton Avenue side — that only faces a 10% chance of a flood each year, although by 2050, the patio also will become part of a frequent flood zone, the analysis found.

“I spend thousands of dollars a year pumping out the crawlspace,” said Cadavid. “Some future work calls for adding a couple of sump pumps so you don’t have to pay to drain it out each year.”

When the flooding is in moderate or major stage, which means a crest higher than 6.9 feet above the average low tide mark, the restaurant can lose a lunch or dinner shift, and with it, revenue and worker wages. On occasion, the flooding is so bad everything shuts down.

Since Superstorm Sandy in 2012, Cadavid has filed three flood insurance claims for loss, including damaged refrigerator units. While the insurance covers the loss, it means higher premiums for the next flooding event.

The impacts from sea level rise affect almost every facet of life in the resort city, from its economy to its culture and physical landscape. To better understand how the sea continues to shape the resort, The Press and Climate Central are spending this year looking at the challenges, coping strategies and opportunities facing the city as it deals with increasing flooding risks.

Climate Central analyzed the impact on 26 non-casino based restaurants and found that 10 would experience frequent or chronic coastal flood risks on their properties by 2050. Some, such as Vagabond, are already feeling the impact, while others have yet to see severe flooding.

Long-term plans call for raising West End Avenue. But in the meantine, Vagabon Kitchen + Tap House owner Elivs Cadavid stays alert when storms or flooding is expected. Edward Lea, Staff Photographer

From 1993 to 2017, sea levels in New Jersey have risen an average of 1.9 inches per decade, according to a Rutgers University Science and Technology panel. Of that 1.9-inch growth, nine-tenths of an inch comes from natural processes, such as sinking land. A warming world, driven by man-made greenhouse gas emissions, accounts for 0.87 inches, while 0.2 inches of the rise is due to unknown factors. The rate of sea-level rise is increasing globally, and it will continue to affect Atlantic City at a quickening pace.

Another challenge to a struggling industry

The scars of each storm are etched on popular restaurants and bars like Vagabond.

“I got markers all around my property,” Cadavid said of the high water marks staining the outside of the building that sits on North Trenton Avenue along West End Avenue in the city’s Chelsea Heights neighborhood. The flooding inside his restaurant during Sandy reached 20 inches. Outside, it rendered West End Avenue, a major artery between the city and neighboring Ventnor, impassable.

Aaron Levine, founder and CEO of LG Insurance based in Long Branch, Monmouth County, has been monitoring federal policy related to flood insurance restrictions and what it could mean for private residences and business properties in New Jersey. FEMA’s new rules go into effect by October.

Flood insurance rates will go up as a result of the rule changes.

“It’s going to affect everybody,” he said, “but it’s going to be a bigger opportunity to spread the risk and allow lower-risk properties to take on a little more of the cost to offset the expense of the higher-risk properties.”

He added that climate-related threats won’t cease, and any business should remain prepared.

“Significant storm activity is happening on a consistent and regular basis throughout the world,” said Levine. “From a professional agent’s perspective, we have to look at the global risks.”

Levine’s advice: Get ahead of the game and mitigate risks. He suggests not waiting for a disaster to make building upgrades, for example. He also notes that insurance options are widely available through both federal programs and private companies.

“For business owners, especially in hospitality, read the insurance policies, understand what the coverage is and do a cost-risk analysis to understand exactly what’s going on so there are no surprises later,” he said.

Loss of revenue, higher insurance costs and increased threats of flooding are the last things the hospitality industry needs. Adjusted for seasonal workers, 35,000 people work in the hospitality industry in the Atlantic City-Hammonton region, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, which tracks economic and labor data for the region.

Pre-pandemic, in April 2019, 44,100 people were working the industry, according to the Federal Reserve data.

Flooding can affect an employee’s ability to get to work. Cadavid said most of his team lives in flood-prone areas. Getting to the road on a day with coastal flooding may mean walking on crates from the front door of their home to a dry part of the street where their car is parked and then trying to find the route with the least amount of car-corrosive salt water. For some, it means making sure their legs don’t get wet as the jitney pulls in.

“I am very close to the water, so we do experience some flooding and it does make it a little difficult to get to work ... because you have to detour,” said Sania Alikoarti, a hostess at Vagabond, who moved here from Albany, New York, three years ago.

Cadavid says another Vagabond employee who lives in adjacent Ventnor Heights makes a plan for getting to work whenever coastal flooding is expected. If it’s significant, she’ll stay at another person’s house.

As Atlantic City continues to grapple with high unemployment rates — with one in three people out of a job — sea level rise and flooding threaten long-term prospects for steady income for hospitality workers.

Sea levels are projected to rise an additional 0.3 to 0.9 feet by 2030, according to the Rutgers study, regardless of how much more greenhouse gas pollution is released in the coming years. By 2050, it’s somewhere between 0.7 and 1.9 feet.

A familiar problem with an elusive solution

Some local entrepreneurs have resigned themselves to the fact that flooding is a way of life.

“It’s annoying, but I don’t feel like it necessarily hurts us,” said Mike Barham, owner of Gilchrist Restaurant, located on Rhode Island Avenue in an out-of-the-way, tourist-friendly spot known as Gardner’s Basin.

The Gilchrist Restaurant in Gardner's Basin does not normally flood but will by 2050, according to a review by Climate Central. Edward Lea, Staff Photographer 

Across the parking lot sits another popular spot, Back Bay Ale House, where diners go for drinks, a meal or to watch the sun set from the open porches and picnic tables at its outside bar.

While the Gilchrist does not normally flood now, like Back Bay Ale House, it will by 2050, according Climate Central’s review.

One thing is clear, at least to City Councilman Jesse Kurtz, whose 6th Ward includes Vagabond: Atlantic City means too much to the state, investors and locals to be abandoned.

Kurtz said residents quickly identify flooding as a major problem, but seem resigned to it.

Solutions to the flooding exist, but action is needed, he said.

“In working through the issue ... there is a solution and fundamentally, we have to decide if we’re going to shore up infrastructure and make things livable for people that are here or are we going to abandon the islands,” Kurtz said.

Cadavid says he is working closely with Kurtz on the issue, including plans to raise the roads around his restaurant.

“One of the challenges here is that it’s the intersection of local, county and state roads,” Kurtz said of the intersections of West End and Trenton avenues and the adjacent Black Horse Pike.

Another issue: The nearby bay and marshland means the state Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could require permitting.

Kurtz said a short-term fix is in the works as the state plans to elevate the off-ramp of the southbound pike lanes onto West End Avenue. That will happen in a matter of months.

This will address the flooding issues, but only modestly.

Kurtz said the long-term plan to remove flooding from West End Avenue, which turns into Wellington Avenue in Ventnor, is to lift the entire road, similar to what was done for the pike in parts of Egg Harbor Township’s West Atlantic City neighborhood. The next phase calls for raising the pike from Naples Avenue to Bayport Drive by 2.5 feet at a cost of $27.5 million. That phase will happen in the next one to four years.

Meanwhile, the state is asking the private sector — businesses and homeowners alike — to absorb some of the costs by building higher.

In April, the state released a New Jersey Climate Change Resilience Strategy, which touted a plan to mitigate the effects of climate change. One of its recommendations was that all new construction in coastal zones be able to withstand roughly 5 feet of sea level rise by 2100. Some local governments and stakeholders have objected to the higher building requirements needed to meet that threshold, saying the state is forcing a response based on a threat that has only a 17% likelihood of happening.

In the meantime, Cadavid will continue to keep a careful eye on his restaurant, and will look out for flood warnings. His spot fared well during the pandemic, closing only briefly after a positive COVID-19 case on staff.

Still, Vagabond and many other restaurants on the Atlantic City coastline lost revenue last year, shifted staff and now likely face higher flood insurance costs due to sea level rise.

A return of indoor dining means more customers — and neither Cadavid nor Barnham of Gilchrist need another obstacle to filling their tables.

“When it’s the perfect storm at high tide and the full moon, the roads ... can be bad,” Barnham said. “It can almost be impossible to get to us.”

(Data analysis by Allison Kopicki of Climate Central.)

Cadavid, Edward Lea, Staff Photographer

Scientists have discovered heat-resistant corals in the Red Sea - but this is only the beginning of sustainable regeneration in the area

By Lori Valigra and John Upton

The city of Bath, nestled on the western banks of the Kennebec River, is especially endangered by climate change and rising sea levels. Credit: Troy R. Bennett / BDN

BATH, Maine — Peter Gerard had never seen so much water.

This segment and story were produced through a partnership between Climate Central and Bangor Daily News.

A torrential rain storm in late September 2015 coinciding with high tide waters and leaves clogging drains sent him racing to a low-lying Central Maine Power Co. substation near the Kennebec River to check equipment. The water was already 2 feet deep, so he could not get too close.

Gerard, an electromechanical worker and 33-year veteran of the electric utility, called the substation’s operations director, who decided to shut off power to the utility’s 4,000 customers in and around the midcoast city.

That included Bath Iron Works, a shipyard across the street that is one of Maine’s largest private employers and that the U.S. Navy designates as “strategic infrastructure.” The waters did not reach the shipyard, but the power outage forced it to send home first-shift workers and to cancel the second shift. A worker inside a shipyard assembly building was briefly stranded in a crane box because the structure’s electronic doors couldn’t be opened for the fire department’s ladder truck.

Bath, the 8,500-resident “City of Ships,” is among the places in Maine facing the greatest risks from increased coastal flooding because so much of it is low-lying. The rising sea level in Bath threatens businesses along Commercial and Washington streets and other parts of the downtown, according to an analysis by Climate Central, a nonprofit science and journalism organization.

Water levels reached their highest in the city during a record-breaking storm in 1978 at a little more than 4 feet over pre-2000 average high tides, and Climate Central’s sea level team found there’s a 1-in-4 chance of a 5-foot flood within 30 years. That level could submerge homes and three miles of road, cutting off communities that live on peninsulas, and inundate sites that manage wastewater and hazardous waste along with several museums.

“That event gives us a picture of what the future of some of these low-lying areas might look like,” Peter Slovinsky, a state marine geologist, said of the 2015 storm. “On top of almost a king tide, plus a bit of storm surge, you ended up with a pretty significant impact.”

A workman walks by an electrical substation in Bath that flooded in 2015, causing a major power outage. The substation is now undergoing work to make it less prone to flooding. Credit: Troy R. Bennett / BDN

Flooding is nothing new in Bath, nor around the brackish Kennebec or along Maine’s southern coast, where homes hug the ocean. Crucial tourism and working waterfront areas, including part of Bath’s downtown, sit on land that was once underwater and was filled. But as seas rise and the warming atmosphere fuels more intense storms, the threats that flooding poses to Bath are growing more severe.

Rising sea levels have already diminished property values across New England. Bath has already seen the highest property value losses in Maine caused by rising sea levels between 2005 and 2017, according to the First Street Foundation, a national group focused on flood risk. In all, $69.9 million was lost in Maine among $403 million across the region. Some 17 percent of Bath properties were at risk in 2019, and that could rise 9 percent in 30 years, with more than 8,000 residential properties at substantial risk statewide.

Residents and businesses are noticing increased flooding prompted by more frequent and severe weather events. Local officials are doing much of what they can to brace infrastructure and adapt the city. Solutions can be expensive and hard to fund, such as a levee that would cost millions of dollars and scenic views, leaving Bath at the vanguard of coastal cities in an uphill and ongoing fight to protect remaining land and their economies.

Perhaps nobody knows the threat better than Kristi Nygaard, who has owned the Kennebec Tavern Restaurant & Marina, one of the closest structures to the river, for 25 years. The eatery’s parking lot floods frequently, especially when strong southeast winds and rain come during a full-moon tide.

In 2009, Nygaard built a $1 million seawall. But it is not high enough to fully protect her business because of regulations that prevent it from impeding the river. Flood waters got inside only once, during a June 2012 windstorm that brought 8 inches of rain to Bath over a weekend, she said. No solution, including a concrete pad that elevates the building about 3 feet or scuppers to drain away water, is perfect.

Kristi Nygaard stands on a dock in the marina in front of her restaurant on the Bath waterfront on Wednesday June 24, 2021. The Kennebec Tavern is occasionally affected by rising floodwaters but Nygaard has adapted with a robust seawall and a special drainage system. Credit: Troy R. Bennett / BDN

“If we had been able to put the seawall up higher, the water might not come in, but then again, the storm drains on Commercial Street still would flood,” she said. “Nature tries to take back what it had.”

Maine has had catastrophic floods before, including in April 1987, when a storm combined with snowmelt created record flooding in central and southwestern Maine and led to disaster declarations in 14 of Maine’s 16 counties, causing $175 million in damage when adjusted for inflation.

But the likelihood of these types of floods is rising with temperatures. The average annual temperature in Maine has risen 3.2 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 124 years, with the six warmest days on record occurring since 1998, according to a 2020 update to a climate report from University of Maine. Gulf of Maine waters are warming faster than almost every other ocean in the world, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. As the gulf waters absorb heat, they expand.

An atmospheric change over the last 20 years is contributing to more frequent heavy downpours, Sean Birkel, Maine state climatologist, said.

“With the warming climate, the oceans are warming and fueling more intense storms, and there is more moisture in the atmosphere overall,” Birkel said.

Seas at a federal tide gauge in nearby Portland have risen by about 8 inches during the past century, and several more feet of sea-level rise is likely this century along Maine’s coast. The Maine Climate Council  has recommended that communities and state agencies commit to manage 1.5 feet of sea level rise by 2050 and nearly 4 feet by 2100.

It would come at a high cost. State estimates warn the damage from 3.9 feet of sea level rise by 2100 would cost the state well over $1 billion, almost evenly divided between building and gross domestic product losses.

Road closures that prevent access to homes and businesses cause some of the biggest economic hits from storm flooding, Jeremy Porter, the head of research and development at the First Street Foundation, said. Most cars are unable to be driven in 6 inches or more of water. That level could damage floors, carpets, drywall and insulated appliances and pollute groundwater. Rushing flood waters threaten wastewater treatment plants at the waterfront, potentially dumping raw sewage into the ocean or estuary, and can create safety hazards like a non-secured propane tank becoming a projectile in the water.

Floods also expose critical infrastructure. A new Climate Central analysis showed roughly a quarter of the Bath Iron Works site currently faces frequent flood risks, and those risks are projected to spread to affect two-thirds of the site by 2050. The shipyard is Maine’s fourth-largest private employer and one of two U.S. contractors that build Arleigh Burke-class destroyers for the Navy.

An atmospheric change over the last 20 years is contributing to more frequent heavy downpours, Sean Birkel, Maine state climatologist, said.

“With the warming climate, the oceans are warming and fueling more intense storms, and there is more moisture in the atmosphere overall,” Birkel said.

Seas at a federal tide gauge in nearby Portland have risen by about 8 inches during the past century, and several more feet of sea-level rise is likely this century along Maine’s coast. The Maine Climate Council has recommended that communities and state agencies commit to manage 1.5 feet of sea level rise by 2050 and nearly 4 feet by 2100.

It would come at a high cost. State estimates warn the damage from 3.9 feet of sea level rise by 2100 would cost the state well over $1 billion, almost evenly divided between building and gross domestic product losses.

Road closures that prevent access to homes and businesses cause some of the biggest economic hits from storm flooding, Jeremy Porter, the head of research and development at the First Street Foundation, said. Most cars are unable to be driven in 6 inches or more of water. That level could damage floors, carpets, drywall and insulated appliances and pollute groundwater. Rushing flood waters threaten wastewater treatment plants at the waterfront, potentially dumping raw sewage into the ocean or estuary, and can create safety hazards like a non-secured propane tank becoming a projectile in the water.

Floods also expose critical infrastructure. A new Climate Central analysis showed roughly a quarter of the Bath Iron Works site currently faces frequent flood risks, and those risks are projected to spread to affect two-thirds of the site by 2050. The shipyard is Maine’s fourth-largest private employer and one of two U.S. contractors that build Arleigh Burke-class destroyers for the Navy.

The Navy and other parts of the Defense Department have taken notice. Its inspector general’s office plans to conduct an audit this year to determine how the Navy should address environmental threats to shipyards. BIW spokesperson David Hench said the shipyard does not publicly discuss potential impacts to its facility or disclose long-range plans. The Navy did not respond to a request for comment.

Maine’s state, county and municipal governments are ahead of many other states in planning for climate change effects, according to Samantha Montano, an assistant professor of emergency management at Massachusetts Maritime Academy who lives in Portland, who said “other states aren’t even having those conversations.”

In December, the state released a four-year climate plan prepared by the Maine Climate Council. Gov. Janet Mills in June signed a law that would require key departments to mobilize a community resilience strategy and ask cities and towns to add climate strategies to their comprehensive plans.

Slovinsky, the marine geologist, said there are four strategies for adapting to climate change: avoiding building in flood-prone areas, adapting by building a seawall or raising structures on posts, retreating to a less risky area and fortifying critical infrastructure. Understanding vulnerabilities and developing resiliency strategies are good starting points to respond to ongoing sea level rise, he said.

Sagadahoc County is updating its 2016 hazard mitigation plan for the 10 towns and one unorganized territory it covers, including Bath, to include more climate change strategies. The revised plan should be submitted to and approved by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in December, and then reviewed by local authorities next year, Grainne Shaw, deputy director of the agency, said. The updated plan will identify new mitigation projects for each town, including pump station upgrades and flood-proofing buildings.

For Central Maine Power, the 2015 flood accelerated plans to upgrade the Bath substation, Kevin Therriault, director of substation operations, said. The utility plans to complete a $14.4 million investment this fall that includes elevating the control house containing the substation battery and protective relays by 18 inches and removing underground feeder cables and raising them overhead. The energized conductors and equipment will be 8 feet higher off the surface of the substation.

At the city level, Bath is more fully addressing climate change in its comprehensive plan update due to be completed this fall. It has established a nascent climate action commission to help the city achieve the plan’s recommendations. City planners also collaborated with American Institute of Architects’ experts on a study to use green infrastructure to make downtown Bath more resilient.

The city already is acting on recommendations from the institute’s Design & Resiliency Team study, Benjamin Averill, Bath’s city planner, said. It plans to add a walkway on the northern waterfront, initially envisioned for economic development, that will create a buffer to help avoid business flooding. The city plans to break ground in the next year. More green infrastructure is being examined for where the police station now stands. It has flooded in the past and could do so again, Averill said.

Bath will be one of the communities involved in an emergency drill later this year that will simulate a severe storm as part of an effort from a variety of groups that Eileen Johnson, an environmental studies lecturer at Bowdoin College, is helping to coordinate to prepare for worsening flooding.

“Bath is an important part of the midcoast community,” Johnson said. “It’s within this larger region of coastal towns with long peninsulas that, when access is cut off, it can have implications for the health and well-being of communities.”

By John Upton (Climate Central), Amber Alexander

This segment and story were produced through a partnership between Climate Central and NBC Who13 Des Moines.

Derek Gruis didn’t miss a day of work because of shutdowns during the pandemic, nor has he feared for his financial future amid the economic tumult it has unleashed. The 29-year-old lead technician at the Beaver Creek Wind Farm manages a team of 15 other wind energy technicians tasked with keeping 170 turbines spinning.

“We’re essentially a power plant so we were considered essential,” said Gruis, who described extensive protocols designed to protect the workers from COVID. He commutes about 45 minutes north from his home just south of Des Moines. “There’s always work needed to get done, so that kind of attests to what the job security is here.”

Despite strong demand for the workers, community colleges in Iowa and in other states without the kind of established energy industries found in Texas are having trouble recruiting enough students to fill the vacancies.

Wind technicians are members of one of the fastest-growing professional fields in the U.S. So, too, are solar installers, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects demand for both to grow at least another 50 percent this decade. While solar and wind installers help construct a project then move onto building a new one, technicians work throughout the life of a wind farm to service and maintain the turbines and sometimes the automated control systems.

As the wind and solar sectors expand, they’re improving air quality and slowing warming caused by pollution from gas and coal power plants. As more electric vehicles drive down streets and highways, the solar and wind energy that provides charges for these vehicles will reduce emissions from cars, buses and trucks. In recent years, transportation has become America’s leading source of heat-trapping greenhouse gas pollution.

Of the nearly 500,000 Americans working in jobs that support the generation of renewable energy, including wind and solar, roughly 1,100 work in the cities of Des Moines and West Des Moines, according to the 2021 Clean Jobs, Better Jobs report from E2, a national group of clean energy industry companies and leaders. That represents about a fifth of such jobs across all of Iowa.

“We’ve seen coal plant retirements across the state and wind is picking up the slack,” said Jordan Oster of the Iowa Environment Council, a coalition of groups and individuals within the state focused on environmental quality. “We’re replacing polluting sources of energy with clean, renewable, emissions-free power.”

The Midwest is a hotspot for wind farming, and Iowa is among the states leading in this clean energy boom. Wind industry figures show nearly 6,000 turbines are currently operating across the state. According to an analysis of data gathered by Climate Central’s WeatherPower tool since the start of October, those turbines have been generating more than twice as much power as Iowa’s households alone consumed.

Brian Selinger, a state economic development official who works on energy projects, said Iowa has lots of wind blowing through it and plenty of space on farms for turbines. And he said the state has worked aggressively to support the growth of the wind energy sector, such as through grants and loans to support innovative projects.

“We actively promote and market our wind strengths,” Selinger said, noting that the growing abundance of clean energy is helping convince large tech corporations with ambitious clean energy goals to set up operations in Iowa. “It’s one of our greatest resources and one of our strongest economic development assets. It has a rippling effect across our state.”

President Joe Biden and others have been pushing for an effort to overhaul the nation’s electrical and transportation infrastructure to achieve ‘net-zero’ greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. If that’s successful, Princeton University Net-Zero America project analyses suggest the Hawkeye state could see roughly 70,000 workers directly and indirectly employed by the wind sector within a generation from now.

Such a national effort to reign in heat-trapping pollution would also protect Iowa and its farmers from rising temperatures and worsening floods and droughts.

With a two-year degree from a community college like Gruis attended, he says wind technicians could look forward to eventually earning “upwards of $70,000 to even close to six figures if they just jump into it with both feet and immerse themselves.” The E2 research indicates the average wage throughout the wind energy industry is $26 per hour.

The growth in wind farming in Iowa is providing economic opportunities beyond direct jobs. Farmers receive lease payments from wind farm operators, and those operators also pay local taxes. Wind energy manufacturers have opened new operations in the state, positioning themselves close to customers that purchase what are often heavy and difficult-to-transport components.

“The Midwest is really wind central and Iowa is a good demonstration of the significant direct and induced benefits that come from having a strong wind industry already in place,” said Katie Siegner, a researcher at RMI who co-authored the energy research group’s ‘Seeds of Opportunity’ report, which describes wind and solar energy as ‘new cash crops’ capable of providing more than $200 billion in direct economic benefits across the U.S. this decade. “It’s not just electricity and jobs they’re generating, they’re pumping a substantial amount of revenues into local rural economies.”

For students considering future careers as wind technicians, and for others mulling transitions into the field, Gruis said working at great heights is “going to be a factor” but “you become immune to it very quickly,” in part because of all the safety precautions put in place.

Gruis said an ideal candidate for the field would be “a well-motivated person that likes to work through solutions and work through problems, kind of free thinking and not afraid to get down and break a sweat and work with their hands.”

Demand for graduates of the two-year program for wind technicians at the Des Moines Area Community College, where Gruis did his training after finishing high school, is overwhelmingly strong. Still, instructor James Fitzpatrick says he struggles to fill his classrooms. This year, just nine of 20 available spots were filled by applicants.

“Most of them will be hired well before their graduation,” Fitzpatrick said. “There’s way too many jobs and not enough qualified technicians.”

By Clarisa Diaz, Quartz and John Upton

Towering wind turbines already speckle seas across Europe and Asia and a boom in construction is expected to bring an economic bonanza to the US East Coast. But even this climate-friendly technology could soon evolve into something bigger and better. Almost all the offshore wind turbines operating right now stand atop towers driven into sea beds. As the industry looks to push its turbines into deeper waters, technology is being developed so that wind farming can float.

This segment and story were produced through a partnership between Quartz and Climate Central. Clarisa Diaz is a multimedia reporter on the Quartz Things team.

—- 

Why do we need floating wind farms?

Floating turbines could be deployed in deeper waters further offshore. There, winds are stronger and more consistent. “You get more energy output when you have these higher wind speeds,” said Stephanie McClellan, an industry consultant and founder of the Special Initiative on Offshore Wind, a Delaware-based project designed to spur offshore wind energy development. Fewer species of birds can be harmed by the spinning blades. The infrastructure would create fewer conflicts with fishermen and other users of the oceans. They can be out of sight from the shore.

Three types of floating wind turbine designs

Currently, there are three types of floating wind energy structures that serve as a basis for how farms could be built.

SPAR BUOY

Already being commercially used off the coast of Scotland, the Spar Buoy is the most commonly thought of structure for a floating wind turbine. It is anchored by a ballast underneath that keeps the turbine afloat. However the ballast is huge, heavy, and hard to test in water shallower than 100 m. This is because the mooring lines act as shock absorbers against waves, the longer the mooring lines, the better they keep the turbine upright.

TENSION LEG PLATFORM

This structure uses taut mooring lines connected to piles in the seafloor. It creates a very stable platform for the turbine. Though, if one leg loses tension, the whole structure will tip over. Adding additional legs or lines to the design may lower this risk.

SEMI-SUBMERSIBLE

This structure uses the area near the surface to achieve stability. The drawback is it takes up more sea area. Its modular design allows it to be more easily transported from ports in shallower waters.

Combining features from different floating wind platforms

Experiments for future turbines combine these types into hybrid structures that could be manufactured remotely and installed in fewer parts. For instance, could a Tension Leg Platform be easier to install if it was combined with a Semi-Submersible? A leader in this endeavor is Henrik Stiesdal the former CTO of Siemens. He used tubular steel components to create a kind of Semi-Submersible Spar Buoy. The modular layout allows for most of the turbine to be built off-site and then towed out to sea.

Offshore wind design and technology is still emerging with new kinds of structures. “I think this is going to be more common as we go forward,” said Walter Musial, a principal engineer that leads the offshore wind research platform at NREL. “It’s like a Transformer. You tow it out to the station and then you can drop a ballast weight down and it’s deployed in a stable position at site. But all the assembly and commissioning has already taken place in the harbor.”

Where would floating wind turbines be installed?

Floating turbines would be needed to harvest offshore wind energy from the US West Coast, where the Pacific Ocean drops quickly to a depth that makes fixed-tower turbine technology unfeasible. Same goes for other locations in the nation including Hawaii and the Gulf of Maine.

When will floating wind farms become widespread?

The only floating wind farm generating meaningful amounts of electricity is Hywind Scotland, developed by Equinor in 2017. The nascent state of the technology means a variety of different construction styles are still being investigated. California and the federal government are soon to offer leases for wind farms at two Pacific Ocean sites where floating turbines would be needed. “We have to get started,” McClellan said “That’s what’s really promising about what’s happening in California. As we start to get these deployed, then we start to learn a lot more.”

By John Upton and Clarisa Diaz

To address global warming the White House has stated that president Biden’s green energy plan aims to set the US on a course toward achieving “net-zero” greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. If achieved, it would mean the country that currently ranks as the world’s worst historical climate polluter would stop adding new climate pollution to the atmosphere. All of the pathways for achieving this goal imagined under Princeton University’s Net Zero America project show enormous ramp-ups of electricity generated from wind turbines during the coming 30 years.

This segment and story were produced through a partnership between Quartz and Climate Central. Clarisa Diaz is a multimedia reporter on the Quartz Things team.

Where is offshore wind green energy expected to be located in the US?

The turbines would be clustered on wind farms off the coasts and embedded among agricultural operations. They’ll be far enough from cities to protect urban residents from noise and strobe-like flickering caused by blades’ shadows, but close enough for the power to be economically delivered through electrical transmission lines. A Climate Central analysis of the Net Zero America data suggests that if the net zero goal is achieved, wind farms in Texas, Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois could each have more capacity installed by 2050 than the 118 gigawatts of wind capacity currently operational in the US.

A fresh push by developers, newfound federal support for offshore wind energy under president Biden, and long-running efforts by states to drive up green energy production mean the US’s East Coast is poised for a rush of approvals of sweeping arrays of turbines fixed to towers driven into the Atlantic’s floor. Future booms are also possible along the Gulf of Mexico, in the Great Lakes, and off the West Coast. Turbines operating in deep Pacific and Gulf of Maine waters would need to be installed on floating platforms. Some of that technology is being adapted from gas and oil drilling operations, but so far floating deployments have been very limited worldwide.

The green energy jobs created by building offshore wind farms

A boom in offshore wind development has the potential to rejuvenate working waterfronts and ports with green energy jobs. Shipbuilding yards will be needed to manufacture vessels able to install and service the turbines and associated coastal facilities.

Building and maintaining all of the solar farms, wind farms, transmission lines and, other infrastructure needed to reach net zero emissions nationally by 2050 will require a lot of workers, helping to put former employees from fossil fuel and, other fading sectors to work. The Net Zero America data show a continued rise in employment in the solar energy sector. They forecasted the greatest growth of wind energy jobs, however, to begin a decade from now.

Then there are all the maritime jobs, and those needed to operate a sea port.

Maritime workers like vessel operators are necessary to transport crews for turbine and transmission cable repairs.

“Offshore wind is a once-in-a-generation economic opportunity to build a new industry,” said Ross Gould, the supply chain development vice president at the Business Network for Offshore Wind, a group that’s working to identify and help meet the future workforce and supply needs of offshore wind projects in the US. “Currently we’re seeing a boom in project management and project development jobs up and down the East Coast as the projects are beginning to move further along in their studying and assessment work.”

When wind energy generation rose to more than 8% of America’s utility-scale electricity production in 2020, it was more than 50 times higher than production in 2000, US Energy Information Administration data show. Almost all of this development was in rural areas, with much of the power being delivered through transmission lines into nearby metro areas.

Wind farms benefit farmers, governments, and job seekers.

The growth is providing new lease and tax revenues for farmers and local governments. It is also bringing job training for a growing army of maintenance workers known as wind energy technicians. The skills are being taught by hundreds of community colleges and other training institutions nationwide. “Our placement is incredible,” said Andrew Swapp, director of the wind energy technology course at Mesalands Community College in New Mexico. “If a person really wants to go to work, they’re going to get a job.”

Offshore wind farming has been booming in Europe for decades and more recently across parts of Asia. The US has been falling behind when it comes to generating wind power at sea. There is just one small offshore wind farm operating on US waters. It’s off the coast of Rhode Island. Industry insiders blame a reluctance by Americans to act on climate change and lack of federal leadership in permitting and pushing for more offshore wind projects.

“We’re a late-comer,” said Chris Wissemann, chief executive of wind energy developer Diamond Offshore Wind, who said the reason has been “literally climate denial.” But oceans are reliably blustery places. Calculations by the nonprofit Environment America indicate that offshore wind farms could provide almost all of the power Americans need by 2050. That means keeping the lights, heaters, and air conditioners on and fueling a nation’s worth of electrified cars, trucks, and transit systems, all from coastal wind farms.

By Elisa Raffa, Fox 46 Charlotte and Charles Wohlforth—Climate Central

Three years later, some survivors of Hurricane Florence still aren’t home, but the damage was not evenly distributed. Flooding highlighted disparities, and today the most vulnerable of us continue to be at the highest risk of rising seas that increasingly threaten North Carolina’s coastal region.

—–

This segment and story were produced through a partnership between Fox46 and Climate Central. Elisa Raffa is a meteorologist with FOX46. Charles Wohlforth is a science writer and author working with Climate Central.

Maristine Davis, a resident of the Beaufort area, can still see the damage outside her window. She and her husband have been unable to live in their home since Florence hit in September of 2018.

“My heart was overflooded,” Davis said. “I was like, Lord, what am I going to do? The Lord spoke to me and He said, ‘Don’t stress, you will be blessed.’”

For many low-income coastal residents, Florence was a long-term disaster they are still recovering from. For seniors—especially the 13 percent in North Carolina who are also low-income—the impact of flooding is even more challenging, as age adds issues of mobility and security to the hazards from storm.

And experts say these problems are getting worse as hurricanes grow stronger and sea level rises.

Florence tracked from east to west, making landfall just north of Wilmington. It drenched the state over three days with more than 30 inches of rain. The slow speed of the storm exacerbated the flooding and spread it all over the region, turning roads into rivers.

Florence was the wettest tropical storm ever recorded in the Carolinas. 

Davis recalls the impact of the flooding after a 13-foot storm surge wiped away homes. The night of the hurricane, she had to stay overnight at the hospital where she works, and reached her husband by telephone.

“I asked him, ‘Did we get any damage? He said, ‘I’ve got to go to the house and check everything out when everything calms down,’” she recalled. “Sure enough, he called and he said, ‘Yep, I think we got it this time.’”

The storm left behind more than $16 billion dollars of damage across North Carolina. Forty-two people died, more than 5,000 were rescued from flood waters, and 74,000 structures were flooded. 
Davis, who has lived in Beaufort since the 1970s, said the water had never come so high.

“This was the very first time that we got water, that much water in our house,” she said. “It got in my cabinets, my kitchen cabinets, my bathroom cabinets, everything just was flooded.”

The house has not been habitable since.

Experts say hurricanes hit low-income residents hard because they often lack insurance or financial resources for quick recovery, and because their homes may be less resilient to storms. In North Carolina, being older adds to the vulnerability.

Terri Lewis Lawrence came home after Florence to find six to eight inches of water in the house where she had lived since childhood. Over a long life in North Carolina, it was the first time water had ever come so high.

“It would threaten to almost come in the house a few times, but it never came in, since the house has been built,” she said. “Almost 70 years it had never come in the house.”

Hurricane Florence hit her home hard.

“The floors were just destroyed,” Lawrence said. “When you pulled the carpet up, the hardwood floors under it were buckled. Everything had to be ripped out at that point.”

Climate change has worsened hurricane flooding two ways. Warming ocean waters are spawning more severe storms, and the water itself has risen along North Carolina’s shores—about 9 inches since 1953 in Beaufort, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Climate Central projects it will rise another foot in Wilmington by 2050.

To prevent future flooding, Lawrence and Davis have both added 10 feet of elevation to their homes. That’s a common response to hurricanes and sea-level rise on the Carolina coast, as homeowners lift their foundations above potential waves. But this solution can be difficult for seniors, both because of the cost—around $70,000 for Lawrence’s home—and because the extra stairs make it difficult for elders to get to their front doors.

Lawrence has trouble with her knees and back and couldn’t manage the additional steps after her house was raised. The cost of adding a lift: an additional $10,000 to $30,000.

 Beaufort Mayor Rett Newton said Florence recovery remains a major issue more than two years later, especially for older residents like Lawrence. 

“We know we have a very senior population but when they get affected by a storm they may not have the capacity to recover,” Newton said. “They’ve got very limited resources, they’ve got very limited mobility.”

Newton said Florence inflicted disproportionate hardship on the poor and seniors—disparities that may have gone unnoticed before the disaster.

“That divide got exposed by Hurricane Florence, it got widened by Hurricane Dorian, and it’s been deepened by the pandemic,” Newton said.

Today, tarps still flap in the breeze, with nearly 500 families still displaced in Cartaret County alone. But while recovery lags for some, advocates also call for plans to keep sea level rise from creating more storm refugees in the future.

Rev. Robbie Phillips, a Presbyterian minister, helps lead the Carterat Long-Term Recovery Alliance, a group was born out of Florence devastation that is still working on disaster relief. She said it may be time for people to move out of threatened areas.

“There’s going to be some people that are going to be mad that I’m going to make this comment, but I’m going to be honest with you. None of these homes in this area should have ever been built here,” Phillips said. “Stop building in these areas, let’s build workforce housing that is in a good safe place.”

Phillips has seen unequal devastation from Florence and wants vulnerable populations protected next time.

“The poor are disproportionately impacted, the elderly, disabled, lower income families, families with children in the homes are going to be more impacted by this than people on the barrier islands,” she said.

The financial threat of climate change and sea level rise can challenge homeowners even when storm winds are not blowing. Rising waters have forced the Federal Emergency Management Agency to revise flood zone maps to account for wetter hurricanes and higher seas, accounting for several feet of higher water. That drives up flood insurance—with reports in North Carolina of premiums doubling, tripling or even quadrupling.

For low-income residents—including seniors—flood-prone land is expensive to insure, but cheap to buy. The low cost lures residents back, but without insurance. For seniors who may own relatively valuable old family homes but do not owe money on mortgages, all of their assets may be tied up in a house that is both at risk and uninsured.

Water is the most severe threat from coastal storms, according to Dr. Rich Luettich, a coastal oceanographer at the University of North Carolina, and one of the nation’s top storm surge experts.

“Water does three things: it causes the most damage, it kills the most people, and it takes the longest to recover from, and yet it’s often times what we ignore,” Luettich said. 

And the threat is getting worse, not better.

“There’s no doubt that the last 50 years and the next 50 years will be very different, and climate change is the primary driver of that,” Luettich said. “Water starts to come up inch by inch and feet over decades, then all of a sudden you lost your safety zone, you lost your starting point, so the water is at your doorstep much more quickly.”

In North Carolina, flat, coastal lands allow rising seas to bring storm surges far inland. Eventually, those coastal areas may become too dangerous for homes. Local officials are beginning to take that into account.

“I do not want to have to retreat, but if we don’t reverse the effects of climate change, that’s going to be the option,” Mayor Newton said.

Slashing carbon emissions would slow warming and the rise of the seas, though so much pollution has already built up in the atmosphere that they’re bound to continue to rise. In the meantime, North Carolina residents are adapting to rising sea levels, even as they recover from intensifying storms.

Davis got help with her home and new furniture, steps that are bringing coastal communities a sense of hope.

“I’m ready to get in my house,” she said. “I always say there’s no place like home.”

Everywhere, bees are dying. But it’s not too late to take action to help boost their populations

The future could be bad, or it could be better. You can help decide.

By Ayurella Horn-Muller (Climate Central) and Kenton Gewecke (KOMU 8)

Asthmatics hit hard as pollen growing seasons get longer.

This story was produced through a partnership between Climate Central and KOMU 8 in Columbia, MO.

COLUMBIA - When Sherry Miller moved to Columbia from New Jersey, the heavy pollen in the air here triggered her asthma and sent her to the emergency room three times in a matter of months. In the 14 years since, she says the allergy issues she battles have gotten worse.

“It's one of those things you just wish you could get rid of,” she said. Her once seasonal allergies are now affecting her year-round, and they’ve been intensifying — she’s always on antihistamines now, and has started having more frequent sinus infections, even during the winter.

Miller says pollen is “everywhere.”

“I find that it has become like a layer, that you can scrub all you want,” Miller said. “And as soon as you're done, it's still there.”

High concentrations of pollen can make life miserable for anyone and they're particularly dangerous for the one in eleven residents here who suffer from asthma. An analysis of temperature data by Climate Central shows central Missouri’s plant growing season has increased by a week since 1970 — meaning an additional week every year that pollen is in the air.

Local allergist Laurie Fowler says over the last decade the amount of pollen coating Columbia’s landscapes has noticeably increased, coupled with a growing intensity of seasonal allergy symptoms experienced by her patients.

“I used to tell patients, ‘Oh my gosh, surely next year won't be as bad as this year,’” Fowler said. “I've got to where now I’m saying, ‘It's gonna be worse.’ Because every year, it seems like it's getting worse.”

RISING POLLEN AND RISING TEMPERATURES

A mix of plants, weather and geography affects an area’s pollen count. This matters in a state like Missouri, where you can find many trees and weeds not found in other parts of the country, coupled with long pollen seasons and increased humidity — which promotes plant growth — from the Missouri and Mississippi rivers.

Land use also plays a big role, according to Jennifer Albertine, an environmental studies lecturer at Mount Holyoke College. Albertine led research that found pollen counts from grasses alone could double in the next couple of decades, unless emissions of greenhouse gas pollution are aggressively cut.

“We tend to see higher ragweed pollen loads near agricultural lands, where it is a noxious weed for farmers,” Albertine said. “Ragweed, which is the number one most allergenic plant in the USA, is a great colonizer of disturbed land.”

In a state where farms cover nearly two-thirds of the land, with one of the largest number of farms in the nation, ragweed pollen can run rampant.

In addition to lengthening pollen seasons by warming temperatures, research suggests carbon dioxide pollution is contributing to what Columbia University plant physiologist Lewis Ziska called an increased “allergenicity” of pollen.

With warming temperatures, “We think that there's a good case to be made that the season will be longer, the amount of pollen that you'll be exposed to will be greater, and the allergenicity of that pollen may also increase,” Ziska said.

Ziska was one of the scientists behind a new study that found rising temperatures from human-induced climate change to be the main contributor to recent changes in the timing and increasing length of the pollen season across North America.

AN UNEQUAL BURDEN

Because asthma is more likely to affect residents belonging to low-income, minority communities, allergies caused by pollen are also unequally distributed. Understanding how environmental factors underlie health disparities like these is what Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai professor Rosalind Wright specializes in.

Wright stresses the dangerous impact of climate change on childhood asthma and respiratory health. “It's a very costly disease,” she said. “It's the most common chronic disease of childhood. So the healthcare expenditures that are going to be associated with that are astronomical.”

According to the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology, more than $18 billion is spent managing allergies every year in the U.S. alone, while the medical cost of asthma is an estimated $3,200 per person, every year. The high costs of treatment mean many patients take less medicine than is needed to keep them healthy.

“The fact that people have to ration their inhaler use is so ridiculous to me,” said Margee Louisias, an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School, and the director of diversity and inclusion in the division of allergy and immunology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

She says a longer allergy season and higher pollen concentrations will continue to put heavier burdens on the most vulnerable populations, including lower-income and minority communities.

Louisias compares the national asthma prevalence in adults and children of about 10% with asthma rates from 25% to 30% among Black and Latinx populations. That disparity is linked to higher levels of air pollution in those communities from sources like highways, power plants and other industrial facilities.

“We’re seeing a constant, higher concentration of exposure to pollution,” Louisias said. “We're seeing more concentration of exposure to toxins, particularly in these areas that have higher concentrations of Black and Latinx communities.”

The burden of allergies extends beyond the cost of managing them. Local allergist Laurie Fowler says allergies can disrupt everyday life in expensive ways. “They get an ear infection, or bronchitis or pneumonia, or they're sick, or they're missing work, or they're missing school,” she said.

As someone accustomed to suffering from allergic asthma, Sherry Miller misses what it was like over a decade ago, living in New Jersey, when she didn’t have such intense reactions to the pollen in the air around her. But she’s grateful she has the resources to lessen her symptoms.

“I feel badly for people that don't have any medical care,” she said. “They have to end up using the emergency room for their medical [needs], but they're not there to put you on a long term path to getting better.”

By Jodie Fleischer, Katie Leslie, Teneille Gibson, Steve Jones (NBC Washington) and John Upton, Kelly Van Baalen, Allison Kopicki (Climate Central)

To read the complete report, including flood risk analyses for all identified sites, please click here for a downloadable PDF.

A new study shows many of Maryland’s most significant sites from Harriet Tubman’s life are in jeopardy of chronic flooding as sea level rise threatens the Eastern Shore. The News4 I-Team’s Jodie Fleischer reports on the impact as archaeologists rush to unearth more of Tubman’s story before it’s washed away.

This story was produced through a partnership between Climate Central and NBC4 in Washington DC.

As a tour guide on the Eastern Shore’s Harriet Tubman Byway, Alex Green has an up-close view of historic landmarks associated with the iconic abolitionist.

Such as Long Wharf, now a park on the water’s edge of Cambridge, which once served as a hub for the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Stewart’s Canal, a seven-mile logging waterway dug by enslaved and free Black people. And the Bucktown General Store, where a young Tubman sustained a brutal head injury during her first act of defiance against an enslaver. 

“This is African American heritage and history in this area,” said Green, who calls this part of the world “Tubman Country.” “I’ve done tours where people just cry.”

But Green, who has lived in the region for decades, has noticed something changing on those historic sites as the years have passed. The water, he said, “is coming closer and closer.”

Green is well aware that rising seas are affecting communities like his. The seas are rising faster along the mid-Atlantic than in most parts of the world, with the sinking of land from natural forces conspiring with sea level rise from climate-changing pollution to push coastlines inland. 

That's not just threatening communities, roadways and buildings. In this section of coast, it’s threatening historical Tubman treasures.

The science and news group Climate Central used its coastal database to pinpoint risks from rising seas to some of this area’s most precious Tubman landmarks. The group published its findings on Tuesday, showing many of the most significant sites along Maryland's portion of the Tubman Byway are already experiencing or are in jeopardy of chronic flooding from sea level rise. 

Climate Central analyzed 45 sites along the byway, which stretches from Maryland to Delaware, and found 16 of the sites will experience significant flood risk by 2050; 25 of them face such threats by century's end. The report singles out 10 significant places around Dorchester County as likely to face occasional, frequent or chronic risk of flooding this century.

“It's entirely possible that some of the sites are going to be so badly flooded that they really won't be very accessible to the public anymore,” said Karen Florini, the non-profit's vice president for programs, adding: “The main message is that climate change is real, it is serious, there is scientific consensus and there are things to be done.” 

Though about a quarter of Long Wharf Park is already at chronic risk of flooding, the report projects 80 percent of the area will be at chronic risk by 2050.  

The marshes at Stewart’s Canal are already experiencing chronic flooding, too. But it's going to get worse. Climate Central found much of the land around the canal will fall below the high tide line before 2050 and the road leading to it could be at chronic flood risk by the end of this century. 

The study also warns the historic Malone’s Methodist Episcopal Church — founded by free and enslaved Black people in the 1860s — and its nearby cemetery could see almost monthly flooding by 2050. The I-Team observed standing water underneath the church, even on a sunny day. 

“I'm hoping that when we talk about it and people hear us talk about it, they start to realize this is for real,” said Herschel Johnson, a local Tubman historian, of the risk of rising seas to the byway. 

Johnson said it’s not just a crucial part of American history at stake, but a key part of the local economy. He said Tubman, the most famous conductor on the Underground Railroad, helps fuel Dorchester County tourism as people seek to learn more about her history. 

“When people come here just to visit because of Harriet Tubman, they spend money at the restaurants, at the hotels,” he continued. “She's very important.”

The rising water is already posing challenges for archaeologists searching to uncover more of Tubman’s history. 

A team of archaeologists from the Maryland Department of Transportation have been searching federal wetlands since last fall for evidence of her father’s cabin. They’re also digging on nearby private land for the site they believe could be Tubman’s birthplace.

This area “was never very dry, but it has never been as wet as it has today,” said Julie Schablitsky, the chief archaeologist for MDOT’s State Highway Administration. “Because of that, we're in a bit of a race against time to try and rescue these sites.”

Schablitsky, whose team just finished a two week stint digging in the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, showed the I-Team a collection of nails, fasteners and brick indicative of an old home site — clues that the scientists could be getting closer to confirming the location of Ben Ross’s homestead. 

“Out of a thousand holes we've excavated, this location seems to be the most likely place for Ben Ross's cabin” Schablitsky said. 

Her team spent weeks sifting through the brackish muck to locate tiny bits of plates, cups, bowls and other housewares, which the scientists will now analyze in their laboratory. 

But rising water, she said, can complicate pinpointing the age of these items. 

“As we dig deeper, things usually get older,” she said. “So it's important that we don't have water coming up into our site because, once that happens, it literally muddies the picture.”

Schablitzsky said rising seas don’t just make it harder to identify artifacts, but harder to access the sites themselves. The current sites are located off of long dirt and gravel roads in flooded woodlands.

“We are in a bit of a rush against time because, even certain times of the year when I'm out here, I can't always access the site,” Schablitsky said.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service acquired the property last fall — part of an effort to preserve the land as well as its potential Tubman history, said Matt Whitbeck, supervisory wildlife biologist for the Chesapeake Marshlands National Wildlife Refuge Complex.

“We knew that there was a lot of potential for this area to have a high value for the Harriet Tubman story, and that added to the value of this property, in particular,” Whitbeck said. 

But he warned this area will eventually become an island as the seas rise. Data from the longest-operating tide gauge in the area, located on the opposite side of the Chesapeake, shows tides are already pushing roughly a foot higher than they did 80 years ago. 

“Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge is a bit of a poster child for the impacts of sea level rise and climate change,” Whitbeck told the News4 I-Team, adding the area has already seen over 5,000 acres of tidal marsh convert to open water.

As evidence of the change, he said visitors who travel the refuge’s Wildlife Drive can look to the south and see a vast area of open water. 

“It's beautiful. But if you understand that, in the ‘30s, when the refuge was established, that was all tidal marsh habitat that's been lost to sea level rise and subsidence,” he told the I-Team. “It's shocking.”

The encroaching saltwater kills the trees in this area where Tubman led people on their journey to freedom, turning lush landscapes into “ghost forests” of brittle, hollowed out trees.  

Green, the tour guide, said people sometimes notice the skeletal trees dotting much of southern Dorchester County. He said he explains saltwater intrusion to them and how it has worsened over the past few decades. 

The trees help tell a greater story about what is at risk because of climate change, he said — a conversation he hopes will fuel more efforts to slow the damage and save what’s possible. 

“There's so much information that has been left out of history that we should try to preserve what we have here now,” Green said. 

 By Ayurella Horn-Muller (Climate Central) and Christopher Gloninger (NBC Boston) and Ale Zimmermann (NBC Boston) contributed reporting

In East Boston, affordable housing units are at risk of flooding as the sea level rises.

This video and text story was produced through a collaboration with NBC Boston.

Roxanne De Jesus remembers seeing the waves spill out of the harbor in East Boston. A nor'easter — that grew in force so suddenly it was dubbed a “bomb cyclone” — pushed tides as high as Boston has seen in nearly a century.

“For the first time, we saw the water come out of the harbor,” she said. 

It was early in 2018 and the storm drove the highest tide she’s seen in 22 years from her home at East Boston’s Shore Plaza East apartments. The building is one of many affordable housing units at growing risk of coastal flooding. De Jesus lives on the second floor and a lack of information about climate change has left her dreading that it could one day flood. She says she can't afford insurance.

“We would start from zero with nothing,” she said. 

Residents of affordable housing units, like De Jesus, face greater risks from rising seas and worsening coastal hazards. That’s because older residential buildings in lower-income communities that provide affordable housing opportunities are usually not fortified against storms or coastal flooding. 

The threats to these buildings are growing, too, as heat trapped by fossil fuel pollution intensifies storms and raises sea levels. An analysis by Climate Central's scientists found that Massachusetts has the third highest number of affordable housing units under threat of coastal flooding in the nation.

As low pressure systems form off the coast, nor’easters can develop with explosive speed when ocean temperatures are high enough. With the waters of the Atlantic warming because of the effects of greenhouse gas pollution, such bomb cyclones pose growing threats.

Defined by the federal government as costing 30% or less of an average local household's income, affordable housing is an already scarce resource, leading to rising rates of homelessness locally and nationwide. It’s one that’s only projected to get worse, as coastal flooding and intensifying storms continue to threaten coastal homes and neighborhoods.

A little more than 1,500 of the state’s affordable housing units are at risk of flood waters reaching their buildings once a year on average, the analysis showed — a figure projected to triple to a little under 5,000 units within 30 years unless steps are taken to protect them. Boston, Quincy and Cambridge have the highest numbers of affordable housing units at risk within Massachusetts, the analysis shows. In thirty years, Boston alone could have more than 3,000 units at risk. 

It’s not just the number of homes at risk from coastal flooding that matters — it’s how often flooding takes place. During the next thirty years, increasingly frequent flooding is expected in coastal cities, creating public safety and maintenance challenges for those living in affordable units. By 2050, more than a quarter of Massachusetts’ affordable housing stock could experience flood events at least four times each year on average.

While residents of coastal cities from Texas to the Carolinas face the gravest flood risks from  tropical systems,  the most damaging storm systems in New England are nor'easters. Holding true to their name, strong winds during these storms buffet the coastline from the northeast. With open water, the surf builds and surges slam into the coast.

Flood events disproportionately impact people of color. Extremely low-income renters are more likely to be Black, Native American, and Latinx residents. Affordable housing is more vulnerable to flooding, as it’s usually built in lower cost neighborhoods with an abundance of paving but few trees and fewer protections from floods, such as seawalls and restored wetland.

When seeking solutions to worsening climate change impacts facing those most vulnerable to them, Carolyn Kousky — executive director at the Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center — suggests looking to the environmental justice movement. The majority of those living in America’s most polluted environments are people of color. 

“We've seen communities of color and low income communities in the past have been saddled with excess risk from pollution, and things like that, and not gotten the safety measures they need,” she said. “We can't let that happen again with climate impact.”

Kousky says part of the solution lies in passing laws that require greater management of risks and preparations for disasters by business owners, requiring insurers and property owners to improve buildings, create evacuation plans and mandate insurance. “These need to be explicitly designed to help low and middle income families afford the disaster insurance and afford the mitigation measures that need to be taken,” she said.

Without these initiatives in place, the most vulnerable people living in the most vulnerable places end up bearing the heaviest consequences from a slew of flood risks — including storm surge, nuisance flooding during high tides and floods from heavy rain. All as the seas get higher.

Dominick Dusseau, a research assistant at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Falmouth, says that climate change is playing a critical role in the increasing flood risks.

“The eastern part of the United States is going to face a significant amount of sea level rise,” said Dusseau. “By 2050, you're looking at about a foot of sea level rise. In 2100, you're gonna see about three to four feet of sea level rise.” 

In Boston, research shows these higher sea levels mean some low-lying parts of the city could experience at least 43 flood events within the next decade. These cyclones have pummeled Boston at a higher frequency and intensity in recent years, with three striking New England over the course of 10 days in 2018. 

“The real question here is ‘Has climate change created the conditions for those events to happen with greater likelihood?,’ Dusseau said. “And the answer is yes.'”

The Northeastern region appears to be moving into a stormy period, with a nor'easter building that's likely to affect Boston during the first couple days of February. Atmospheric conditions expected resemble those that have brought major flooding in the past, including in early 2018. 

Magdalena Ayed works in East Boston making sure locals know what they’re up against. Ayed is the founder of the Harborkeepers — an organization committed to creating awareness about the climate issues facing the predominantly Latinx communities living in East Boston. 

With almost 60% of the area's residents being nonnative English speakers, language can be the biggest barrier to city-led efforts to share information about climate change. 

De Jesus and her family moved to Boston from Puerto Rico when she was a child. They are among those in the area who feel under-prepared to deal with the consequences of climate change.

“We don’t know what's being done or what kinda help is gonna be available to the community — we don’t know,” she said. “We have to move…We have to start planning, that’s something that we have to start, but we don’t know.” 

It’s this confusion that Ayed and her team work to fix, as they partner with other local organizations to try and engage the community on climate issues. She's also been documenting high tides for the past few years. 

Ayed says the last few years have seen significant change, and it’s causing concern in the area’s waterfront communities. 

“I’ve been working with a lot of the communities in East Boston and a lot of them are vulnerable,” she said. “You see the water encroaching more and more, intense rains and flooding areas that perhaps weren’t normally flooded, and you know it is creating an infrastructure issue.” 

Early last year, Boston’s mayor committed to investing $30 million annually into the city’s climate resiliency in the face of rising sea levels and the growing threat of coastal flood risk. Across the city, streets are being raised, portable metal barriers have been installed around new high-rises, and berms — raised barriers made up of pebbles or sand meant to prevent high-tide flooding — are being built. 

As for those depending on affordable housing, the city’s inclusionary development policy mandates that 13% to 18% of new units qualify as 'affordable.' But there’s no requirement that existing, older units be fortified against climate risks. The diminishing availability of affordable housing in the area is also a factor — during the pandemic and the recession it has caused, Boston’s affordable housing wait lists have been getting longer. 

Ayed thinks the city is increasingly prioritizing strengthening Boston’s ability to withstand flooding and expand affordable housing stock — but that there’s more to be done. 

“When you think about evacuation and helping people adapt or mitigate the impacts in a storm event, that’s a big worry for the people here,” she said. “I’m not so sure that the city is catching up.”