Climate Cast

Minnesota experienced a seasonably cold but relatively snowless winter. Now, the spring months are making up for lost time by dumping sloppy snowstorms. State climatologist Pete Boulay said what Minnesota is seeing is over time is a different start and end times for the seasons. “Winter is shifting around a bit,” said Boulay. “We’re not seeing as big of snow storms in November like we used to, but April is becoming a shining moment of winter.” Boulay said winters have also lost their cold edge. Minnesota isn’t dipping into subzero temperatures like it used to, and each season is getting hard to predict. “I couldn’t even tell you what next winter is going to be like right now, because anything could happen.”To hear the full conversation, click play on the audio player above or subscribe to the Climate Cast podcast.

By creating the Snow, Ice and Permafrost Research Establishment (SIPRE) in 1949, the U.S. military became one of the earliest climate research groups on the planet. The group’s mission was to study the science and engineering of the warming Arctic and the national security implications that could follow. University of Vermont professor and geoscientist Paul Bierman wrote about this in his book, “When the Ice Is Gone: What a Greenland Ice Core Reveals About Earth’s Tumultuous History and Perilous Future.”He spoke to MPR chief meteorologist Paul Huttner for Climate Cast. The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity and length.How and when did the U.S. military become interested with climate changes in the Arctic? They actually got interested during World War II, when they occupied parts of Greenland in part to rescue bomber and fighter pilots who'd landed on the ice and realized how ill-equipped they were to operate in frozen environments. They really stepped it up, though, in the early to mid-50s, fighting the Cold War in the Arctic.From the military’s point of view, climate change is important in variety of ways. It’s certainly important in the Arctic, where the very stability of the ground they’re working on is questionable, but it’s also very important in the sense that when you melt ice sheets, you raise sea level. That has huge implications for human migration around the world, and for things as simple as five of the U.S. aircraft carriers that are berthed in Virginia — which is a sea-level-rise hot spot and will find their docking facilities under water in the next couple decades. What does the military mean by the phrase ‘climate resilience is force resilience’?They mean that in the sense of trying to reduce the risks to active military, reduce the number of global conflicts that will come from climate change, and be prepared for the eventualities of bigger storms, higher temperatures — all those sorts of things that affect maneuverability on the ground to the safety of soldiers. So in one way, moving toward renewable energy takes them away from dependence on fossil fuels and the need to transport those fossil fuels. Another idea that jumped out at me in your book is that for the military, climate change is ‘too costly to ignore.’ There are estimates that suggest if we let sea level rise uncontrollably, which would be from the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, it could cost the global economy trillions of dollars in losses because of the flooding that’s going to occur around every coastline. So the military is also looking, of course, at the prices of fossil fuels. We're at a point now where solar and wind are competitive, if not cheaper, than typical fossil fuel energy sources. The U.S. Army drilled the first deep ice core in Greenland. How old was it, and what did they find?The military drilled the ice core through almost a mile of ice, and then they drilled through about 12 feet of frozen soil. The ice itself goes back about 100,000 years, but the frozen soil takes us back millions.What’s most important about what they found in that frozen soil is that the upper portion of it — dated to about 400,000 years ago — is full of plant fossils and fossils of insects. Those are important because they are very strong evidence that the ice sheet there had to vanish, and when it vanished, a mile of ice disappeared. If we don’t control climate change and global warming, at this point, we’re going to repeat the past, and a mile of ice is going to melt again. To hear the full conversation, click play on the audio player above or subscribe to the Climate Cast podcast.

Wind and solar are among the cheapest energy sources available today, but even when clean-energy projects are ready to go, a cumbersome permit process is slowing down their implementation. Allison Prang wrote a New York Times article about a Minnesota experiment to cut the red tape that is impeding the state’s ability to achieve its clean-energy goals. She spoke to MPR chief meteorologist Paul Huttner about her reporting. The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity and length. Minnesota has a goal of carbon-free on the electric grid by 2040. How does this new law help speed up that process?When I talked to Governor Walz, he said it was fair to say that without doing some reform for the state’s permitting process, it would be tough for Minnesota to hit that goal.I talked to one lawyer who works with companies that are working on projects, getting them approved in the state. He said it’s taken some as long as 13 months, and people are hoping that the permanent reform law could shave off the typical timeline by several months. If it does what they want, it could make it much quicker for projects to come online. Is this just in Minnesota, or is this a national problem, too? Permitting reform is a very unsexy and yet super crucial topic that the whole country is grappling with. In Washington, members of Congress have tried to tackle the issue, because it does have bipartisan support. But it’s not just a national issue; there are things states can do to tackle the problem. Like Minnesota, other states have also passed laws trying to make the process easier at home, and sometimes localities are involved. It really depends on where an energy developer is working — what state, what area in the state? That's why it's so complicated. It really, really is situational. What should we be watching for with getting these projects to the grid going forward?The really big thing that’s happening in the backdrop of all of this is that not only are we seeing the country electrify more broadly — and states and localities have these climate goals — but we’re also going to see an increase in power demand like we haven’t seen in decades. So that’s happening at the same time, and part of that is because we’re seeing more data centers come online. We just need more power as a country. A lot of people are watching if the new Congress will be able to get a permitting reform bill over the finish line, what that would look like, and asking would that make permanent renewables easier? It’s going to be really interesting to see if the country can tackle this problem and make it easier, so that we can kind of meet this really crazy moment of this expected increase in demand.To hear the full conversation, click play on the audio player above or subscribe to the Climate Cast podcast.

Nick Halter, a Twin Cities reporter at Axios, noticed a peculiar pattern on his morning walks — hundreds of ducks braving subzero temperatures. Many ducks still fly south for the winter months. But climate data shows Minnesota winters have warmed more than five degrees on average since 1970, creating a more tolerable environment for ducks and other birds. These ducks are deciding there’s no reason to make the potentially dangerous journey south when Minnesota’s warming climate provides a habitable environment, he said. “You don’t get as cold, you don’t have as deep of freezes and you have more open water,” said Halter said. Ducks that do stick around have no problem staying warm, Halter said. Insulation from their feathers combined with the counter-current heat exchange manages the temperature of the blood destined for their feet. And the open water provides an ecosystem that makes the decision to stay easier. “They kind of change their diet in the winter time,” said Halter. “When it’s warm, they’ll eat insects and fish. Then become more vegetarian in the winter time — they’re going to eat roots and seeds — and so the open water does present opportunities for more food, too.”Climate isn’t the only factor that’s making more ducks want to stay put in Minnesota, Halter said. Evolution and natural selection also play a role. ”Birds that stick around here, and then procreate — their offspring are then sort of naturally selected to not also migrate,” Halter said. To hear the full conversation, click play on the audio player above or subscribe to the Climate Cast podcast.

It’s a post-pandemic world, and Minnesota’s greenhouse emissions are following the nationwide trend of going up. Based on recent state data from 2020 to 2022, emissions rose 6.4 percent with transportation and agriculture being the biggest contributors. Now, the state is off-track to meet its climate goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. “I think it will be difficult to meet,” said Walker Orenstein, a reporter with The Minnesota Star Tribune. “As the state has pointed out, if we don’t start seeing big drops in sectors that aren’t the electric sector, then it will be troublesome.” MPR News chief meteorologist Paul Huttner talked to Orenstein about his reporting on the biennial greenhouse gas emissions report. To hear the full conversation, click play on the audio player above or subscribe to the Climate Cast podcast.

A technology that can slow or stop climate change already exists — and has a history of bipartisan support in Washington. But it has a few hoops to jump through before it can make a bigger impact.The method is called carbon capture, which removes carbon from the atmosphere and stores it deep underground.“You can think of this whole process as essentially putting carbon back where it came from,” said Ben Grove, senior manager for carbon storage with the nonprofit Clean Air Task Force. “Geologic storage has been occurring since the 1970s, mostly in the oil and gas industry, but to date, we’ve stored over a billion tons of Co2 in deep geologic formations.”There’s significant storage potential in the U.S. — but challenges in infrastructure and storage permits may stand in the way of progress. “We’re thinking [carbon capture] needs to be scaled up to the gigaton scales,” Grove said. “But this could grow up to a very large industry — like billions of tons [of carbon capture].”To hear the full conversation, click play on the audio player above or subscribe to the Climate Cast podcast.

The Antarctic is warming. This means, the ice sheet in the Antarctic Peninsula is shrinking, and ice is breaking off the continent. “The largest icebergs on the planet are going around the Antarctic Peninsula … because these are breaking off the ice sheets as there’s warming,” said MPR News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard, who recently traveled to Antarctica to witness the effects of climate change first hand. “These giant icebergs are very impressive. And then you realize that [the ice sheet] is going to melt,” he said. “It is melting slowly but surely, and will contribute to sea level rise.”To hear the full conversation, click play on the audio player above or subscribe to the Climate Cast podcast.

Winter is the fastest-warming season in the Midwest — more than five degrees on average since 1970, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.All that warming is having an impact on ice formation. “Climate change is injecting more energy into our weather systems, and that’s resulting in in just more extreme extremes,” journalist Kristoffer Tigue told MPR’s Chief Meteorologist Paul Huttner. Tigue wrote about the shift in ice trends for Inside Climate News. Warmer temperatures could result in a later start for ice formation and a shorter lifespan for lake ice. Add a rapid temperature swing in the middle of winter and the ice can become increasingly unstable.“On some of the hotter winters, there’s spikes in these fatalities related to falling through the ice,” Tigue said.To hear the full conversation, click play on the audio player above or subscribe to the Climate Cast podcast.

The Trump administration has pivoted to fossil fuels. But one form of renewable energy has still gained support in Washington: Geothermal energy, which uses the warmth of the earth to heat and cool buildings.Minnesota has already tapped into geothermal power in Rochester where the city’s headquarters will soon be provided a future with carbon-free heating and cooling. By digging deep into the ground, geothermal power provides energy 24/7.Geothermal has found support in Washington, “because the technology can be installed by people who’ve worked in the natural gas industry,” energy journalist Frank Jossi told MPR News chief meteorologist Paul Huttner.“It’s a natural fit for people with those skills, [and] it sort of fits with the thinking of the Trump administration in terms of keeping jobs in the natural gas industry and also leveraging new technologies that are being developed in that area.”

President Donald Trump has officially begun his second term. One of his first moves was to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement — again. What will that mean for greenhouse gas emissions and climate solutions?Jonathan Foley is executive director of Project Drawdown.He said, “This is not game over. It’s game on. It means the rest of us have to step up and do a lot more.”Foley shared more insights about the road ahead with MPR News chief meteorologist Paul Huttner.

For some living in the warmer parts of the U.S., extreme weather tied to climate change is enough for them to consider cooler, safer climates.No, Minnesota is not immune from the effects of climate change. But one Minnesota realtor says the state’s northern location is appealing appealing to her clientele from southern U.S. “When you’re talking to people that are coming from all over the place, they do mention [Minnesota is] a more livable lifestyle that makes them feel safer,” said Mary Schumann, a realtor with Keller Williams Realty.Schumann talked with MPR meteorologist Paul Huttner about the role climate change is having in people’s decision to move north. To hear the full conversation, click play on the audio player above or subscribe to the Climate Cast podcast.

The planet has warmed past the 1.5 degrees Celsius pre-industrial normal temperature. Final confirmation on 2024 being the hottest year on record is expected from NOAA and the European Union, but the effects of climate change on a warming planet is being felt from wild fires in California to the snowless winters in Minnesota. “We’re certainly seeing a lot of dangerous climate change now,” said Jeff Masters with the Yale Climate Connection. “Winters have been the most dramatically affected season of all the seasons. They’re so much warmer now, less ice, less snow.”But there are solutions, he added. “It’s the clean energy revolution.” To hear the full conversation with Jeff Masters and MPR meteorologist Paul Huttner, click play on the audio player above or subscribe to the Climate Cast podcast.