Stories

Climate change is affecting NH’s streams and rivers. Dartmouth researchers are tracking how.

April 25, 2023

As the climate changes, New Hampshire is getting warmer and wetter. A new study from Dartmouth shows how that could impact local waterways — and how much there still is to learn. The study explored how things like snowfall, winter rain and springtime snowmelt impact streamflow – the amount of water moving through streams. Being able to project…

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Salt marshes behind the the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk, Conn.

An experiment in Connecticut aims to make New England’s salt marshes more resilient

April 21, 2023

Employees of the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk, Connecticut are in an alcove out back by the river, building greenhouses — hammering, sawing and drilling. “Cutting PVC to shape, cutting greenhouse plastic and assembling these one-meter-volume cubes,” said Justin Susarchick, the aquarium’s projects director. His colleague Rebha Raviraj fires up a power saw and cuts a…

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Cows graze in a silvopasture area on April 19, 2023, on Wild Harmony Farm in Exeter, R.I.

For New England farmers, silvopasture could be a key adaptation to a changing climate

April 21, 2023

To understand silvopasture, imagine you’re a cow grazing under full sun on a hot August day. It’s 95 degrees and the humidity is brutal. “Do you want to be out there eating a full buffet?” asked Joe Orefice, a beef cattle farmer at Hidden Blossom Farm in northeastern Connecticut. “You don’t want to do that. As a…

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Nashua residents Pat Lyons, an older woman with short white hair and wearing a yellow cardigan sweater, and Irene Oliveira, wearing a pink sweater with a blue-ish scarf, are seated at a city meeting and look at informational sheets on April 5, 2023, during a meeting about community power at City Hall in Nashua, N.H.

Community power programs are launching in New Hampshire. How could they help stop climate change?

April 19, 2023

Keene was one of the first cities in New Hampshire to adopt commitments to 100% clean energy, in 2019. But then came the challenge of following through. “The city of Keene, we have a limited number of levers that we can use to effect change,” said Mari Brunner, a senior planner with the city’s community…

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District transportation director Dana Cruickshank unplugs the charging cable from one of Beverly, Mass.'s electric school buses.

Electric school buses serve as mini power plants during the summer

April 18, 2023

Summertime in New England is when people demand the most electricity from the grid because of air conditioner use. At those high-demand times, utilities turn to so-called peaker plants to supply the extra power. They’re often older, more polluting facilities, and they are expensive to run. But a project in Beverly, Massachusetts offers an alternative…

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The New England Aquarium's aerial survey team took this photo of Nimbus on March 10, 2023 from the window of a small plane.

Right whales aren’t having a good year. The pressure is on to save this hard-to-track species

April 14, 2023

It’s a chilly morning in early March. And New England Aquarium scientist Orla O’Brien and her team are preparing a small, twin propeller plane at the New Bedford Regional Airport for takeoff. It’s perfectly clear, ideal for flying and, hopefully, for spotting North Atlantic right whales from about 1,000 feet in the air. It hasn’t…

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The barrier beach and marsh system at Seawall Beach and Sprague River Salt Marsh.

Maine beaches that have escaped development can help us understand rising seas

April 3, 2023

Caitlin Cleaver, the director of the Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area in Phippsburg, Maine, is on a dune looking out over Seawall Beach and the Sprague Marsh behind it. “This is one of the largest undeveloped barrier beaches in Maine,” she says, “and we have a conservation area behind it that is close to 600 acres.”…

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Lobstermen gather in Massachusetts to trade tales, confront an uncertain future

April 2, 2023

Lobstermen spend most of their professional lives on the water in a solitary pursuit, but once a year, hundreds from the North Shore to the Outer Cape gather to talk shop and to wrestle with the challenges of an uncertain future. The setting for the Massachusetts Lobstermen Association’s (MLA) annual weekend and trade show —…

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Why a cookie recipe made this New Hampshire Girl Scout go rogue

March 14, 2023

Sophia Hammond, 11, has been a Girl Scout for more than half of her life. “I started when I was 5, so around six years, I guess,” she said, sitting at the kitchen table in her Plymouth home. That’s six years of camping trips, community service, and planting trees. And while she’s also busy with…

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With more electric cars on the road, training programs aim to get technicians up to speed

March 7, 2023

In the automotive technology wing of White Mountains Community College in New Hampshire, instructor Troy LaChance and his students lean over the steel frame of a half-built electric car. Two students start to pull a cable, colored bright orange to indicate high-voltage, through the car’s floor. They’re building this car from a kit, designed by…

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