View of Downtown Seattle from the waterfront. Photo credit: Yesenia Valverde. Last month, the IPCC released its special report, Global Warming of 1.5°C , a report requested by the Paris Agreement to detail the projected impacts of a 1.5°C rise in global temperature. It is of crucial importance to note that, according to the report, we as a global society are not currently on track to maintain warming below 1.5°C. Sobering, the report is an immediate call to action.

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Dave Helweg and Christian Giardina organized a field trip on the Big Island of Hawai'i immediately following our workshop on Oahu. When the plane that Simon Costanzo and I were on landed in Hilo, Christian contacted us to inform me that his wife, Ingrid Dockersmith, had sailed with me aboard the R/V Westward as part of Sea Semester. I was the Chief Scientist and Ingrid was an Assistant Scientist when we left from Maine and sailed to Barbados, Bequia and eventually St.

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On 7-8 March, Simon Costanzo and I facilitated an ecodrought workshop at the University of Hawaii at the main campus in Manoa, a suburb of Honolulu. Our host was the Pacific Islands Climate Science Center, headed by Dave Helweg. This Climate Science Center has a huge swath of territory to cover, including American Samoa, the Marshall Islands, Guam, Palau and a host of isolated atolls (e.g., Johnstone, Palmyra).

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Simon Costanzo, Brianne Walsh and I traveled to Boise, Idaho for a second workshop with scientists from the Pacific Northwest Climate Science Center. Our first workshop, held in Portland, Oregon, focused on the issues west of the Cascades, and this second workshop focused on issues east of the Cascades. We heard about the three 'W's (wounded wetlands and water rights), the three 'F's (forests, fires and fish) and the three 'A's (acclimation, adaptation and assemblages).

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Brianne Walsh, Simon Costanzo and I traveled to Portland, Oregon to talk about climate change with the USGS Northwest Climate Science Center. This workshop was the sixth in our series of eight workshops we are conducting across the entire United States.

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At the end of the Ecodrought workshop in Raliegh, North Carolina, I sang the song 'Carolina in my Mind', adapted from song of the same name written by a North Carolina native, James Taylor. The people named in my version of the song are Cari Furiness, North Carolina State University, Ryan Boyles and Jerry McMahon, US Geological Survey. The lyrics to the song are the following:

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Simon Costanzo, Brianne Walsh and I traveled to Raleigh, North Carolina to meet with scientists associated with the USGS Southeast Climate Science Center to talk about ecological drought on 16-17 November 2016. Fittingly, there were forest fires raging in the Great Smoky Mountains as a result of a prolonged drought as we held the workshop. Forest fires are not common, particularly in November, in the Great Smoky Mountains, in spite of their name.

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In March, Bill Dennison, Simon Costanzo, and I travelled to Norman, Oklahoma for a workshop on ecological drought, part of an ongoing project with the USGS National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center. This was the third in a series of eight workshops to be held at each of the nation’s eight Climate Science Centers focusing on ecological drought.

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Brianne Walsh organized a tour of the National Weather Center in Norman, Oklahoma following our workshop with the South Central Climate Science Center in March 2016. The National Weather Service is part of NOAA, which operates the facility in a partnership with the University of Oklahoma. We were immediately impressed with the spacious interior atrium with a wall of large glass windows facing southwest.

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In December, Simon Costanzo, Bill Dennison, and I traveled to Fort Collins, Colorado for a workshop on ecological drought - part of an ongoing project with the USGS National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center. This was the second in a series of eight workshops to be held at each of the nation’s eight Climate Science Centers, aimed at collating our existing knowledge of the ecological impacts, resistance, and recovery from drought.

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