- [Pamela] Tonight, what can centuries-old whaling logs tell us about today's extreme weather?

- This kind of information for climate scientists is absolutely priceless.

- [Michelle] Then, Governor McKee's vision with Ted Nesi.

- [Pamela] What happens when climate change threatens Rhode Island's history?

- You can't run away from it.

The truth is that a lot of historic properties are in extremely vulnerable places.

(lighthearted music) (lighthearted music continues) - Good evening and welcome to "Rhode Island PBS Weekly."

I'm Pamela Watts.

- And I'm Michelle San Miguel.

Could weather reports from more than 200 years ago have relevance for research into climate change today?

- The answer may be yes.

Local scientists believe the records are revealing.

Tonight, we open the book on an unlikely project, mining old whaling ship logs holding long-buried data about shifting winds, tides, and storms.

This is part of our continuing Green Seeker series.

(wind whooshing) Observations of winds that once buffeted this 1800s whaling ship are offering up some critical clues to climate change.

The Charles W. Morgan is an attraction at Mystic Seaport Museum.

It's the last of an American fleet that once numbered close to 3,000, and the oldest wooden commercial whaling vessel still afloat.

Ship logbooks of its many whale hunting voyages, along with hundreds of others from New England, may provide a treasure island for researchers trying to learn more about extreme weather challenges.

- Oh, wow.

- [Pamela] The idea to take a deep dive into weather data from centuries-old logbooks was launched by Timothy Walker, sailor, marine historian, and professor at UMass Dartmouth.

- These logbooks hold a lot of information about weather because the whalers were taking daily and multiple times a day, they're writing down the winds and the temperatures and the wind direction and wind speed and so on.

And so we wanted to know if we could extract that weather data to inform climate science, and it turns out that you can.

- [Pamela] Walker came to New Bedford to crew on the historic Schooner Ernestina.

One of his shipmates happened to be working on his PhD in climate ocean science.

- And he and I had talked about a way to do something with both of our skill sets.

- [Pamela] That discussion led to Walker fishing for weather information from the logs of local whaling ships and comparing it to the meteorology in the same coordinates today, - They're going to places where other ships don't go, because merchant and military ships by the 1650s or so, they're following seaborne highways that they know is the most efficient way to get from place to place.

The whalers are following the whales, who go to some of the most remote parts of the world's oceans, and so they're recording weather data in places where we simply don't have any other way of knowing what the weather was like on a particular day, at a particular place, 150, 200, 250 years ago.

And this kind of information for climate scientists is absolutely priceless.

- These are the areas where we can pick up the different high pressure systems and how they are changing.

- [Pamela] Walker's voyage of discovery resulted in a collaboration with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute on Cape Cod.

Scientist Caroline Ummenhofer says she was all on board.

- When Tim reached out to me six years ago about this project, that there's maritime weather data contained in ship logbooks, that seemed a real boon to trying to understand how wind patterns, how pressure patterns are shifting out over the oceans.

- Ummenhofer says her research is probing the ocean's role in climate variability and its effect on rainfall, droughts, flood, and extreme weather events.

And how does this help us in dealing with climate change?

- We've analyzed 170 logbooks, and we have over 100,000 daily weather entries, which is amazing, covering the period 1790 to 1910, with most of the data from the 1840s to '60s, which was the heyday of the New England whaling era.

We can compare that to modern-day observations that we get from satellites or meteorological stations.

It helps us put recent trends into a long-term context.

For example, one area that we know has experienced large wind changes is the Southern Ocean.

- [Pamela] Ummenhofer says there is a strong belt of westerly winds, which can carry storm systems that are churning around Antarctica.

The whalers called them the Roaring Forties.

They've shifted further south in recent decades, and she says it's now more like the Furious Fifties.

- It might sound strange, like what do we care about the winds over the Southern Ocean?

It's actually pretty important because rain-bearing weather systems travel on these westerly winds.

And as these winds have shifted further south, they have left regions like southern Australia and southern Africa high and dry, and they are experiencing much more frequent drought in recent decades than they have had in the past.

- The Providence Public Library has some 800 whaling ship logbooks in its special collections, second only to New Bedford.

These were considered legal documents in their day.

Sailor-carved ink stamps indicate how many whales were caught on a particular date and where.

- Sometimes recording are what are called offing sketches, which is helping them to navigate.

- [Pamela] The ledgers are filled with remarkable folk art illustrations of life on the years-long journeys.

Eyewitness accounts of mutinies, shipwrecks, mayhem, and murder.

Walker says it's easy to become distracted by the drama while collecting the data.

He notes whalers harpooning the mammoth creatures were often pulled out to sea on what's known as a Nantucket sleigh ride.

There are also reports of tragedies in the treacherous waters as he read in one gripping encounter.

- Each whaling boat has five men.

So three boats went out to hunt whales, a storm brewed up, they lost those boats and they lost those men, so they lost about a third of the entire crew in one storm.

- [Pamela] Yet the risk didn't deter the mariners.

Whale oil was profitable and essential for lamps and for fueling machinery of the Industrial Revolution.

- This is nice.

It says, "Bound Around Cape Horn," which sounds like a sea shanty, and it is.

- [Pamela] While the whaling logs, usually written by the first or second mate, are often digitized, archival researchers have to go online to decipher the old cursive handwriting detailing weather observations and locations.

While Walker says he enjoys the history captured in the logbooks, he now has his sight set on the science.

- As a historian, it's rare that you get a chance to do something that's so topically important and so, you know, vital to survival as a species, to our learning to grapple with climate challenges today.

- Is there any way that you see that this research is ultimately gonna help communities prepare for extreme weather?

- As we have a better sense of how storms, and in particular wind patterns, that are associated with extreme events, how they have changed in the past, that gives us more confidence into how they are going to change in the future.

- We can point to data, and we can speak to climate skeptics and say, "Yes, this is really happening," and we have to inform ourselves so that we're in a better position to react to a changing climate.

And that's another goal of our project, is to be able to provide the tools for public policy, for homeowners along the coast to be able to deal with what's coming along the path in the 21st century regarding climate change and extreme weather events.

- Up next, banning assault-style weapons and granting student loan forgiveness for primary care physicians.

Those are several of the priorities Governor Dan McKee shared in his State of the State Address.

Tonight on this episode of Weekly Insight, Michelle and WPRI 12's politics editor Ted Nesi explain the financial challenges that await.

- Ted, welcome back, it's good to see you.

It was a very big week at the Rhode Island State House.

Governor Dan McKee delivered his annual State of the State Address and then he released his $14 billion budget bill.

It's arguably one of the most important weeks of the year for McKee.

- Oh, absolutely, Michelle.

This is, for any governor, the State of the State is the chance to, you know, you seize the initiative, right?

You're the center of attention, you can lay out your agenda, you can try to reframe challenges that you've had before.

And then, as you say, the budget bill comes out right after, and that's, I would say it's sort of an opening bid in negotiations with lawmakers over how next year's tax and spending plan will come together.

- Governor McKee covered a lot of ground in his State of the State Address.

He talked about the shortage of primary care doctors in Rhode Island, and he said that one of the ways he plans to work on that is by offering loan forgiveness to providers who choose to stay and work in Rhode Island.

He also talked about increasing state aid to public schools.

The bottom line, of course, as we know becomes, how do you fund this, when the governor mentioned in that speech the state faces approximately a $250 million deficit.

The governor did get to that point about how he plans to fund this.

Let's take a listen.

- Over the next five years, state revenues are expected to grow 2.5% each year, thanks to our strategic investments and strong economy.

That's good news.

During the same time, state spending is expected to increase at 3.7% per year.

That creates a math problem that must be solved.

As we return to a pre-pandemic fiscal environment, we must take steps to right-size government while preserving programs that improve educational outcomes, raise incomes, and make our residents healthier.

- And, Ted, the governor says he wants to close that deficit without a broad-based tax increase.

And a few days after that speech, we started to get more details about how he plans to do that.

- Yeah, so we've only had the budget documents for a short time, as you and I sit here, Michelle, so I don't wanna claim I have a full mastery of all $14 billion, but I so far don't see a big theme in how the governor's trying to close the deficit.

You know, he and his team, they found a number of new ways they're proposing to raise more revenue.

They wanna put a new tax on digital advertising, they wanna put a new fee on electric vehicles, they want to raise the cigarette tax to $5 a pack.

And then there are other sort of nip and tuck ways to find some money.

They're gonna take money outta the accounts of quasi-public agencies, like the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank.

They're gonna change how, or they want to change how they calculate the car tax reimbursement to the cities and towns.

So, we'll see if all these various nip and tuck here and there is what the assembly wants to do in the end.

- Over the next several months, lawmakers will have hearings before they release a final spending plan, sometime in late May or early June.

Let's go back to the State of the State Address.

So, as all of this was taking place, it was partly overshadowed by what was a planned protest over homelessness.

You were there at the State House that night.

Walk me through what you heard and what you saw.

- So Harrison Tuttle, who is the head of the BLM RI PAC, Black Lives Matter Rhode Island PAC, had announced, heading into the speech, he was going to hold what he called a People's State of the State protest event at six o'clock, about an hour before the governor spoke, in the rotunda of the State House, and the advocates who were gonna gather wanted to call attention once again to homelessness.

So I was there with my photographer, getting ready to do the early newscast for Channel 12.

And as we were standing there, all of a sudden we saw the governor's staff and police officers roping off the rotunda.

Very unusual.

I spent a lot of time at the State House over the years, I'm not sure I've ever seen it roped off, and I heard other people saying the same thing.

And what the governor's office told the protestors, or the people who were planning to protest, they said, "We've reserved this, and so you can't use it."

And as you'd imagine, they cried, the protestors cried foul and they said, you know, "We're being blocked."

The ACLU has spoken out and said that wasn't the right thing to do.

But in the end, it held, they put the protest kind of over in a back corner in the bell area of the State House.

And then once the governor started speaking, those protestors marched around the first floor chanting.

But it was interesting because I was told by people in the House Chamber, I was outside there where the protest was, that you couldn't really hear it during the governor's speech.

- And as someone watching the State of the State at home, I could not hear those protestors.

- There you go, yeah.

- So, yeah.

I mean, it was interesting too because this comes at a time when McKee and his administration are facing a lot of criticism over what people are calling a homelessness crisis.

So would you say that night was pivotal in the direction that he's taking to address this?

- I think it certainly told us just how tense this issue has become, and I think so much of it is focused on those pallet shelters in Providence, that they've been in the headlines for months, the state can't seem to find a way to get them open.

The governor even felt the need to address that in the speech.

But he also said, "I'm not opening those without, I wouldn't compromise safety," clearly alluding to the fire code issues that have been brought up around that.

So, I think it's clear that this is gonna continue to be an issue as long as the weather stays cold.

- And, of course, those fire code issues are critical and very, you know, top of mind in Rhode Island, given the Station nightclub fire.

- Yes, and that's what the governor keeps saying, and I think that's why it's so hard to find a resolution.

- [Michelle] Ted, good to see you, thank you.

- Good to be here.

- Finally, tonight we continue our reporting on climate change and how this global problem is taking a toll on historic treasures.

- In danger from storm surges are landmarks from the Statue of Liberty in New York to much of Boston's Cradle of Liberty to a quarter of National Park Service buildings.

As we first reported last April, here in Rhode Island, severe weather is encroaching on some of the state's most historic and iconic structures.

As part of our continuing Green Seeker series, we look at efforts being done to better understand the problem and stem the tide of destruction.

(wind whooshing) Many of the country's historic landmarks are in peril.

According to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, sea level rise is causing flooding and coastal erosion.

At the core is climate change, extreme weather such as hurricanes and nor'easters increasing in frequency and severity.

- We're on this point on Aquidneck Island, it was always called Rough Point, and that's the reason why the house's name is Rough Point, but it is in an extremely vulnerable position because of storms.

- [Pamela] Storms resulting in tough times at Rough Point.

Frankie Vagnone is president of the Newport Restoration Foundation, stewards of this 1890s estate.

It's a Gilded Age summer cottage, originally a home of Vanderbilts, and later, famed tobacco heiress Doris Duke.

It's filled with riches, such as Van Dyck portraits and a Tiffany silver swan centerpiece.

But the Bellevue Avenue mansion and the cultural heritage it holds are all at risk.

- Now what we have are climate change issues, which are increasing the storm intensity, the winds.

Normal wear and tear and weathering of this house has been kind of exponentially multiplied.

So we're getting winds at such level that the seawater's being pushed through the stonewall, through the mortar, through the interior of the wall, through the plaster.

- [Pamela] It's evident in the elegant music room, where Doris Duke's debutante ball was once held.

Alyssa Lozupone is director of preservation.

- What you're seeing on the walls is hand-painted Chinese wallpaper.

And this was one of the primary areas where we started to see water infiltration.

We started seeing damage on the wallpaper itself.

So in this area, we actually removed a panel of the wallpaper.

- [Pamela] That wallpaper is currently being conserved.

- While it was offsite, we opened up the wall and thought this is a great opportunity to start exploring what's happening behind the wallpaper.

- [Pamela] And what's happening?

- Cracked granite and brownstone, things like that are all things that let water into the building, and then it just finds its way into the finishes and all these beautiful features that you see.

(wind whooshing) - Repairing the masonry and replacing the roof is phase one of Rough Point's ongoing restoration.

Phase two will focus on the solarium, where there is a clear, fragile line between outdoors and indoors.

- This was meant to be a space where you could enjoy the view, and now we're seeing some of the damage that the proximity to the water is doing to the building.

- [Pamela] Plaster is falling, so furniture is covered.

The bronze doors and windows need repair.

- How do we restore these, and how do we continue to protect them moving forward from increased wind and increased saltwater?

- [Pamela] To answer that, the nonprofit is doing something unusual.

It's pulling back the curtain, becoming transparent about climate change calamities.

Signage throughout Rough point is prominent.

They're being very forthright about this.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- And why is that so important?

- Our visitors want to know the truth, they wanna know the reality of preservation.

So instead of, for instance, covering up falling plaster with a plastic sheet, I've suggested we take the plastic sheet down, we interpret it, we show our visitors that these are the real effects that are happening on our building.

And, of course, it's not just our building.

So it's really pushing, pushing the margins of where preservationists and museum thinkers are goring, and climate change is happening to us and these things need to be discussed.

- [Pamela] Some of that discussion is happening through the Restoration Foundation's global initiative called Keeping History Above Water.

There are international conferences with experts, aimed at balancing preservation goals with the reality of rising tides.

- Traditionally, you always wanna replace something that's rotted with the same material.

Well, today, we're dealing with issues where some of those materials may be extinct, they may be in rainforests, they may not actually be able to withstand the new climate changes, so you need to start thinking about new technologies.

You can't run away from it, because the truth is that a lot of historic properties are in extremely vulnerable places.

- [Pamela] For example, Hunter House, here in the Point neighborhood of Newport, sits just a dozen feet away from Narragansett Bay, and it is a significant structure.

- It started the preservation movement in Newport, the city as well as the county, and that begins in the 1940s.

- [Pamela] Leslie Jones is curator and director of museum affairs for the Preservation Society of Newport County.

That organization saved the house once from demolition and now is trying to save it from wreckage by climate change.

Built in 1748, it is a national historic landmark, boasting some of the finest examples of Georgian architecture, with hand-hewn paneling and angelic details.

And that's not all.

It sheltered some famous allies during the Revolutionary War.

- It was home to Admiral de Ternay, who led the French Navy.

So he could see out the windows and his fleet in the harbor.

And with that, it played a significant role in our fight for independence.

The "Gazette Francoise," which was the first French language newspaper printed in the colonies, was printed in this house.

- Nearly 250 years later, that history could be vanquished.

While seaside structures are traditionally prone to water damage, climate change is hastening the deterioration.

What's been happening here at Hunter House?

- A lot, actually, and it's affected our whole approach to how we care for the building.

So, this is called efflorescence, and it's a salt deposit.

- So all of this white is salt from the ocean?

- All this white is salt.

Well, it's salt coming through the salty air, through the saltwater that actually rises up through the water table when flooding does happen in the basement.

- [Pamela] The subterranean cellar has been specifically designed so water can flow through, with special pumping pipes on chipped stone and dehumidifiers.

Jones says they've always had a hurricane plan.

It is now morphed into a resiliency plan.

- Because it can happen at any time of the year, whether it's flooding or high winds or any kind of moisture infiltration too.

I lead the efforts for the evacuation of Hunter House when necessary, and that's a collaborative effort that is rehearsed, it is annually reviewed, and it's essentially the process of moving things out of this house into a secure location.

- However, Jones says many of the moves are just temporary mitigation.

She says it's just a matter of time until more drastic measures may be taken, such as changing the character and context of the home's location.

Is there any thought of ever putting the house on stilts, moving the house?

- Sure, yeah.

We are looking at the examples that our neighbors are doing.

There are many people in this neighborhood who are elevating their houses.

It's certainly something that our consultants, engineers, and architects have advised could be a potential action for us to take on.

- Does that hurt your heart (Leslie chuckles) as someone who's a preservationist to think it's not going to be the way it was originally?

- I think it gives us purpose, not sad or scared, but more so let's be proactive rather than reactive.

Because the whole reason why this house exists is because it has existed through a linear timeline.

It has been lived in by generations of people that have electrified it, installed internal bathrooms and plumbing.

So the house has changed and morphed, but now it's time for us to save it.

- [Pamela] Back at Rough Point, Frankie Vagnone says they are working on another innovation for both tourists and townspeople.

- What we've decided to do is to turn this wing into action centers.

- [Pamela] The action centers will occupy former guest bedrooms on the second floor now under renovation.

The idea is to promote preservation through education.

- This room will hold a large model of Aquidneck Island, with projections from the ceiling which will be talking about climate change, sea level rise.

- [Pamela] He hopes it will transform the museum into a center for schoolchildren, the community, and visitors to learn more about the threatened erosion of history.

- You have to ask yourself what the value and relevance of a historic site is to us today.

They're vessels through which you can teach contemporary issues.

Climate change is something that we all have to pay attention to, even in a rarefied house just like this.

We have no choice on the matter, just look out the window.

(wind whooshing) - And that's our broadcast this evening.

Thank you for joining us.

I'm Pamela Watts.

- And I'm Michelle San Miguel.

We'll be back next week with another edition of "Rhode Island PBS Weekly."

Until then, please follow us on Facebook and YouTube and visit us online to see all of our stories and past episodes at ripbs.org/weekly, or listen to our podcast on your favorite streaming platform.

Goodnight.

(lighthearted music) (lighthearted music continues) (lighthearted music continues) (lighthearted music continues)