'We've been ... adapting to crisis after crisis'

By Leena Sarhan and Olivia LaSalle

GLOUCESTER — When king tides are highest, seawater now pushes into classrooms at Maritime Gloucester, flooding the waterfront institution that teaches local students about life on the ocean. 

For Jack Clarke, who has spent decades warning policymakers about climate change, the flooding feels like an alarm arriving sooner than expected. 

“These facilities are all now routinely flooding with king tides — not storms — but king tides,” he said, referring to the exceptionally high tides that occur when the sun, moon, and Earth align. “We are going to be facing the prospect of having to either retreat or elevate all of our facilities here along the waterfront.”

In Gloucester, America’s oldest seaport, residents are increasingly experiencing the brunt of warming oceans and rising seas, raising questions about how the community will live, work, and remain healthy in a changing climate.

Over the past decade, the Gulf of Maine — which stretches from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia — has warmed faster than nearly any other body of water on the planet. The region’s waters have warmed by about 1.5 degrees Celsius since 2000, significantly impacting fisheries vital to this city, 30 miles north of Boston, including cod and lobster. 

“Over the past 10 years, I’ve seen it [Gloucester] change dramatically,” said Clarke, a former assistant director of the Massachusetts Coastal Zone Management Office. 

He worries about the future of the city, noting that sea levels are projected by the Northeast Climate Adaptation Center to rise more than 4 feet by 2070. 

“We live at sea level,” he said. “We will need to make some decisions as a community for how we will live with sea level rise.”

At Maritime Gloucester, a private nonprofit maritime museum, Clarke serves as board chair, focusing on educating local students about the ocean.

“There’s a real opportunity to keep the kids in Gloucester working around the water,” he said.

The changes unfolding in Gloucester reflect broader shifts across New England’s coastal communities. Erosion is accelerating along the sandy shores of Cape Cod, where warming waters, stronger storms, and rising seas are destabilizing bluffs and nearby homes. 

Warming ocean temperatures are increasing moisture in the atmosphere, fueling what Clarke calls “weather on steroids,” bringing more intense storms, heavier snowfall and greater strain on coastal infrastructure. 

In January, a blizzard dropped 27 inches of snow on Gloucester, a reminder that climate costs reach beyond rising seas. For coastal communities, major winter storms can mean mounting expenses for snow removal and disruptions for those who make a living on the water.

But winter storms are only one expression of those pressures. 

“A direct cost that not everyone sees as a result of climate change and warming is that the more moisture, the bigger storms, the more snow, the more expensive it's going to be to live here,” Clarke said. 

Warmer waters and rising seas are also altering marine ecosystems that Gloucester and other fishing communities have relied on for generations. 

David Goethel, 72, a retired fisherman from Hampton, New Hampshire, fished cod and other species that live near the ocean floor in the Gulf of Maine for nearly 60 years. The warming waters had a significant impact on his catch. 

“The most significant change is the ebb and flow of temperatures,” Goethel said. “We started in a cold water regime . . . and then heated toward the end of the ‘90s, all the way through the last couple years.”

As waters warm, lobster and other species are moving beyond their traditional ranges, forcing fishermen to adapt in real time. 

“They move deeper, and so we just move deeper with them,” Goethel said.

But going deeper often means traveling farther offshore, staying out longer in rougher seas, where safety risks rise with distance from shore.

In January, the 72-foot Lily Jean sank off the coast of Gloucester during a winter storm. The body of one person was recovered, and the six others aboard are presumed dead.

The loss of the Lily Jean, Clarke said, reflects how stronger storms and shifting weather patterns can add danger to a job already defined by risk.

“So it grows,” Clarke said. “It's like a food chain in terms of climate change. It ripples all the way through the community.”

For fishing communities, those ecological shifts have become both an economic challenge and a public health concern.

Over the years, Clarke has sought to elevate climate change as a central issue in environmental policy. He spent 26 years as the director of public policy and government relations at Mass Audubon, where he helped advance climate, coastal, and conservation policy.

Clarke helped advance a 2018 Massachusetts climate adaptation bill signed by former Gov. Charlie Baker that pushed the state to plan for rising sea levels. This plan included investing in resilient infrastructure and better preparing communities for climate risks.

“It took five or six years to convince the governor… that climate change was real,” Clarke said.

Much of Clarke’s work has centered on making the case to policymakers and the public that rising seas and harsher coastal storms are not simply natural cycles, but climate-driven changes that demand a broader government response.

“You never really know what you’re going to get,” said Sam Cleaves, a retired city and environmental planner from Gloucester. “Storm events seem more intense, droughts seem longer.”

Fara Courtney, Clarke's wife, is a coastal policy consultant working in renewable energy. She said climate action depends on protecting the institutions meant to address it.

“We have to secure EPA’s [Environmental Protection Agency] ability to regulate climate and control the impacts of fossil fuels,” Courtney said. “That’s an environmental issue, a climate change issue, a public health issue around clear air and water. That’s the biggest threat we have to being able to address climate change.”

Still, Courtney said, Gloucester has always adapted.

“We've been fishing for 400 years and adapting to crisis after crisis,” Courtny said. “There's a lot of resilience, but the changes are happening faster now, and it's definitely a big concern.” 

Asked what keeps climate change urgent for him, Clarke and his wife point to the next generation.

“Haley and Jack,” Clarke said. “We’ve got grandkids.” 

Leena Sarhan is an undergraduate student at Boston University studying human physiology and journalism. She can be reached at lsarhan04@gmail.com. Olivia LaSalle is a master’s of public health student at the BU School of Public Health. She can be reached at olasall1@bu.edu.