Climate Change Institute

Paul Mayewski, director of the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine, spoke on NBC Nightly News about climate change and the polar vortex. NBC reported melting sea ice and ocean temperatures at the North Pole have caused the walls of the jet stream, or polar vortex, to break open, allowing arctic air to […]

Dan Sandweiss, professor of anthropology and climate studies, co-wrote a short monograph on the analysis of animal remains and climate change from Siches, an early-to-middle Holocene fishing site he excavated in northern Peru. “Fishing on the Frontier: Vertebrate Remains from Amotape, Siches, and Honda Phase Occupations at Sitio Siches (Pv 7-19), Perú,” is in the […]

The Associated Press cited the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer in an article about a deep freeze in the Upper Midwest. Schools closed and warming centers opened across the Midwest when temperatures plummeted Jan. 25, according to the article. Even colder weather was expected for the following week. Temporary harsh cold does not disprove global […]

A Bangor Daily News editorial titled “Maine can change the debate on climate change” mentioned a report from the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine. The report by Sean Birkel and Paul Mayewski analyzed historical climate trends and potential impacts of climate change on coastal Maine, especially the agriculture and fishing industries. The […]

Eos reported on research led by Jessica Scheick, conducted while a research assistant and Ph.D. student in the University of Maine School of Earth and Climate Sciences, about icebergs and their potential to help predict sea level rise. The future of sea level rise is affected in part by the contours of the seafloor. If […]

Cynthia Isenhour, a professor of anthropology and climate change at the University of Maine, spoke with the Portland Press Herald for an article about a Maine man who spent a year without shopping for anything other than basic necessities. Nearly a decade ago, Isenhour wrote her dissertation on Swedish consumers who tried to stop shopping. […]

Susan Elias and Griffin Dill were sources for a Portland Press Herald piece about the 29 percent decrease in Lyme disease cases this year in Maine. The state recorded 1,310 Lyme cases through Dec. 27, 2018, down from 1,852 (an all-time high) in 2017, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. “The […]

The processes that led to glaciation at the cratered poles of Mercury, the planet closest to the sun, have been modeled by a University of Maine-led research team. James Fastook, a UMaine professor of computer science and Climate Change Institute researcher, and James Head and Ariel Deutsch of Brown University, studied the accumulation and flow […]

536 AD was an exceedingly bad year for humanity, perhaps even “the worst year to be alive”. A mysterious fog plunged Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia into darkness, day and night — for 18 months. “For the sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during the whole year,” wrote […]

The news this past year has been filled with stories about major scientific assessments on climate change on the global and national scales. These reports highlight evidence of our changing climate, the escalating costs and the increasing urgency to respond with dramatic reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions and investments in adaptation. Maine has been a leader […]