Climate Change Institute

The rainforest that lines the Amazon River in southeast Peru is a tangle of lush green foliage, and to those who are unfamiliar with the region, it appears pristine. But the indigenous people who call this region home have left their mark on the landscape through agriculture, religious rites, hunting and gathering. Anthropologist Constanza Ocampo-Raeder […]

Changes in the velocity of large outlet glaciers and ice streams in Greenland and Antarctica are important for ice-sheet mass balance and hence sea level.  Mass loss in large parts of both ice sheets is being driven by the recent accelerations of outlet glaciers2–5 in response to unknown or poorly constrained climatic or internal perturbations […]

This volume provides a comprehensive, up-to-date account of how the physical and biological environment of the Antarctic continent and Southern Ocean has changed from Deep Time until the present day. It also considers how the Antarctic environment 05 change over the next century in a world where greenhouse gas concentrations are much higher than occurred […]

Some of the most dramatic evidence of climate change today is found in the planet’s lakes and reservoirs, according to three researchers from Miami University, the University of Maine and University of Alberta – Edmonton, writing in a February issue of Science magazine. These inland waters that are important regulators in the global carbon cycle […]

Every summer for the past decade, paleoecologist Jasmine Saros has trekked across snowfields and horsebacked up bouldered mountain passes to reach remote, high-altitude lakes in the shadow of the Beartooth Mountains of the central Rockies. In the pristine wilderness of Montana and Wyoming, at altitudes above 9,400 feet, she arrives at the alpine lakes just […]

The first comprehensive review of the state of Antarctica’s climate and its relationship to the global climate system is published this week (Tuesday 1 December) by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). The review – Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment – presents the latest research from the icy continent, identifies areas for future […]

Most students describe their summer vacation in one word: cool. But Brittany Gilman of South Portland, Maine, and Stephanie Allard of Woonsocket, R.I., really mean it. In August, the University of Maine Earth sciences students collected samples from the Greenland ice sheet. The undergraduate researchers are working with Climate Change Institute Director Paul Mayewski and […]

UMaine Selected for Membership in Research Organization November 16th, 2009 Contact: Joe Carr at (207) 581-3571 ORONO — Recognizing the University of Maine Climate Change Institute’s international prominence in climate science, the prestigious University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) has selected UMaine for membership.  The organization’s member institutions unanimously approved UMaine’s application at its recent […]

Paul Mayewski, Director of the Climate Change Institute, was interviewed recently for SciencePoles, the website of the International Polar Year.

As reported by UMaine’s news service, UMaine climatologist and CCI faculty member Gordon Hamilton’s recent excursion to Greenland has received significant international media coverage. International networks including CNN, ABC (Australia), and many others have covered Gordon’s recent work. From an interview with ABC (Australia): Well I guess the major change is that the glaciers haven’t […]