Research Highlights

Climate Change Institute 50th anniversary logo

UMaine Climate Change Institute celebrates 50th anniversary

November 21, 2022 The University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2023, marking half-century of research and education related to climate change in Maine, New England and across the planet. In 1973, professor emeritus Harold Borns, whose research focused on glaciers and glaciation in Maine, founded the Institute for Quaternary Studies […]

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Photo of Arctic landscape in Greenland.

UMaine awarded nearly $3M to train graduate students to be future Arctic scientists

The University of Maine will train future Arctic scientists to help address the socio-environmental challenges resulting from the world’s most rapidly changing environment with a nearly $3 million award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The new UMaine initiative, Systems Approaches to Understanding and Navigating the New Arctic, is funded by the NSF Research Traineeship […]

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Harold Borns, Jr. Photo.

Colleagues celebrate Hal Borns’ legacy of friendship, vision, scientific discovery

Harold “Hal” W. Borns Jr., University of Maine professor emeritus of Earth and Climate Sciences and former director of the Institute for Quaternary Studies (now the Climate Change Institute), died Tuesday, March 17, 2020. Borns was an internationally acclaimed glacial geologist and professor. But he almost became an engineer. After serving in the U.S. Coast […]

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Iceberg photo for water tower news release.

Scientists rank world’s most important, most threatened mountain water towers

Scientists from around the world, including University of Maine Climate Change Institute director Paul Mayewski, have assessed the planet’s 78 mountain glacier-based water systems and, for the first time, ranked them in order of their importance to adjacent lowland communities, as well as their vulnerability to future environmental and socioeconomic changes. These systems, known as […]

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UMaine researchers take part in National Geographic, Rolex Expedition to Mt. Everest

An international team of scientists, climbers and storytellers, led by the National Geographic Society and Tribhuvan University, and supported in partnership with Rolex, conducted a scientific expedition to Mount Everest, believed to be the most comprehensive single scientific expedition to the mountain in history. The multidisciplinary team installed the two highest weather stations in the […]

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Gilkey Trench - Juneau Icefield

Juneau Icefield Research Program (JIRP)

The University of Maine has recently partnered with the non-profit 503(c) Foundation for Glacier & Environmental Research to run the Juneau Icefield Research Program (JIRP) as a 6-credit summer field course through the School of Earth and Climate Sciences (SECS).  The JIRP Director of Academics & Research, Seth Campbell, is an Assistant Professor within the […]

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Mario Potocki Inspecting Ice Core.

Inter-American Quelccaya Expedition, Peru

In the current state of our changing climate, low latitude alpine glaciers and ice caps are melting at an alarming rate. Within these glaciers resides a unique and well-preserved record of past climate and atmospheric conditions that is vital to expanding our knowledge of modern and future climate change. It is crucial to collect these […]

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Coastal Maine photo

Coastal Maine Climate Futures – S. Birkel & P. Mayewski

Climate and weather exert a critical influence on the health of Maine’s people, ecosystems and economy. Across coastal communities, where fishing, forestry, tourism, and agriculture serve as the economic backbone, the changing climate poses near and long-term challenges. This report provides a basis for future planning by developing plausible climate scenarios for the next 20 […]

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