Climate Change Institute

  Increased local tourism and toxic substances transported to glaciers from distant locales can contribute to high concentrations of human-sourced metal pollution in snow and streams around Mount Everest that is likely degrading the quality of water used by thousands of residents and climbers. Heather Clifford made the discoveries in a study she conducted after […]

Smithsonian Magazine spoke with Dan Sandweiss, a geoarchaeologist and professor of anthropology at the University of Maine, about the phytoliths in a remote Peruvian region which show that indigenous people sustainably managed forest biodiversity for millennia.

The Associated Press cited a report authored by Marcella Sorg, a University of Maine research professor, in a story about the number of drug-related deaths in Maine in 2020. More than 500 Mainers died of drug overdose during the pandemic. Sorg indicated that research continues to understand the role of isolation and lockdowns on the […]

Abstract: As hotspots of active carbon processing, terrestrial freshwater systems are important regulators of carbon fluxes across the landscape and sites of notable carbon emissions. The importance of lakes as carbon emission conduits to the surrounding landscape is amplified as permafrost begins to melt, changing landscape hydrological pathways and delivering large amounts of terrestrial carbon […]

Thesis Proposal Defense Hanna Brooks Assessing long range aerosol transport in the North Pacific on seasonal to millennial time scales Thursday, June 24th at 2 pm https://maine.zoom.us/j/8845193221?pwd=Zk5namNvNzVyYitGTlM5YnQ0WU5FZz09 Password: 939847

University of Maine researchers are studying how changes in rainfall patterns caused by climate change could affect strawberries in the Northeast. Principal investigator Rachel Schattman, an assistant professor of sustainable agriculture, and her research team built a precipitation and cropping simulator to assess the effects of four possible rainfall scenarios on strawberries and other specialty […]

National Geographic spoke with Andy Pershing, an associate professor of climate change at the University of Maine, and Robert Steneck, a professor of marine sciences at UMaine about climate change in the Gulf of Maine and the impact on the lobsters and the lobster fishery.

“Landscape of Change” by Jill Pelto is on the cover of “A Climate Chronology,” a 225-page-and-counting searchable document. Pelto, a UMaine alumna, is a scientist and artist.   When Sharon Tisher reflects on the climate crises that students in her courses are inheriting, she sometimes experiences a momentary loss of words. “My generation are the […]

Ivan Fernandez, a professor of soil science and forest resources at the University of Maine, talked with WMTW (Channel 8 in Portland) about the impacts of climate change on agriculture in Maine including earlier harvests and earlier onset of drought and arrival of pests.