Climate Change Institute

Spring wildflowers may face challenges in a warming climate. That’s according to researchers who combined their findings with historical observations collected by philosopher and author Henry David Thoreau. Conservation biologists Caitlin McDonough MacKenzie of the University of Maine and Richard Primack of Boston University presented Thoreau’s scientific observations from the 1850s in Concord, Massachusetts to […]

Sean Birkel, Maine State Climatologist and a research assistant professor at the University of Maine Climate Change Institute, was quoted in a WGME (Channel 13 in Portland) report on climate change and lake ice. Climate change could result in less lake ice in the near future, which would present problems for ice fishermen — and […]

Four University of Maine students and alumni have been recommended as semifinalists for the 2019–20 Fulbright U.S. Student Program, the largest exchange program in the country that offers opportunities for recent graduates in more than 160 countries. The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to increase […]

News Center Maine spoke with Sean Birkel, a research assistant professor at the University of Maine Climate Change Institute, and Michelle Volk, a graduate student at UMaine, about research they’re conducting on ticks. Climate change and the bacteria carried by ticks are helping extend the range of ticks to include environments in which they previously […]

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 […]