UMaine Researchers Featured in Museum Video
University of Maine Climate Change Institute researchers Aaron Putnam and Toby Koffman are among those featured in a video being shown at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City about how a new technique called surface exposure dating can help them analyze how the climate has changed over time.
The video “Shrinking Glaciers: A Chronicle of Climate Change,” includes footage and interviews of Putnam and Koffman in New Zealand, where they took samples from the rocky landscape once dominated by glaciers. Denton, a glacial geologist and Climate Change Institute faculty member, is also involved in the research.
“Shrinking Glaciers” is playing in the museum’s Hall of Planet Earth on a 12-foot Earth Bulletin Screen and at more than a dozen other science institutions.
Surface exposure dating uses chemical analysis to determine how long minerals within rocks have been exposed to the air since the glaciers around them melted, according to a synopsis of the video. Comparisons of this data with other climate records have revealed a link between glacial retreat and rising levels of carbon dioxide in the air.
Contact: Jessica Bloch, (207) 581-3777