Dixon, Mayewski featured in ’Thin Ice’ on MPBN July 12

UMaine Alert

Posted: April 19, 2024 - 1:32 PM

At approximately 9:24 a.m. on Friday, April 19, a University of Maine graduate student was struck by a university vehicle on Long Road at the University of Maine campus in Orono. The student reports that they are at a local hospital with minor injuries.

Emergency services, including the Orono Fire Department, University Volunteer Ambulance Corps, University of Maine Police Department, Orono Police Department and Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office responded to the scene.

The university vehicle involved in the incident was a Chevrolet Express van. It was being operated by a university employee.

Counseling services and support are available for students, faculty or staff who may have been affected. The Counseling Center can be reached at 207-581-1392 and the Dean of Students Office can be reached at 207-581-1406.

The scene has been cleared and Long Road is now accessible. An investigation is being conducted by the University of Maine Police Department with assistance from the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office Crash Reconstruction Unit. Any witnesses to the incident are encouraged to contact Lt. Noel Santiago at noel.santiago@maine.edu.

July 8, 2015 Alumni, Climate Change, Outreach, Research, Signature and Emerging Areas, Sustainability Solutions and Technologies

Paul Mayewski and Dan Dixon are on thin ice.

Mayewski, director of the University of Maine Climate Change Institute, and Dixon, a research assistant professor with CCI, are featured in the shortened version of the award-winning film “Thin Ice: The Inside Story of Climate Science,” that MPBN will broadcast at 2 p.m. Sunday, July 12.

The full-length film, which screened in more than 200 locations around the planet on Earth Day 2013, seeks to provide people on every continent an inside view of the scope of human activity and scientific examination being conducted to understand the world’s changing climate.

The film by David Sington and Simon Lamb won a number of awards. It was the 2014 Official Selection at the San Francisco Green Film Festival; the 2014 Audience Favorite at the Princeton Environmental Film Festival; a 2013 Official Selection of the Sheffield Doc/Fest; and a 2013 Best Popular Science Film at Baikal International Film Fest.

A crowdfunding campaign raised money to create this 60-minute version of the film, which is being distributed by American Public Television to 90 stations in 40 states this month.

Mayewski has helped to establish an in-depth understanding of polar climatology. He chairs and leads the International Trans-Antarctic Scientific Expedition (ITASE), a 21-nation program that explores the last 200 years of Antarctic climate history via a series of oversnow traverses that have covered much of the icy continent.

The author of “The Ice Chronicles” and “Journey Into Climate” is a Fellow and medal winner of the Explorers Club and the American Geophysical Union. In July, “Maine” magazine named Mayewski one of the state’s 50 Bold Visionaries. He was featured in Showtime’s 2014 Emmy Award-winning series “Years of Living Dangerously.”

“We have learned that Antarctica is not the timeless, unchangeable place we thought it was 20 years ago, but rather that it is capable of seriously impacting the climate of the Southern Hemisphere and the globe and that, in fact, this is already happening,” Mayewski says.

Dixon, a climatologist, has drilled ice cores in Antarctica, Southern Patagonia, the New Zealand Southern Alps, the Central Chilean Andes, and the Island of South Georgia.

As a member of the United States ITASE team, he has completed multiple Antarctic field seasons and traversed more than 10,000 kilometers (1,253 miles) over the ice sheet. His research seeks to reconstruct the Antarctic and global paleoclimate over the last 1,000 years by using the chemistry contained in snow and ice.

“My research has shown me unequivocal evidence of the human impact on global climate. We need to do everything possible to mitigate the inevitable consequences of climate change, and we need to act immediately,” Dixon says.

“Arming ourselves with knowledge of the approaching changes should be a priority for all. The release of this film to the American public could not be more timely. Attendees of the December 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris would do well to watch this film beforehand.”

To learn more about “Thin Ice” and to watch a trailer, visit thiniceclimate.org. People can also like the “Thin Ice” Facebook page and follow “Thin Ice” on Twitter.

Contact: Beth Staples, 207.581.3777