School of Earth and Climate Sciences

Alice Kelley and Bonnie Newsom are in a race against time and tides to document the cultural and paleoenvironmental information contained in the shell heaps before they’re swept out to sea. Read more

In Part 1 of this two-part podcast, “The Maine Question” asks what it’s like in the most remote, harsh and spectacular locations on Earth? Anyone with a thirst for adventure has likely dreamed of seeing the South Pole, Mount Everest, or the massive ice sheets of Greenland. Paul Mayewski has done all of that and […]

A groundbreaking study shows that a warming planet will make dust storms more intense in the Mediterranean. Using the highest-resolution continuous climate record ever published, the study explains the connections between dust storms, extended periods of drought, volcanoes and warming in the Mediterranean, Europe and Asia. Read more

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. Read more

The Sun Journal reported University of Maine graduate students Peter Strand and Laura Mattas gave a presentation about their experiences on the National Geographic and Rolex’s Perpetual Planet Extreme Expedition to Mount Everest at Bruce M. Whittier Middle School in Poland, Maine. Strand, a Ph.D. candidate at the Climate Change Institute, and Mattas, a master’s student […]

Three University of Maine Climate Change Institute scientists are part of a Princeton University-led team that analyzed 2 million-year-old ice cores from Antarctica to provide the first direct observations of Earth’s climate when furred early ancestors of modern humans still roamed. Read more

To understand industrial-age glacier recession and climate warming in New Zealand, an international research team led by the University of Maine will document the past 10,000 years of natural variations by studying the moraines of retreating glaciers and rings of temperature-sensitive trees in the Southern Hemisphere. The data will allow researchers to compare the Holocene-era […]

UMaine climate scientists participate in National Geographic and Rolex’s Perpetual Planet Extreme Expedition to Everest to better understand ‘Earth’s critical life-support systems’ Read more 

A new discovery by University of Maine researchers that challenges the established volcanic source of particles found in an ice core from the South Pole adds to the global record of volcanism and is relevant to several   research disciplines. Understanding how the Earth’s volcanic activity interacts with the climate system, as well as volcanic […]

Dominic Winski helped secure the deepest and oldest ice core at the South Pole in order to understand past variations in the Earth’s climate. The oldest ice in the 5,745-foot-long (more than a mile deep) core is 54,302 years old, plus or minus 519 years, says the research assistant professor at the University of Maine […]

University of Maine professor Ivan Fernandez has been appointed to serve on the Maine Climate Council, and will serve as co-chair of the Science and Technical Subcommittee. Numerous other experts from UMaine and University of Maine at Machias have been invited to serve on the Science and Technical Subcommittee, as well as working groups. Climate […]

Liam Flynn of Raymond, Maine is taking a field geology course this summer — in the Pyrenees. Flynn, who just finished his third year as an Earth and climate sciences major, is learning geologic mapping at the field camp. “I am passionate about learning about the Earth’s interactions and how we can use that knowledge […]

Katherine Allen, a UMaine assistant professor in the School of Earth and Climate Sciences, and the Climate Change Institute, has received a more than $584,000 National Science Foundation CAREER Award to study Gulf temperatures from the early Holocene to the present. The award follows an NSF-funded collaborative research project led by Allen in 2016 that […]

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 […]

Emily Craig ’18, Eric Miller and Jesse Walters have been offered grants for their individually designed research projects. Read more