Thomas quoted in Hakai Magazine article on puffins
Hakai Magazine quoted Andrew Thomas, a professor of oceanography at the University of Maine, in an article on puffins and the challenges they face following reintroduction to the Gulf of Maine. Atlantic puffins were wiped out in the Gulf of Maine in 1887, and reintroduced slowly beginning in the 1970s. But now the birds face new threats related to climate change. In the Gulf of Maine, the water is warming faster than 99 percent of the world’s oceans, according to a 2016 research report cited in the article, on which Thomas was a co-author. “The summer months are warming much faster than the winter months,” said Thomas, whose research found that summer-level temperatures are lasting for an extra two days per year. Atlantic puffins, like other sea birds, are not projected to adjust well to ocean temperature increase, according to the article.