Maine Public talks with Mayewski about ‘Expedition Everest’

Maine Public interviewed Paul Mayewski, director of the Climate Change Institute, about his participation in the National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition. Mayewski served as expedition leader and lead scientist. He was joined by five CCI colleagues on the international mission. National Geographic premiered “Expedition Everest” on June 30. The one-hour show was a behind-the-scenes look at trailblazing climate research that’s critical to understanding changes facing the mountain and its glaciers, and shines a light on threats that these changes pose to communities downstream. “This is the upper level of the atmosphere that we live in, and in order to understand better how that portion of the atmosphere is responding to recent climate change, we need much more information,” Mayewski said. “So we put up automatic weather stations, collected the highest ice core ever, which would allow us to go back through time, collected water and snow samples, looked at biological material to see what the extent of the biology is up to those elevations, [and] conducted extremely detailed mapping surveys to provide a baseline for future change.” To learn more about the expedition and the vital role mountain systems like Everest play in providing water resources to nearly a quarter of the world’s population, visit natgeo.com/everest. The Science Times also interviewed Mayewski about the expedition.