‘The Maine Question’ digs into legacy and future of UMaine’s Climate Change Institute

The nation’s first multi- and inter-disciplinary research institute to study Earth’s recent and long-term climate variability was founded in 1972 at the University of Maine. That institute, now known as the Climate Change Institute, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, a milestone that honors the many groundbreaking discoveries its scientists have made in the field of climate science. 

CCI have scientists first mapped the difference between climate during the Ice Age and today in the 1970s; discovered the importance of marine-based ice sheets in the 1980s; connected acid rain to human causes in the mid-1980s; uncovered the concept of abrupt climate change through studying ice cores in Greenland in the mid-1990s; and led expeditions traversing Antarctica to determine the impact of human-sourced pollutants into the 2010s. 

In episode eight of season seven of “The Maine Question,” CCI director Paul Andrew Mayewski and researchers Daniel Sandweiss and Cynthia Isenhour discuss the legacy of the institute and its future of discoveries and contributions that will help tackle the all-encompassing challenge of global warming worldwide. 

Listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, SoundCloud, Stitcher, Spotify, YouTube or “The Maine Question” website. New episodes are added Thursdays.

What topics would you like to learn more about? What questions do you have for UMaine experts? Email them to mainequestion@maine.edu.