Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Effects Of The Transportation And Climate Initiative On The Maine Economy: An Analysis Of Cap-And-Invest And Its Heterogeneous Impacts On Rural And Urban Households, William L. Somes

Honors College

In December 2020, a memorandum of understanding (MOU) was released by the Transportation and Climate Initiative Program (TCI-P), a collaboration of 13 jurisdictions in the New England and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. Modeled on the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), the TCI-P follows a cap-and-invest framework to reduce emissions from the transportation sector by 26% from 2022 to 2032. Since the TCI-P is expected to raise the price of gasoline by 5¢ to 9¢ per gallon, there has been concern that some populations may be disproportionately affected. The present research studies the potential heterogeneous impacts of the TCI-P …

S3e7: Did Climate Impact Wwi, Spanish Flu Casualties?, Ron Lisnet, Paul A. Mayewski, Alex More

The Maine Question

Incessant torrential rain and cold air over Europe from 1914 to 1919 likely increased the number of people who died during World War I (22 million) and the Spanish flu pandemic (50 million). Alex More and Paul Mayewski from the Climate Change Institute connected data from climate science, history and public health to make the discovery. The colleagues say the once-in-a-century climate anomaly may have been caused by dust and explosives from the war that impacted the local atmosphere. As we anticipate another wave of COVID-19, More says we should be mindful of the interconnectedness of human-caused climate change, environmental …

Scientific Assessment Of Climate Change And Its Effects In Maine, Maine Climate Council Scientific And Technical Subcommittee, Ivan Fernandez, Robert Marvinney, Susie Arnold, Linda Bacon, Andrew Barton, Brian Beal, Sean Birkel, Russell Black, Alix Contosta, Amanda Cross, Adam Daigneault, Thomas Danielson, Stephen Dickson, Jeanne Difranco, Susan Elias, Glenn Hodgkins, Brian Hubbell, Joe Kelley, Rick Kersbergen, Glen Koehler, Rebecca Lincoln, William Livingston, Pamela Lombard, Bradfield Lyon, Andrew Pershing, Nichole Price, Jonathan Rubin, Joseph Salisbury, Erin Simons-Legaard, Peter Slovinsky, Robert Steneck, Sally Stockwell, Richard Wahle, Jay Wason, Aaron Weiskittel, Carl Wilson

Climate Change

Climate change has already made its presence known in Maine, from shorter winters and warmer summers with ocean heat waves, to stronger storms, new species showing up in our backyards and the Gulf of Maine, aquatic algal blooms, acidic ocean waters that affect shellfish, and new pests and diseases that harm our iconic forests and fisheries.

The health of Maine people is also being affected by climate change, from high heat index days driving increased emergency room visits to the ravages of Lyme and other vector-borne diseases. And our economy is feeling the effects, too — with farmers trying to …

High Net Loss Of Intertidal Wetland Coverage In A Maine Estuary By Year 2100, Jack R. Mclachlan

Biology and Ecology Faculty Scholarship

Rising sea levels and coastal land use are predicted to synergistically impact coastal wetlands by reducing their extent and ecosystem functioning through a process known as “coastal squeeze”. Impervious surfaces associated with coastal development prevent the natural process of wetland migration, whereby intertidal wetland area is lost at its seaward edge to rising low water lines, but is replaced by eroding uplands and accumulating new wetland at its landward edge. As these constructed surfaces prevent the replacement of lost wetland, intertidal wetlands are “squeezed” by rising sea levels until they disappear. This study uses geographic information system (GIS) to predict …

Bees Of Maine, With A State Species Checklist, Alison C. Dibble, Francis A. Drummond, Constance Stubbs, Michael Veit, John S. Ascher

Biology and Ecology Faculty Scholarship

We present a new county checklist developed from bee research in Maine since the 1800s. The list contains 278 bee species in 37 genera and 6 families, of which all but 8 are native, with ≥50 taxa each in Andrena and Lasioglossum. Data for 16 counties from publications, museum collections, and recent surveys varied in number of species from 8 (Androscoggin) to 197 (Hancock). Research since 1930 on Vaccinium angustifolium (Lowbush Blueberry) led to many records. Twenty-one species are considered unusual, including 3 first recorded in 2016: Epeoloides pilosulus, Melitta melittoides, and Holcopasites calliopsidis. Maine records …

Modeling Spatiotemporal Variability Of The Bioclimate Envelope Of Homarus Americanus In The Coastal Waters Of Maine And New Hampshire, Kisei Tananka, Yong Chen

Publications

A bioclimate envelope model was developed to evaluate the potential impacts of climate variability on American lobster (Homarus americanus). Bioclimate envelopes were defined by season-, sex-, and stage- specific Habitat Suitability Indices (HSI) based on (1) bottom temperature, (2) bottom salinity, and (3) depth. The species’ association to each of these three environmental attributes was expressed using Suitability Indices (SIs) calibrated by standardized lobster abundance derived from 14 years of fishery independent survey. A regional ocean model (Finite-Volume Community Ocean Model) was integrated with the HSI to hindcast spatiotemporal variability of bioclimate envelopes for American lobster in coastal waters of …

Putting The West Antarctic Ice Sheet Into Context, George H. Denton, Brenda L. Hall

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This award supports a project to develop new insights into the cause and pattern of events during the last glacial termination in South America and Antarctica. One emerging view is that a warming Southern Ocean (SO), driven by a chain of events initiated in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) and tied to the interhemispheric climate seesaw of the last termination, was the underlying mechanism that drove the West Antarctic ice sheet (WAIS) from its Late Glacial Maximum (LGM) position back to present-day grounding lines. This ocean thermal forcing would have impacted WAIS by accelerating basal melt rates on fringing floating ice …

Collaborative Research: Globec Panregional Synthesis: Pacific Ocean Boundary Ecosystems: Response To Natural And Anthropogenic Climate Forcing, Andrew C. Thomas

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This is a Collaborative project POBEX (www.POBEX.org) under the the overall direction of M. DiLorenzo, GaTech. A separate FINAL report was submitted by DiLorenzo for the overall project in 2013. Using US and international observational datasets combined with physical and biological models, this project investigates the mechanisms of climate-related variability in three Pacific boundary ecosystems: Gulf of Alaska (GOA) and California Current System (CCS) referred to as the Northeast Pacific (NEP), the Humboldt or Peru-Chile Current System (PCCS), and the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension (KOE) region. The research goals of this project can be summarized as follows:

(1) Assess to what extent, …

Collaborative Research: Exploring A 2 Million + Year Ice Climate Archive-Allan Hills Blue Ice Area (2mbia), Andrei V. Kurbatov, Paul Andrew Mayewski

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This award supports a project to generate an absolute timescale for the Allan Hills Blue Ice Area (BIA), and then to reconstruct details of past climate changes and greenhouse gas concentrations for certain time periods back to 2.5 Ma. Ice ages will be determined by applying emerging methods for absolute and relative dating of trapped air bubbles (based on Argon-40/Argon-38, delta-18O of O2, and the O2/N2 ratio). To demonstrate the potential of the Allan Hills BIAs as a paleoclimate archive trenches and ice cores will be collected for age intervals corresponding to 110-140 ka, 1 Ma, and 2.5 Ma. During …

Collaborative Research: Globec Pan-Regional Synthesis: End-To-End Energy Budgets In Us-Globec Regions, Andrew C. Thomas

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

The research addresses the overarching question: are marine food webs leading to fisheries controlled from the top-down, the bottom up, or a combination of the two? To address this question we will (1) compare end-to-end energy budgets of the 4 US-GLOBEC study regions in the context of top-down v. bottom-up forcing, (2) assess the skills of the regional models in capturing basic material fluxes, (3) extract diagnostics from the regional models that will be used to evaluate the effects of climate change and fishing pressure across GLOBEC regions and (4) develop quantitative methods to compare the diagnostics. The major successes …

Fisheries Management In A Changing Climate: Lessons From The 2012 Ocean Heat Wave In The Northwest Atlantic., Katherine E. Mills, Andrew Pershing, Curtis J. Brown, Yong Chen, Fu-Sung Chiang, Daniel S. Holland, Sigrid Lehuta, Janet A. Nye, Jenny C. Sun, Andrew C. Thomas, Richard A. Wahle

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Anatomy Of Last Glacial Maximum (Lgm) Climate Change In The Southern Hemisphere Mid-Latitudes: Paleoecological Temperature Reconstructions From Terrestrial Archives, Marcus J. Vandergoes, Ann Dieffenbacher-Krall

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

The objective of this research is to test if leading hypotheses about drivers of global ice ages explain climate change in the Southern Hemisphere mid-latitudes. The research establishes the timing, magnitude, and structure of southern mid-latitude Last Glacial Maximum climate from two sites bordering the Southern Alps, New Zealand, by reconstructing temperature changes from continuous, isotopically dated, paleo-chironomid and pollen re-cords.

Hypotheses about what drives ice age climate change remain clouded with ambiguities because the timing and magnitude of maximum ice age cooling (Last Glacial Maximum, LGM) does not appear to match between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Northern solar …

Signs Of The Seasons Program Species In Focus: Monarchs And Milkweed, An Ecological Relationship Threatened By Climate Change, Beth Bisson, Esperanza Stancioff

Maine Sea Grant Publications

Over the past two decades, researchers have observed declines in populations of both monarch butterflies (over 70% in some areas) and milkweed. Climate-related factors contributing to these declines include increasing frequency of intense winter storms and near freezing temperatures in monarch overwintering areas in Mexico, and severe droughts in the southwestern and southeastern United States, which affect both species. If these trends continue, they could create a mismatch in time or space between monarch breeding cycles along their northward migration (April to August) and the growth and survival of milkweed plants eaten by monarch caterpillars.

Collaborative Research: Norwegian-United States Ipy Scientific Traverse: Climate Variability And Glaciology In East Antarctica, Gordon S. Hamilton

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This award supports a project of scientific investigations along two overland traverses in East Antarctica: one going from the Norwegian Troll Station (72deg. S, 2deg. E) to the United States South Pole Station (90deg. S, 0deg. E) in 2007-2008; and a return traverse starting at South Pole Station and ending at Troll Station by a different route in 2008-2009. The project will investigate climate change in East Antarctica, with the goals of understanding climate variability in Dronning Maud Land of East Antarctica on time scales of years to centuries and determining the surface and net mass balance of the ice …

Collaborative Research: Asian Ice Core Array (Aica)--Reconstruction Of Past Physical And Chemical Climate Over Asia, Paul Mayewski, Karl J. Kreutz, Andrei V. Kurbatov

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

Funding is provided to help the researchers build on success using ice cores for understanding past physical and chemical climate change from Antarctica, Arctic, North Pacific and Asia by analyzing and interpreting a new array of Asian ice cores. The researchers plan to use five existing ice cores and collect one new ice core to enhance the reconstruction of environmental conditions over Asia.

The primary research questions for the Asian Ice Core Array (AICA) research include:

(1) Asian climate variability - How do major Asian circulation features (i.e., Asian monsoon, Westerlies, polar air masses, Siberian and Tibetan Highs) vary on …

Physical Properties Of The Us Itase Firn And Ice Cores From South Pole To Taylor Dome, Debra A. Meese, Ian Baker

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This award supports a project for physical properties research on snow pits and firn/ice cores with specific objectives that include stratigraphic analysis including determination of accumulation rates, annual layers, depth hoar, ice and wind crusts and rates of grain growth with depth. Studies of firn densification rates and how these parameters relate to the meteorology and climatology over the last 200 years of snow accumulation in Antarctica will also be investigated. The project will also determine the seasonality of accumulation by co-registration of stratigraphy and chemistry and determination of chemical species at the grain boundaries, how these may change with …

Collaborative Research: The Response Of Lakes To Disturbance And Climate Change: Calibrating Sedimentary Records To Test The Landscape Position Concept, Jasmine E. Saros

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

Landscape disturbance and climate change affect lakes in proportion to their contact with ground water, sometimes resulting in different responses in neighboring lakes. This project develops methods for reconstructing past water chemistry and food webs of lakes. The biological and chemical deposits in surface sediment samples will be compared with the water in 62 modern lakes. The resulting relationships will be tested by comparing sediment cores with 24 years of observations from the North Temperate Lakes Long Term Ecological Research (NTL-LTER) site. The methods will then be used to reconstruct 150 years of history for several lakes, adding perspective to …

Explorations, Vol. 6, No. 2, Carole J. Bombard, Nick Houtman, William H. Whitaker, Jean M. Andrews, Henry Munson Jr., Jamie Watler, Michael Palmer, Diane J. Garsombke, Thomas W. Garsombke

Explorations — A Journal of Research

Cover: Untitled #13, Series 2, chalk on paper, by Ronald Ghiz, Associate Professor of Art at the University of Maine.

Articles include:

"Editorial Overview: in this issue," by Carole J. Bombard

"Save the Planet . . . please," by Nick Houtman

"Research and Public Service Recognizing Leadership, Pioneering, and Productivity," Herb Hidu and Stephen Norton

"Private Assistance for Maine’s Hungry," by William H. Whitaker and Jean M. Andrews

"The Ugly Faces of Hunger"

"Explaining the Iranian Revolution," by Henry Munson, Jr.

"Biological Clocks: timing is everything—and everywhere," by Jamie Watler

"Love of Glory and the Common Good: Periclean Democracy and …