Maine Climate Office News

Life on earth may be shrinking in size as a result of climate change, according to a recent study published in Nature Climate Change. From tortoises to sheep, to trees and grass, University of Singapore biologists Jennifer Sheridan and David Bickford have compiled fossil and experimental evidence showing that many species adapt to climate change by decreasing […]

New findings from a team of U.C. Davis ecologists show that sedimentary bedrock fertilizes plant growth in a northern Californian forest, filling an ecological role previously thought to be reserved for bacteria. Graduate student Scott Morford and colleagues have found that the rock provides ecologically available nitrogen (N), an essential nutrient for plant growth. Since plants cannot […]

Tropical rainforests cover 6% of Earth’s surface, but their soils contain nearly 30% of the total global soil carbon stocks, making them one of the most important carbon sinks on Earth. Yet, ironically, tropical rainforests are also the largest natural source of carbon dioxide on Earth. Plant material grows, decays, and makes way for new […]

On Thursday, NASA-funded scientists released the first complete map of Antarctic ice flow. Until now, Antarctic ice flow studies have focused on the outer fringes of the continent, leaving the frozen interior essentially uncharted. The new map illustrates the speed and direction of ice flow across the entire continent, dramatically improving the accuracy with which […]

Human Carbon Dioxide Emissions Dwarf Annual Volcanic Emissions Yes, aerosols from volcanic eruptions cool the climate, but don’t carbon dioxide emissions from the same eruptions counteract this cooling? No, at least not significantly. Terrance Gerlach, scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, untangles this commonly misconstrued reality in the American Geophysical Union’s EOS June 2011 issue. The […]

On August 27, 1883, civilians on the Indian Ocean island of Rodrigues heard an explosion. What they initially assumed was cannon fire from a neighboring ship turned out to be a more distant threat: the sound of a volcano erupting on Krakatoa, Indonesia, nearly 3,000 miles away. Traveling 50 miles through the atmosphere into the […]

Permafrost Thaw and Bogland Loss You may or may not be familiar with the bog man named Tolland Man. Tolland Man lived during the 4th century BCE and is believed to have been ritualistically sacrificed and buried in a bog in what is now Tolland, Denmark. The relatively low temperature, acidic, and oxygen-poor conditions of the […]

The Biological Pump Earlier this week, the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported that Arctic sea ice extent declined at an average rate of 46,000 square miles per day during the first two weeks of July. You can track daily images of sea ice extent here. While sea ice naturally melts every summer, this […]

The Solubility Pump: An Oceanic Cooling System In a paper published earlier this week in Nature Geoscience, oceanographer Galen McKinley and her research team reveal that rising North Atlantic ocean temperatures are dampening the ocean’s ability to absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide. They present data from the past 29 years, long enough to overcome natural oscillations in the […]