Basic References and Reports
Maine Is Positioned for Greatness in a Troubled World
Peter Neill, Director of the World Ocean Observatory, has written a hopeful article on Maine's potential to withstand the effects of climate disruption.
>> Download the ADA 508 compliant MCF 2020 Rerport (PDF)
Maine’s Climate Future 2020 (MCF 2020) builds on the Maine’s Climate Future 2009 and Maine’s Climate Future 2015 reports and the Coastal Maine Climate Futures report (below); it is not intended as a comprehensive revision of all aspects of the previous reports.
This update demonstrates the progression of accelerating change in the climate in Maine and its effects, reflecting dramatic evidence for accelerating climate change around the globe with the often dire consequences of those changes....
MCF 2020 highlights some of the many national and international reports over the past several years demonstrating the urgent need to implement aggressive solutions to what many now call the ‘climate crisis’.
This report also highlights the importance of simultaneously investing in science-informed, cost-effective adaptation to accommodate the reality of a changing Maine in which we live, work and play...it is the generations to come who will pay the highest price, or benefit the most, from the decisions and actions we take now and in the next several years.
To that end, the report also points to resources detailing the many people and organizations who have been working to address the climate challenge in Maine, and to the important framework that Maine state government has launched in 2019 to get the job done.
The Climate Reanalyzer is an amazing tool created by Sean Birkel, Maine’s official climate scientist who is also a faculty member at the UM Climate Change Institute.
It is a platform for visualizing climate and weather datasets. The Reanalyzer combines many measurements made from many empirical sources.
The site is coded and maintained by Dr. Sean Birkel through support from the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine, the National Science Foundation, and the Russell Grinnell Memorial Trust.
A simulator for future climate predictions
Assessing the U.S. Climate in 2021
This annual NOAA summary report includes the cost of climate related disasters during 2021.
Contiguous U.S. was ranked fourth warmest during 2021; 20 billion-dollar disasters were identified.
The fifth US National Climate Assessment is in preparation.
Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
The Working Group II report is the second installment of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), which will be completed this year.
Dr. Jeremy Jackson, a CAN Council member, gives a compelling summary of the IPCC 2022 report in this webinar about climate change. And Dr. Nancy Knowlton discusses the impacts of a warming ocean.
Human-induced climate change is causing dangerous and widespread disruption in nature and affecting the lives of billions of people around the world, despite efforts to reduce the risks. People and ecosystems least able to cope are being hardest hit, said scientists in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.
The world faces unavoidable multiple climate hazards over the next two decades with global warming of 1.5°C (2.7°F). Even temporarily exceeding this warming level will result in additional severe impacts, some of which will be irreversible. Risks for society will increase, including to infrastructure and low-lying coastal settlements.
To avoid mounting loss of life, biodiversity and infrastructure, ambitious, accelerated action is required to adapt to climate change, at the same time as making rapid, deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
Climate Change 2021 The Physical Science Basis - Summary for Policy Makers
The IPCC reports that human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe. Scientists are also observing changes across the whole of Earth’s climate system: in the atmosphere, in the oceans, ice floes, and on land.
Many of these changes are unprecedented, and some of the shifts are in motion now, while some - such as continued sea level rise – are already ‘irreversible’ for centuries to millennia, ahead, the report warns. The report uses words and phrases such as "unequivocal" and "virtually certain" to describe some of its findings and projections.
But there is still time to limit climate change, IPCC experts say. Strong and sustained reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases, could quickly make air quality better, and in 20 to 30 years global temperatures could stabilize.