BAR HARBOR — “Maine’s Climate: Past, Present, and Future” will be the subject of the next MDI Science Café, set for Wednesday, May 16, at 5:30 p.m. at McKay’s Public House in Bar Harbor. Kirk Maasch, Ph.D., professor in the department of earth sciences and the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine, will lead the talk.

“Maine’s climate has changed continuously in the past, and will continue to do so in the future,” Dr. Maasch says. “Model projections of future climate change point to continued warming trends,” he adds. Maasch notes that we are undergoing a shift from a water flow pattern dominated by a spring snowmelt to one with significant runoff during the winter. “This shift, coupled with an increase in precipitation,” he says, “is likely to pose challenges for managing water supplies and flood mitigation.”
Dr. Maasch has more than 20 years of experience using climate models and statistical methods to investigate the causes of climate change across time scales ranging from years to millions of years. He is also involved in modeling present-day and future regional scale climate change using a new high-resolution model of the atmosphere. One of his projects involves modeling future climate changes for New England with a focus on winds over the Gulf of Maine.
MDI Science Cafés are sponsored by the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory to offer an opportunity for members of the public to discuss hot topics with leading scientists in everyday language. On June 18, the cafés will move to Monday evenings at their summer home, the Asticou Inn in Northeast Harbor. Each lasts about an hour, and refreshments are available.
For more information, see www.mdibl.org or call 288-3147.

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