Forest Climate Change Initiative
Science and Practice: Addressing Forest Climate Change in Maine Webinar Series
Registration for Year 3 (2022-23) of our webinar + field tour series has been launched–visit the series webpage for details!
FCCI will continue to host a webinar and field tour series in 2022-2023. The program will focus on case studies in adaptive forest management under the changing climate. Panelists will include researchers, scientists, and stakeholders who will address issues of climate change and how it is influencing Maine’s forests and forest economy. Please visit the series webpage for more information on topics and links to meeting materials.
The State of Maine’s Carbon Budget
FCCI Researchers Have Released a 2-Page Fact Sheet on the Current State of Maine’s Carbon Budget. For the fact sheet and background, click here.
FCCI Natural Climate Solutions
Questions?
Why are Maine’s forests important to the state’s carbon budget? How do forest growth and harvesting impact climate?
Answers (and relevant links to additional resources) to these and related questions can be found on our FAQ page.
FCCI Outreach
A key component of FCCI is to provide connections among researchers, scientists, stakeholders, legislators, and the interested public. To that effect, we have support a variety of outreach efforts.
The Forest Climate Change & Adaptation Forum was held at the University of Maine in February 2020. Links for each of the presentations as well as audio files can be accessed here.
In April 2019, the FCCI hosted a session the the Maine Water and Sustainability Conference to highlight the goals of this initiative and to begin a larger discussion on research priorities. The session featured an overview of current FCCI activities, presentations on the current state of knowledge across multiple disciplines, and a panel discussion of stakeholders on their experiences and information needs regarding emerging weather patterns and climate change. Click on the link FCCI 2019 Presentations and Speaker Bios for pdfs.
Maine’s Forest and Climate Change
Maine has a strong gradient in climate ranging from maritime to alpine, which helps to contribute to a diverse forest (Figure 1). There are a number of issues that link both climate and forests including tree growth and mortality, forest health, operability, ecosystem services (carbon storage, water quality, wildlife habitat), and recreation opportunities.
With a changing climate, Maine has and will continue to experience a warmer and wetter climate (Figure 2) with a higher potential for extreme events and greater weather variability in concert with a changing chemical climate (e.g. increased CO2, decreased sulfur deposition). This has significant implications for the role of forests in climate mitigation, greenhouse gas emissions, a changing renewable energy landscape, and adaptation that includes minimization of risk as well as new opportunities. In particular, implications of a changing climate include alterations in forest species composition and productivity, forest recreation opportunities, risk of pests and diseases, winter operability, and forest hydrological regimes.
Figure 2. Downscaled projections of future temperate and precipitation based on an ensemble of 17 CMIP5 model predictions available at bit.ly/climate_estimates. Map created Dr. Aaron Weiskittel.
The University of Maine has significant expertise on climate and forest resources, which exists across academics units, centers, and institutes. This web portal is intended to serve as a point of access to these resources and encourage networking among university expertise as well as external stakeholders.
