Experts Available to Discuss Significance of South Pole Anniversary

Contact: Betty Lee, (207) 581-3406 or blicqs@maine.edu; Jessica Bloch, (207) 581-3777 or jessica.bloch@umit.maine.edu

Several University of Maine Climate Change Institute faculty members and graduate students are available for interviews about the upcoming 100th anniversary of the taking of the South Pole, an event UMaine will commemorate Nov. 21-22 at the Collins Center for the Arts and Hudson Museum.

The highlight of the two-day commemoration will be a keynote lecture delivered by polar explorer Olav Orheim of Norway, who will speak at 7 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 21 at the Collins Center. Orheim, the former director of the Norwegian Polar Institute, will discuss new knowledge on the taking of the South Pole on the occasion of the 100th anniversary, and reflections on the personalities of legendary explorers Roald Amundsen, Ernest Shackleton and Robert Falcon Scott, who were three of the best known polar explorers involved in the race to the South Pole. Amundsen was the first to reach the South Pole.

There will also be at the Collins Center an exhibition of typical equipment used on polar expeditions, including a giant tent used in high mountain regions, some tools used in lake sediment drilling and computers that show climate modeling. The Hudson Museum will display its Arctic holdings and host other activities, including some for young children.

UMaine and its Climate Change Institute have strong ties to explorations in both the South and North poles, and have provided key research findings to the area of polar studies. The following faculty and student researchers are available for interviews:

Paul Mayewski, the director of UMaine’s Climate Change Institute, is available to speak about the long history of polar exploration at UMaine, and how the research has contributed to a global understanding of the poles and climate change.

Mayewski, who is a glaciologist, has spent more than 40 years working in Antarctica, the Arctic, Himalayas, Tibetan Plateau and Andes, and received in 2006 the Inaugural Medal for Excellence in Antarctic Research from the Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research (SCAR). He wrote the first modern synthesis of the state of Antarctic climate and is the only person ever to lead oversnow traverses of the South Pole from two different directions. Mayewski has made more than 100 first ascents of mountains in Antarctica and spent more than three years in total living in a tent there during his field research.

Harold Borns is the founding director of the Climate Change Institute, which he started in 1957. He was the program officer for polar programs at the National Science Foundation. Now retired, Borns is one of several Climate Change Institute researchers who have a lineage of exploration that dates back to Admiral Richard E. Byrd’s Antarctic expeditions in the mid-20th century.

Gordon Hamilton, also a glaciologist, has a long history of work in both the Arctic and Antarctica. He focuses on remote sensing, including major discoveries about the connection between rising sea levels and melting glaciers, and worked at one time under Orheim at the Norwegian Polar Institute.

George Denton, a glacial geologist, has among the UMaine-affiliated researchers the longest history of Antarctic trips other than Borns. His field of interest is changes in the extent of glaciers throughout Antarctica.

Andrei Kurbatov, assistant research professor, has also made several trips to Antarctica to find the oldest ice on the planet and has also taken students to Antarctica.

Daniel Dixon earned his master’s degree and Ph.D. at UMaine. He is a post-doctoral research fellow in the Climate Change Institute who spent five seasons in Antarctica for his Ph.D. Mayewski believes Dixon has sampled and analyzed more ice cores from Antarctica than anyone in the world.

Nicole Spaulding, who is working towards her Ph.D. on ancient ice with Kurbatov, has participated in four Antarctic expeditions, including the traverse to the South Pole with Mayewski.

Elena Korotkikh, who is also a graduate student working on her Ph.D., has also traversed the South Pole with Mayewski. She has produced what may be the most highly resolved record of climate changes of the last 300 years from South Pole records, according to Mayewski.

Mariusz Potocki, also a Ph.D. student, spent nearly two years living in an Antarctic polar station and is researching with Mayewski pollution produced by nations in the Southern Hemisphere and the effect on the Antarctic climate.

To make arrangements to interview any of the above researchers or students, please contact Betty Lee at (207) 581-3406 or blicqs@maine.edu.

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