UMaine part of Alaska summer and wildlife reconstruction project

BANGOR, Maine (WABI) - The University of Maine will be part of a project to reconstruct 15-hundred years of summer climate and wildfire history in Alaska, western Canada and Siberia.

They are using an ice core from Denali National Park.

Dominik Winski is a research assistant Professor at UMaine and will head up a team of researchers that will be studying the core, which is 700 feet long.

Winski says learning how climate and wildfires were connected in the past is significant,

as Wildfires in the Arctic are projected to increase with continued summer warming.

“Understanding this relationship I think will allow us to allocate our resources in an intelligent way that could ultimately save money and lives in the future,” says Winski.

UMaine is the lead institution in the collaborative study, with the University of New Hampshire, Dartmouth and the University of California, Irvine.

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