Paul Andrew Mayewski PhD, FEC, PhDhon
Explorer and Scientist
Climate Change Institute
University of Maine
133 Sawyer Environmental
Research Center
Orono, ME 04469
207-581-3019 Ph
207-581-1203 Fax
paul.mayewski at maine.edu
Exploration Highlights (selected)
• Leader of more than 50 expeditions to remote regions such as: Antarctica, the Arctic, Himalayas, Tibetan Plateau, Tierra del Fuego.
• Leader of the first expedition into Northern Victoria Land, Antarctica and first glaciological expedition to Nun Kun Massif, Ladakh, Indian Himalayas.
• Leader of the first multi-disciplinary oversnow scientific expedition to the South Pole
Research Highlight Examples (>300 pubs)
• Documented changes in atmospheric chemistry produced naturally and by humans.
• Early discovery of recent Antarctic and Himalayan ice loss.
• Discovered behavior of abrupt climate change events in the atmosphere.
• Developed integrated understanding of multiple controls on climate and unique role of human impact.
• Pioneered use of instrumentally calibrated ice core records back hundreds of years and first global reconstruction of past atmospheric conditions.
• Demonstrated associations between climate and disruptions to civilization.
Major Scientific Projects Organized and Led (examples)
GISP2 (Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2, 25 American institutions);
ITASE (International Trans Antarctic Scientific Expedition, 21 nations);
CADIP (Central Asian Deep Ice Coring, 7 nations).
Honors (selected)
First-ever international (from a field of all countries working in Antarctica and all disciplines) Medal for Excellence in Antarctic Research; Mayewski Peak, Antarctica; Honorary Doctorate, Stockholm University; Fellow, Honoree, Lowell Thomas Medal from Explorers Club; Fellow, American Geophysical Union; Fellow, American Society for the Advancement of Science; Academic Member, Joint Key Laboratory of Cryosphere and Environment (Chinese Academy of Sciences); Honorary Research Associate Victoria University Wellington, New Zealand.
Featured Events (selected)
• Keynote speaker >300 academic, state, public and private events in North and South America, South Pacific, Europe, Asia, Arctic, Antarctica such as: The Forbidden City (Beijing, China), Young Presidents Organization, Explorers Club, Telluride Film Festival, Boston Museum of Science, Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, American Museum of Natural History, ST Lee New Zealand.
• More than 350 prominent media venues such as: Boston Globe, LA Times, NY Times, Christian Science Monitor, Harpers, Discover, Popular Science, Archeology Magazine, Good Morning America, WNET Thirteen (Secrets of the Dead – The Lost Vikings), NOVA (eg. Mammoths of the Ice Age, 1995), BBC (eg. The Maya Collapse, 2002), NPR Fresh Air (1993, 2002), Fox News Climate Special (2005), CBS 60 Minutes (“Arctic Warning”, 2006; “The Age of Warming”, 2007), Stonehaven Productions, Montreal (“After the Warming”, 2005, “The Last Glaciers”, near release).
• Popular climate change book: “The Ice Chronicles” (Mayewski and F. White).
Download biography in pdf format.
Mayewski, P.A., Jeschke, P.A., and Pregent, G., 1980, Himalayan and Trans-Himalayan glacier fluctuations and the South Asian monsoon record, Arctic and Alpine Research 12(2): 171-182.
Mayewski, P.A., Lyons, W.B., Smith, G., Ahmad, N. and Pourchet, M., 1984, Interpretation of the chemical and physical time-series retrieved from Sentik Glacier, Ladakh Himalaya, India, Journal of Glaciology 30(104): 66-76.
Mayewski, P.A., Lyons, W.B., Spencer, M.J., Twickler, M.S., Koci, B. Dansgaard, Davidson, C. and Honrath, R., 1986, Sulfate and nitrate concentrations from a South Greenland ice core, Science 232: 975-977.
Mayewski, P.A., Lyons, W.B., Spencer, M.J., Twickler, M.S., Buck, C.F. and Whitlow, S., 1990, An ice core record of atmospheric response to anthropogenic sulphate and nitrate, Nature 346(6284): 554-556.
Mayewski, P.A., Meeker, L.D., Morrison, M.C. Twickler, M.S., Whitlow, S., K.K. Ferland, D. A,. Meese, Legrand, M.R. and Steffenson, J.P., 1993, Greenland ice core "signal" characteristics: An expanded view of climate change, Jour. Geophys. Res. 98 (D7): 12,839-12,847.
Mayewski, P.A., Meeker, L.D., Whitlow, S., Twickler, M.S., Morrison, M.C., Alley, R.B., Bloomfield, P. and Taylor, K., 1993, The atmosphere during the Younger Dryas, Science 261: 195-197.
Mayewski, P.A., Buckland, P.C., Edwards, K.J., Meeker, L.D., O'Brien, S.O. and Buckland, P., 1996, Climate change events as seen in the Greenland ice core (GISP2): Implications for the Mesolithic of Scotland, The Early Prehistory of Scotland, Edinburgh University Press, Scotland, 74-83.
Legrand, M. and Mayewski, P.A., 1997, Glaciochemistry of polar ice cores: A review, Reviews of Geophysics 35, 219-143.
O'Brien, S.R., Mayewski, P.A., Meeker, L.D., Meese, D.A., Twickler, M.S. and Whitlow, S.I., 1996, Complexity of Holocene climate as reconstructed from a Greenland ice core, Science 270, 1962-1964.
Mayewski, P.A., Twickler, M.S., Whitlow, S.I., Meeker, L.D., Yang, Q., Thomas, J., Kreutz, K., Grootes, P., Morse, D., Steig, E. and Waddington, E.D., 1996, Climate change during the last deglaciation in Antarctica, Science 272, 1636-1638.
Mayewski, P.A., Meeker, L.D., Twickler, M.S., Whitlow, S.I., Yang, Q., Lyons,W.B. and Prentice, M., 1997, Major features and forcing of high latitude northern hemisphere atmospheric circulation over the last 110,000 years, Journal of Geophysical Research 102, C12, 26,345-26,366.
Stager, J.C. and Mayewski, P.A., 1997, Abrupt mid-Holocene climatic transitions registered at the equator and the poles, Science 276, 1834-1836.
Mayewski, P.A. and Barron, E., 1999, Paleoclimate Overview, Chapter 6, in Global Environmental Change: Research Pathways for the Next Decade, National Research Council, Committee on Global Change Research, National Research Council, 616 pages.
Meyerson, E.A., Mayewski, P.A., Whitlow, S.I., Meeker, L.D.and Kreutz, K.J. and Twickler, M.S., 2002, The extratropical expression of ENSO recorded in a South Pole glaciochemical time series, Annals of Glaciology 35, 430-436.
Meeker, L.D. and Mayewski, P.A., 2002, A 1400 year long record of atmospheric circulation over the North Atlantic and Asia, The Holocene 12 (3), 257-266.
Mayewski, P.A., K. A. Maasch, J.W.C. White, E. Meyerson, I. Goodwin, V.I. Morgan., T. van Ommen, M.A.J. Curran, J. Souney, and K. Kreutz, 2004, A 700 year record of Southern Hemisphere extra-tropical climate variability, Annals of Glaciology 39, 127-132.
Mayewski, P.A., Rohling, E., Stager, C., Karlén, K., Maasch, K., Meeker, L.D., Meyerson, E., Gasse, F., van Kreveld, S., Holmgren, K., Lee-Thorp, J., Rosqvist, G., Rack, F., Staubwasser, M., and Schneider, R., 2004, Holocene climate variability, Quaternary Research, Quaternary Research 62, 243-255.
Kang, S., Mayewski, P.A., Qin, D., Yan, Y., Hou, S., Zhang, D., Ren, J. and Kreutz, K., 2002, Glaciochemical records from a Mt. Everest ice core: Relationship to atmospheric circulation over Asia, Atmospheric Environment 36, 3351-3361.
Maasch, K., Mayewski, P.A., Rohling, E., Stager, C., Karlén, K., Meeker, L.D., and Meyerson, E., 2005, Climate of the past 2000 years, Geografiska Annaler 87A (1), 7-15.