Mayday: Gulf of Maine in distress, a 6-part series on climate change from Staff Writer Colin Woodard

Warm waters off Maine point to repeat of ‘ocean heat wave’

With the worst of the cooling season over, temperatures in the Gulf of Maine are just slightly below the period of disruption four years ago.

Maine isn’t doing enough to protect Gulf from effects of climate change

Some say the state needs more funding to collect data, monitor waterways and assess the impact of acidification.

Shellfish can’t keep up with shifting ocean chemistry

Some native species simply won’t survive the changes in water chemistry that are on the horizon, researchers say.

Invasive species exploit a warming Gulf of Maine, sometimes with destructive results

Bringing promise and problems, new species throw the evolving coastal waters into an unpredictable state of flux.

Gulf of Maine’s cold-craving marine species forced to retreat to deeper waters

Cod, shrimp, salmon stocks have already been affected, while still-plentiful lobster have exhibited a dramatic geographic shift northward.

As Gulf of Maine warms, puffins recast as canaries in a coal mine

Story by Colin Woodard/ Staff Writer Photos by Gregory Rec/ Staff Photographer EASTERN EGG ROCK T he puffins are having a better year. On a late June day, the adults are landing on the rocky shore of this 7-acre bird sanctuary in flights of three or four, their bright red and yellow beaks stuffed with […]

Canadian government hinders scientists from talking about climate change

ST. ANDREWS, New Brunswick Story by Colin Woodard/ Staff Writer Half of the Gulf of Maine ecosystem lies in Canada, where much of the water feeding the gulf and affecting its temperature comes from. Getting information about scientific research relevant to the future of the ecosystem isn’t easy, however, because of the outgoing Canadian government’s […]

Big changes are occurring in one of the fastest-warming spots on Earth

YARMOUTH BAR, Nova Scotia S andwiched on a narrow sandbar between Yarmouth’s harbor and the open Gulf of Maine, the fishermen of Yarmouth Bar have long struggled to keep the sea at bay. Nineteenth-century storms threatened to sweep the whole place away, leaving Yarmouth proper’s harbor more open to the elements, prompting the province to […]