Dear Editor: 

An answer to Joe Grant, who thinks that temperature is not rising in Maine. 

Not sure where he gets his research? According to the EPA.Govwebsite, Maine has warmed 3 degrees since 1900. Spring is arriving earlier with more rain, sea level is rising and causing more flooding and the ocean is becoming more acidic, due to the absorption of carbon dioxide, which affects sea creatures with shells. The website states that carbon in the atmospherehas increased 70% since the 1700s, which increases the warmthretained by the atmosphere and oceans. A warming atmosphere contains more moisture. 

The World Meteorological Organization’s State of theGlobal Climate Report 2024, published in March 2025, confirmed that the years 2015 – 2024 are the warmest years since records have been taken historically, a period of 175 years. 

According to climate.gov, “In addition to our surface station data, we have many different lines of evidence that Earth is warming (learn more). Birds are migrating earlier, and their migration patterns are changing. Lobsters and other marine species are moving north. Plants are blooming earlier in the spring. Mountain glaciers are melting worldwide, and snow cover is declining in the Northern Hemisphere (Learn more here and here). Greenland’s ice sheet—which holds about 8% of Earth’s fresh water—is melting at an accelerating rate (learn more). Mean global sea level is rising (learn more). Arctic sea ice is declining rapidly in both thickness and extent (learn more).” 

Where are your sources, Joe, when you state that other continents were warmer 100 years ago? You can get rid of all of the data from our NASAsatellites, and all of the data from our ocean Argo floats – but it won’t protect our children and grandchildren from a different Maine than the one we love – a temperate, cool, foggy paradise….changing before our eyes to a warming, drought proneplace where we have to be afraid of wildfires and wildfire smoke. Where sea level rise obliterates Ocean Point roads and the ticks multiply during our warming winters. 

Marcia Annenberg 

Boothbay Harbor 

,