MAINE PUBLIC • February 22, 2022
University of Maine Farmington professor Rachel Hovel says it’s important to find out if high elevation lakes in Franklin County hold potential as “climate refugia” – areas where the effects of rising temperatures are largely buffered because of unique local conditions. They could be places that remains habitable to organisms in the future, in part because of a thick, insulated snowpack layer over the ice. “You might have some species that start to feel the effects of warming temperatures at lower elevation sites. But those species might continue to persist at these higher elevation sites, if they can continue to be cooler,” Hovel says.