Date of Award:

8-2026

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Mathematics and Statistics

Committee Chair(s)

Brennan Bean

Committee

Brennan Bean

Committee

Wei Zhang

Committee

Jürgen Symanzik

Abstract

Successful maple sap tapping depends on the freeze/thaw cycle (i.e., temperatures fluctuating above/below freezing) during the winter and spring. Climate change threatens to alter the timing and duration of the tapping season. This necessitates research into how maple sap tapping will be impacted by climate change in order to help maple syrup producers prepare for the future. We define a sap day as a day where the freeze/thaw cycle occurred. Using information climate scientists use to predict future temperatures, we calculate how many sap days could occur each year. We develop software to analyze these sap day calculations to determine if there will be more or less yearly sap days in the future. Our results show that there will be less sap days in the U.S. across several different future climate scenarios. This result provides maple syrup producers information about how to plan future tree tapping efforts, as well as calibrate expectations for future maple syrup yields.

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Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 License
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