The report, released by the Casco Bay Estuary Partnership, claims that the annual temperature in the region has risen by two degrees Fahrenheit over the past century.

Maine's Casco Bay watershed region has grown warmer and wetter over the past century, according to a new report released today by the Casco Bay Estuary Partnership.

The report, titled "Climate Change in the Casco Bay Watershed: Past, Present, and Future," concludes that the region's average annual temperature has increased by two degrees Fahrenheit in the past 100 years. That's resulted in earlier ice-outs on Sebago Lake, and 20 percent more rainfall each year in Portland.

The report also claims a host of other effects, including an increase in extreme weather events, a decrease in snow cover days, earlier spring run-off, longer growing seasons and rising sea levels.

The trends are expected to continue, the reports authors say. Temperatures are projected to increase by as much as three to eight degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century, with summer temperatures rising as much as 10 degrees. Under that scenario, floods and droughts would be more likely, according to the report.

"All of Back Cove, and most of Commercial Street, is built on fill," says Partnership Director Curtis Bohlen, referring to sections of Portland. "Elevations are low; the land is flat. Those areas are likely to become much more vulnerable to coastal flooding as sea levels rise."

The Casco Bay watershed region stretches along the Maine coast from Cape Elizabeth to Phippsburg, and inland to Bethel.