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In This Issue...
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Environment
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Report Details Climate Change Impacts at Yosemite and Other National Parks
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Report Details Climate Change Impacts at Yosemite and Other National Parks
By R.T. Sideman
Wolves, elk, plant life and water are doing strange things inside Yellowstone National Park.
Over the course of five years, UC Santa Cruz professor Chris Wilmers has traveled to the park looking for clues to explain what is happening, and how the changes may be disrupting the delicate web of life at the nation's first national park, established in 1872.
The common thread connecting all these changes: climate change.
Like Wilmers, a professor of environmental studies, scientists across the nation are studying the effects of climate change in the parks.
According to a new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council, human disruption of the climate is the greatest threat to 25 of the nation's national parks.
The report, "National Parks in Peril," comes on the heels of the introduction of clean energy and climate legislation in the U.S. Senate, as well as Ken Burns' national parks series on PBS, which has put parks in the conscience of many Americans.
Not Necessarily New
Many of the threats to the national parks 80 years ago, as depicted in the documentary, still challenge the system today, including insufficient federal funding, pollution and the threat of development.
But as national parks now confront the added threat of global climate change, scientists are urgently telling managers to make the parks as resilient as possible before the full brunt of global warming hits.
That means reducing ongoing stresses such as air pollution, water pollution and invasive species.
It also means protecting lands and park boundaries and providing connector corridors so vulnerable species can migrate as species evolve.
The report outlines climate-related threats in 25 parks spanning 22 states. In addition to the loss of plants and wildlife, the top risks include loss of snow and water, rising seas, more extreme weather and more pollution.
"Climate disruption is the greatest threat ever to our national parks. We could lose entire national parks for the first time, as Everglades, Ellis Island, and other parks could be submerged by rising seas," said Stephen Saunders, who co-authored the report with NRDC, as president of the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization.
The report appealed to the Obama administration, Congress, and the National Park Services Department to accept that human disruption of the climate is the greatest threat ever to national parks.
"To preserve our parks, we need to reduce the heat-trapping gases that are threatening them, and begin managing the parks to protect resources at risk," Saunders said.
A Call to Action
The report urges lawmakers to consider and implement 32 actions, including setting aside additional national park land, making a national commitment to becoming carbon neutral at all park sites, drastically lowering greenhouse gas emissions, and accelerating the implementation of clean energy technologies.
Theo Spencer, a climate expert with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said conservation groups are exploring other funding models and that an earlier NRDC report showed $4 flowed into the economy for every $1 spent on parks.
Yosemite Faces Special Challenges
In Yosemite National Park, winters have already warmed up so much that lower-elevation edges of conifer forests are dying out and being replaced by oak and chaparral, according to the report.
Glaciers inside the park are melting at a rapid pace. Mammals already are changing where they live by moving to higher elevations. Trees of all types and ages are dying at faster rates than before. And along with Sequoia/Kings Canyon national parks, conditions already are hotter and drier, apparently driving a 10 percent per year decline in mountain yellow-legged frogs.
In a report released earlier this year by the U.S. Geological Survey, trees are getting smaller in Yosemite, and climate change may be the cause.
The study used data from the first major survey of trees in Yosemite, conducted in the 1930s, and compared it with records taken from 1988 to 1999.
The study took account of fire variations, analyzing areas that had burned during the 20th Century as well as others that had not. They suspected that "water stresses," prompted by thinning snow packs in the Sierra Nevada mountains and longer stretches of warm weather, had hindered the growth of big trees.
"Although this study did not investigate the causes of decline, climate change is a likely contributor to these events and should be taken into consideration," said Jan van Wagtendonk, a scientist emeritus with the survey.
And while Yosemite made the list, the NRDC report says Arches, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Grand Canyon, and Great Basin national parks, Dinosaur National Monument and the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area are just as vulnerable.
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