National Parks at Greatest Risk from Global Warming



Vanishing Joshua trees: climate change will ravage US national parks, study says






America’s national parks have warmed twice as fast as the US average and could see some of the worst effects of climate change, according to a new study.
The study finds that temperatures in national parks could go up 3 to 9C by 2100, under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s worst-case scenario, which shows what could happen without policies to decrease greenhouse gas pollution. With lower emissions, temperatures could still exceed 2C (3.6F) for 58% of park land, compared to 22% of the US as a whole, according to the study.
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Alaska parks would see the most extreme heat increases, and the US Virgin Islands parks face 28% less rainfall by the end of the century. In Glacier Bay national park, the Muir Glacier melted 640 meters between 1948 and 2000.
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Gonzalez explained that parks at a higher elevation have a thinner atmosphere that warms faster. Higher temperatures are also melting snow cover and making the ground darker so that it absorbs more heat. Parks in California and the south-west US have seen both high temperatures and record-low rainfall, he said.
Under the Trump Administration our National Parks are at great risk.
Jarvis said he worries that under Trump parks won’t be able to plan long-term for climate change.

“The park service manages these assets, these places, for the benefit of the American people, and they should be based on the best available sound science in the long-term public interest, not for some short-term political agenda,” Jarvis said.

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