Mountains tell the story of global warming

Climate Change: A Photographic Investigation

By Daniel Fagre

Across the globe, mountains have had more than their share of the climate changes that have been so evident in the last several decades. Major glaciers have entirely disappeared from the Andes, the Himalayas have lost a third of their snow, and 99 percent of the glaciers in Alaska are retreating. Particularly at upper elevations, average annual temperatures in mountains have increased between two and three times the global average. At the same time that there has been recognition that mountains are sensitive to climate change, the dependence of humans on mountain resources, especially water, has become ever clearer. Mountains provide 50 percent of the water humans use globally and 85 percent of the water that the relatively arid western United States depends on. Thus, how mountain ecosystems continue to respond to climate change will have direct impacts on human populations.

In 1990, the U.S. Congress passed the Global Change Research Act, directing federal agencies to examine how climate change potentially could affect natural resources of the nation. The National Park System was chosen to be a key player in the U.S. Global Change Research Program because national parks tend to be relatively pristine, making it easier to detect early or subtle changes attributable to climate change. The underlying dynamics of ecosystems also can be investigated more effectively with the nearly intact ecosystems found in many national parks. Against this backdrop, the U.S. Geological Survey has been monitoring and investigating the changes in mountain ecosystems related to ongoing climate change since 1991. In the Crown of the Continent, these efforts have primarily focused on Glacier National Park and have involved numerous collaborators from other federal agencies and universities.

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