Science Source
Patrick Gonzalez, Fuyao Wang, Michael Notaro, Daniel J Vimont, John W Williams
Environmental Research Letters
Published date September 24, 2018

Disproportionate magnitude of climate change in United States national parks

  • Here, in the first spatial analysis of historical and projected temperature and precipitation across all 417 US national parks, we show that climate change exposes the national park area more than the US as a whole
  • This occurs because extensive parts of the national park area are in the Arctic, at high elevations, or in the arid southwestern US
  • Finds that:
    • Between 1895 and 2010, mean annual temperature of the national park area increased twice as much as the mean annual temperature of the overall US
    • Temperature has increased most in Alaska and its extensive national parks
    • Annual precipitation of the national park area declined significantly on 12% of national park area, compared to 3% of the US

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