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© Jacob W. Frank/National Park Service via Getty ImagesYellowstone. Jacob W. Frank/National Park Service via Getty Images
Climate change is taking a destructive toll on America’s treasured preserves of natural beauty.
Climate change is taking a destructive toll on America’s treasured preserves of natural beauty. Here’s everything you need to know:
Why are parks in trouble?
Even small changes in temperature, precipitation, and length of seasons can tip ecosystems out of their delicate balance. At America’s carefully preserved national parks, extreme weather is triggering domino effects of disruption and devastation: thousands of ancient sequoias killed by California’s wildfires; heavy rains leading to colossal landslides at Denali National Park in Alaska; rising sea levels causing the salinization of groundwater in Florida’s Everglades, threatening endangered wildlife. Many of the 423 national parks are in arid, high-elevation regions, and thinner atmospheres and northern latitudes experience warming more rapidly. On average, park temperatures are up 2.2 degrees since 1895 — double the national rate. This crisis is unfolding while visiting America’s “best idea” is more popular than ever, with nearly 300 million visitors last year as dozens of parks shattered attendance records. Last month, Yellowstone gave a glimpse of the future, when a massive flood forced thousands of visitors to evacuate and closed much of the park as surging waters swept away roads, cabins, and bridges, causing roughly $1 billion in damage. “I’ve heard this is a 1,000-year event,” the park’s superintendent, Cam Sholly, said, “whatever that means these days.”
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