Left image Grinnell Glacier lost acres between and Right image The Howe Ridge fire burned thousands of acres in a few hours on August 12, Glacier National Park is warming at nearly two times the global average and the impacts are already being felt by park visitors. Fire and ice show some of the biggest changes. The most notorious impact of climate change in the park is shrinking glaciers.
For thousands of years, the glaciers naturally cycled through periods of advance and retreat. While the decrease of glaciers since the end of the Little Ice Age is due to both natural and human-caused climate change, the retreat seen in recent decades can be increasingly attributed to anthropogenic causes.
In this way, we have an opportunity to witness and study the power of climate change, both natural and not. Imagine visiting the park to find your favorite view obscured by smoke or whole areas closed for public safety. Imagine struggling to breathe or having to evacuate your campsite in the middle of the night. In recent years, many visitors to Glacier have experienced all of these things. Scientists estimate that climate change has doubled the amount of acres burned in western US wildfires since the s.
This trend, including an increase in size, frequency, and severity of wildfires, is expected to continue. Glacier may not have a reputation as a hot place, but increasingly hot days have created a health hazard for unprepared hikers. In West Glacier experienced 11 days that hot.
Such hot days can pose dangers for hikers on shadeless trails with limited access to water, like the Loop Trail and the Highline Trail. Climate change is expected to increase the range of ticks and mosquitoes in the US, thereby increasing the number of people exposed to the diseases that they transmit.
