Yellowstone a petri dish for climate change

Julie Cart in the Los Angeles Times: …In some cases, [climatic] changes are imperiling the very features that define some of the nation's most-beloved parks. …Yellowstone's 2.2-million carefully managed acres are among the few places left in North America to retain a virtually intact ecosystem, in a landscape where the hand of man remains light. The park's strict federal protections have maintained a refugium -- a kind of Noah's Ark of plants and animals whose lives are largely unmolested by localized industrial pollution.

"We are fortunate here to have a natural laboratory that is mostly in its original state," said Kerry Murphy, a Yellowstone wildlife biologist. "It's one of the few places in the United States where natural processes are allowed to operate."

That approach has support in Washington from newly installed park service Director Jon Jarvis. "Climate change is going to be the most significant challenge to the fundamental premise and foundational management of our national parks that we have ever faced," he said.

As more and more climate research originates in the park, subtle changes are coming into focus. Yellowstone officials are quick to say that not all of the unexplained transformations here have a direct link with climate change. Scores of effects have yet to be extensively studied, they say. But park managers point to a host of worrisome changes.

…Yellowstone's complex water network also shows signs it has been thrown out of kilter, initiating a host of concerns about rippling effects as the course of the park's lifeblood is altered. Many of the park's dwindling creeks and rivers are no longer draining into Yellowstone Lake, cutting off native fish from their spawning grounds.

…Not long ago it was impolitic for scientists in the National Park Service to consider climate change in their analysis of park problems. "We were advised not to use 'climate' and 'change' in the same sentence," said Tom Olliff, chief of the Yellowstone Center for Resources. But the Obama administration has made climate-change science a priority, Olliff said, so now the issue is at the forefront of staff discussions about resource protection….

Yellowstone Lake seen from space