WASHINGTON _ America's national parks are warming up and drying out faster than other U.S. landscapes, threatening iconic ecosystems from the Everglades in Florida to Joshua Tree in California to Denali in Alaska.
That's the conclusion of a new climate change study published Monday, the first to examine rainfall and temperatures in all 417 national parks sites. The study also forecasts the degree that parks could become hotter and more drought-stricken by century's end, depending on whether nations undertake efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, or continue with business as usual.
"U.S. national parks protect some of the most irreplaceable ecosystems in the world," said the study, published in Environmental Research Letters, a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Reductions in industrial emissions could "substantially reduce the magnitude" of expected impacts, the study added, "offering hope for the future of the U.S. national parks."
