Helena, Mon. — Behind hills and rock walls, the road at the northern entrance of Yellowstone National Park usually follows rivers, making outside visitors very different, full of wildlife and other geothermal features of the world. I will carry it.
However, large chunks of pavement now went to this important tourist corridor, swollen the Gardner River, and washed away by the violent June storms that ran mud and rocks on the hillside. Some roads were annihilated or half lanes left, with jagged edges where the river appeared to bite a lot of asphalt.
Yellowstone is 150 years old and is the country’s oldest national park, at a crossroads in the age of climate change. It was rebuilt after being damaged by the flood, and the two north entrances were closed for several months. But the question is how will it change, especially given the potential for flash floods, droughts, wildfires and heat to dramatically change the way parks operate.
Betsy Buffington, Vice President of the Northern Rocky Region of the National Parks Conservation Society, said: “What does reconstruction in this broader context mean?”
In the days following the storm, Yellowstone director Kam Sholy suggested that old disaster measuring rods are becoming obsolete as climate change takes hold. He described the recent storm as “a millennial event, whatever the recent meaning.”
“They seem to be happening more and more often,” he added.
The biggest looming factor is the rapidly changing climate, experts say it contributed to record floods. As a result of atmospheric rivers and warm temperatures, precipitation and snowmelt together represent 4-9 inches of rain. According to NASA.. Just north of the park, the Yellowstone River culminated at 13.88 feet, breaking the previous record of 11.5 feet set in 1918.
As Mr. Sholy suggests, if “thousand years of events” occur much more often, National Park Service officials will ask if it makes sense to rebuild roads and buildings in the same washed-out area. You have to think seriously. In some places, he said, part of the road slipped 80 feet into the river.
Floods are expected to increase as more snow and rain events occur. “Many of the roads are historic stage coach roads,” said Bozeman, a paleoclimatologist at Montana State University. Climate change research Of the park. “Parks need to think about extreme events like never before and strengthen their buildings, roads and infrastructure.”
National parks across the country face similar challenges. They are especially vulnerable. This is because many have higher altitudes, the thinner the atmosphere, the higher the temperature, and when the snow disappears, more heat is absorbed from the surface of the earth. According to a 2018 survey..
For now, Yellowstone officials are working to make visitors look like the rest of the summer vacation. The southern part of the park was reopened and the northern part was scheduled to open on Saturday in time for the holiday weekend, but visitors will not be able to access the park from the northern part.
The Federal Highway Authority has announced $ 60 million in quick-release funding to enable temporary repairs to the park, but long-term reconstruction costs will be much higher. The Associated Press recently Price tags can exceed $ 1 billion, The National Park Service hasn’t calculated the stadium yet. “At this point, we’re not going to show high-level numbers,” Shory said in an interview. “It will be expensive.”
There was no decision on where to route the new road between the north exit gateway community of Gardiner and the Mammoth Park Headquarters. Mr. Shory said it may not be possible to reconstruct the same river route, as climate change is more likely to cause another catastrophic flood.
He said the section of the washed-out road was “probably less than two miles, but in the worst area for it to happen.” Aerial footage shows that in some places floods have taken out entire roads and reclaimed river canals.
“I would rather see the river corridor recover,” he said.
The northeastern entrance to the park remains closed even after some of its main routes collapsed in a storm, blocking nearby tourist destinations Silver Gate and Cook City.
Neither entrance is scheduled to reopen until autumn.
The problem this time was a flood of water, but scientists are also worried about the opposite. Snow lines have risen in the area, and dry grass, brushes, and tree branches have fueled large wildfires.
Last year, wildfire fuel was so dry that the park stopped its policy of allowing natural fires to burn. Parks are thinning fuel by mechanical means around hotels, stores and other buildings to provide protection space in the event of a wildfire.
“I’ve seen a fire burning in a place I’ve never seen before,” Sholly said. “Last year we had some of the warmest and lowest water levels we’ve seen in rivers and streams.”
Park areas that warmed to 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit between 1950 and 2018 are probably as warm as or warmer than 20,000 years ago, according to paleoclimate records quoted in Whitlock’s study. It is predicted that the main snow area in 1950 will be about 7,000 feet and could reach 9,500 feet by 2100.
From 2060 to 2080, the park is projected to be 5 to 6 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the temperature around 2000, according to Whitlock’s research. Without mitigation, temperatures could rise by as much as 10 degrees by the end of this century.
When the temperature is high and dry, the park’s famous geothermal characteristics change and water can be scarce. A Recent research During the 13th century drought, Old Faithful Geyser discovered that it had stopped erupting for decades. The characteristics of geothermal energy depend on the balance between water and heat.
Researchers survey wildlife migration corridors outside the park to see that an assortment of famous Yellowstone species, from grizzly bears to antelopes, has a way out of the park as it gets hotter. doing. “If we want to protect Yellowstone’s iconic wildlife, we need to protect areas where wildlife needs to move, move and maintain genetic diversity,” said the Vice President of the Conservation Society. Buffington said.
Cultural properties are also at risk. So far, the only park building that has been damaged seems to have been a washed-out backcountry ranger cabin in the 1930s, Sholly said. A list of archaeological sites has been created to see if they were damaged by the torrential rain.
When park staff rebuild, they consider all of the potential impacts of climate change.
“You may not have thought about it ten, twenty, or thirty years ago, but what are you thinking about ten, twenty, or thirty years from now?” Shory said.