Mount Rainier in Washington state is being affected by climate change. Officials say unpredictable weather patterns are responsible for flooding at the park. / AP
At Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state, one of the oldest national parks in the U.S., operations for more than a century were built upon a predictable weather pattern.
Heavy snows would begin to fall in autumn. The snow would grow thicker through winter until it packed 25 feet deep.
In the spring, rain would replace the snow, and the snow pack would act like a giant sponge, soaking up all the water until the warm summer months would melt them all and fuel the rivers below.
But by the time current National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis was appointed superintendent of Mount Rainier National Park in 1999, things had started to change.
The rain wouldn’t wait its turn, falling early in autumn when the snow pack was only a few feet thick. The snow couldn’t handle or hold the sudden soaking. Floods became a problem.
Then, in November 2006, devastation struck. A slow-moving weather system called the “Pineapple Express” hovered over the state. In less than 36 hours, 18 inches of rain fell on the mountain.
The resulting flood was devastating. It washed out roads, knocked out power, took out campgrounds. One campsite called Sunshine Point had been there for a century, but the flood scoured it down to the bedrock. The park closed to the public for seven months.
The National Park Service already was well aware that things were changing worldwide, not just in their parks. Glaciers were receding. Wildfires were burning longer and hotter. Vegetation was growing at altitudes unheard of before. And, yes, temperatures were getting warmer.
But the 2006 flood — at least for Jarvis — brought into frightening clarity that something dramatic, devastating and immediate was happening. The effects of climate change were not some far-off problem that could be think-tanked for decades, he said.
They were happening here and now.
“There had been this long tradition of people coming out to go to the ice caves,” Jarvis recalled. “The ice caves are gone. Every one of the glaciers on Ranier is significantly receding. So, it began to dawn on me. Something is going on here.”
Jarvis has made it clear as head of the federal agency there is no higher priority than climate change on his agenda.
Everything is different, he told his staff at a meeting on his first day. From now on, the single most important issue facing the National Park Service is, and will forever be in your lifetimes, climate change.
Jarvis commissioned some of the nation’s top scientists to evaluate whether the National Park Service’s policies were still relevant.
The group issued a report called, “Revisiting Leopold,” a nod to 20th century environmental activist Aldo Leopold, who shaped much of our modern ideas about managing wildlife and nature.
The group acknowledged that we’re in “a time of unrelenting change,” but cautioned against any wholesale dismantling of the National Park Service’s policies that call for restraint in managing nature.
Instead, it said the agency must make decisions based on “best available sound science, accurate fidelity to the law and long-term public interest.”
Jarvis said the group’s recommendations will be the foundation of a new set of policies for park stewardship in the National Park Service’s second century.
“Climate change is not an easy concept for people to grasp,” Jarvis said. “This is an opportunity for us to talk about the changes we’re seeing. National parks are like those cousins you see every three years and you say, ‘Oh, wow. You’ve grown so much.’ Many of our visitors are repeats. When they come back, there is a marked change in the park as a result of climate change.”