As the climate warms, devastating fires are increasingly likely. The 2020 fires pushed the Southern Rockies beyond the historical average. Is there hope for the Northern Rockies?
Heat and dryness are leaving high mountain areas more vulnerable to forest fires.
David McNew/Getty Images
As rivers run dry in the Rocky Mountains and the West, it’s easy to wonder where all the snow you see on mountain peaks goes. Some of it ends up in the air, but researchers aren’t sure how much.
Snow melts near the Continental Divide in the Bridger Wilderness Area in Wyoming, part of the Greater Yellowstone Area.
Bryan Shuman/University of Wyoming
The area’s iconic national parks are home to grizzlies, elk and mountain snowfall that feeds some of the country’s most important rivers. A new report show the changes underway as temperatures rise.
Colorado’s East Troublesome Fire jumped the Continental Divide on Oct. 22, 2020, and eventually became Colorado’s second-largest fire on record.
Lauren Dauphin/NASA Earth Observatory
Scientists studied charcoal layers in the sediment of lake beds across the Rockies to track fires over time. They found increasing fire activity as the climate warmed.
Heat and dryness are leaving high mountain areas more vulnerable to forest fires.
David McNew/Getty Images
Mice pups living on mountain tops reserve their energy for growth rather than warmth. When they get too cold, they conserve energy by slowing down their metabolic processes.
A valuable resource: Snowpack on Oregon’s Mt. Hood.
USDA NRCS/Spencer Miller
New research forecasts that climate change will make multiyear stretches with low snow levels more common across western North America – bad news for water managers, farmers, foresters and skiers.
A grizzly bear eats ripe buffaloberry fruit in the Bow Valley of Alberta. Shifts in the timing of buffaloberry development in the Rocky Mountains will change the behaviour of grizzly bears, and could threaten reproductive rates in this vulnerable population.
Alex P. Taylor