LEFT: Smoke billowing above Mesa Verde during the 2000 Bircher Fire. CENTER: Musk thistle and cheat grass taking over a burned area. RIGHT: Native elk and non-native horses compete for water near a spring during a particularly dry summer.
Drought and Fire
Video Player is loading.
Current Time 0:00
/
Duration -:-
Loaded: 0%
0:00
Stream Type LIVE
Remaining Time --:-
Â
1x
Chapters
descriptions off, selected
captions settings, opens captions settings dialog
captions off, selected
English Captions
720p, selected
480p
360p
1080p
This is a modal window.
The media could not be loaded, either because the server or network failed or because the format is not supported.
Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window.
The Pueblo people experienced drought here at Mesa Verde, just like we do now. But as our region's climate has grown hotter and dryer over the last century, Mesa Verde is now subject to larger and more frequent wildfires.
Climate Change at Mesa Verde
Evidence of climate change is obvious at Mesa Verde National Park due to warming temperatures. The temperature changes are driving larger, more intense wildfires that degrade the values of the old-growth pinyon-juniper woodlands and prevent recovery. More than half of the park (jpg, 1 mb) has experienced wildfires in the past several decades and we expect that ecological recovery may take centuries. Although fire is a natural process, more acreage is being burned than can recover thus shifting the dominant vegetation from old-growth pinyon-juniper woodland to a grassland.
In addition, invasive species such as cheatgrass are invading these recently burned areas are well suited to the shifts in temperatures thus being able to better complete with native species. Warming temperatures increase evapotranspiration and drought severity. Droughts are characteristic of this region, but the droughts occurring in the past couple of decades are more severe resulting in decreasing water availability for rivers, springs, wildlife, forests and native plants. In an arid climate, water resources are extremely valuable.
The park is working to understand the effects of warming temperatures on and how to enhance resiliency of natural resources so that these values will remain for future generations.
Air Quality Conditions & Trends https://www.nps.gov/subjects/air/park-conditions-trends.htm (Not all of the air quality measures shown are greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. The main one is nitrogen deposition. You can use this link to go directly to this measure for Mesa Verde National Park.)
Be Informed! Climate Change Research in our Region
Sites:Aztec Ruins National Monument, Bandelier National Monument, Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Chaco Culture National Historical Park, El Malpais National Monument, El Morro National Monument, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Grand Canyon National Park, Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site, Mesa Verde National Park, Navajo National Monument, Petrified Forest National Park, Petroglyph National Monument, Rainbow Bridge National Monument, Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument, Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, Walnut Canyon National Monument, Wupatki National Monument, Yucca House National Monumentmore »
The combination of high. elevation and a semi-arid climate makes the
Colorado Plateau particularly vulnerable to climate change. Climate models predict that over the next 100 years, the Southwest will become warmer and even more arid, with more extreme droughts than the region has experienced in the recent past.
In the Southwest, climate change may impact a variety of resources, including water availability in the form of snowpack and spring streamflow, the distribution and composition of plant communities, and fire regimes.
While climate in the Southwest has fluctuated over time, sometimes substantially, it is now subject to an exceptionally rapid rate of increase in global temperatures compared with historical conditions.
The climate inventory documented past and present climate monitoring efforts, focusing largely on identifying weather and climate stations in and near Southern Colorado Plateau Network parks.
The effects of climate change, including warming temperatures and increasing droughts, are already evident in pinyon-juniper woodlands across the American Southwest.
Expansions and contractions of pinyon-juniper habitat can be driven by factors, or combinations of factors, such as climate, insects, disease and fire frequency. Climate and fire also influence pinyon pine and juniper succession, since certain conditions are better than others for seed germination and seedling establishment.
Phenology refers to the timing of annual biological events, such as migration, nesting, and the greening up and flowering of plants. Phenology is affected by environmental factors, especially climate. Changes in the timing of natural events can have profound effects on organisms and ecological processes, making phenology an indicator of ecosystem responses to climate change.
Sites:Aztec Ruins National Monument, Bandelier National Monument, Chaco Culture National Historical Park, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Grand Canyon National Park, Mesa Verde National Park, Petrified Forest National Park, Petroglyph National Monument, Wupatki National Monumentmore »
In this project, USGS and NPS scientists used the range of variation in historical climate data to provide context for assessing the relative impact of projected future climate on soil water availability. This report provides the results of modeled SWP generated for 11 ecosystems in nine Southern Colorado Plateau Network parks.
Sites:Bandelier National Monument, Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Grand Canyon National Park, Mesa Verde National Park, Petrified Forest National Park, Wupatki National Monument
Bird communities can tell us a lot about changing environmental conditions. High on the food chain, and sensitive to climate and habitat changes, birds are monitored on the Southern Colorado Plateau as indicators of riparian and upland ecosystem health.
Climate change affects national parks and the treasures they protect. Scenic wonders, cultural heritage, plants and animals, and even your national park experience will be altered due to climate change. What will this transformation look like?
