Strategies to Address Climate Change

Successfully responding to climate change requires that considerations be institutionalized across every facet of daily operations. The National Park Service's Climate Change Response Strategy provides an integrated blueprint for continued action, upon which additional guidance has been crafted for specific agency operations. Many of these strategies have been adopted for Alaska’s parks, including how we consider climate change impacts in our planning and management decisions about parks.

Considering multiple future scenarios is important to inform how parks adapt to projected change across the breadth of NPS resources and stewardship responsibilities. Thus, the NPS published Planning for a Changing Climate as a comprehensive resource to guide climate-smart adaptation planning. The guidance helps planners and managers develop forward-looking goals and evaluate strategies and actions considering multiple plausible futures associated with a changing climate.

Climate Change Scenario Planning in Alaska Parks

With over 50 million acres of parklands to administer, Alaska park managers must better understand possible climate change trends in order to better manage arctic, subarctic, and coastal ecosystems, as well as human uses of these areas. Scenario planning is an innovative approach to science-based decision making in the face of an uncertain future. Climate change scenarios are defined as plausible, yet divergent futures based on the best available current knowledge of driving climate variables. These scenarios will help prepare NPS Alaska park managers for impending changes to make informed decisions for future outcomes: 

• Climate Change Adaptation Practices and Possibilities Considered by the National Park Service Alaska Leadership Council (2019)
• Climate Change Scenario Planning for Central Alaska Parks 
• Climate Change Scenario Planning for Interior Arctic Alaska Parks 
• Climate Change Scenario Planning for Northwest Alaska Parks 
• Climate Change Scenario Planning for Southeast Alaska Parks 
• Climate Change Scenario Planning for Southwest Alaska Parks 

Planning for Future Climates at Wrangell-St. Elias: Mainstreaming Park-based Actions, Alaska Park Science, 2023

• Climate-Resource Scenarios to Inform Climate Change Adaptation in Wragell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve: Summary of 2021 Climate Change Scenario Planning
• Resource Stewardship Objectives and Actions for Climate Change-Sensitive Cultural and Natural Resources in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve: Outputs from January-February 2022 Climate Change Adaptation Strategy Development

Overcoming "Analysis Paralysis" through Better Climate Change Scenario Planning, Park Science, Summer 2022
Innovation in Climate Adaptation: Harnessing Innovation for Effective Biodiversity and Ecosystem Adaptation

Climate Change Planning Tools

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  Climate Change Response Strategy

  This strategy is the foundation for the NPS to address climate change through science, adaptation, mitigation, and communication.

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  Planning for a Changing Climate

  Scenarios help park managers develop goals and evaluate strategies and actions for the climate of the future.

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  Resist-Accept-Direct Framework

  The RAD Framework captures the decision space for responding to the potential for rapid, irreversible ecological change.

More Helpful Resources

Department of the Interior Climate Action Plan
National Park Service Natural Resource Stewardship and Science Framework: Four pillars to guide natural resource activities and investments
How Monitoring Informs Park Conservation in a Changing Climate

Making Science-based Park Decisions