Under climate change, North Cascades could see much hotter temperatures

By Emma Fletcher-Frazer / Skagit Valley Herald

The North Cascades could see much hotter temperatures by 2050, according to a new study by the National Park Service.

The National Park Service’s Climate Change Response Program, created in 2010, released reports for each national park this month that explore climate change’s impacts on the parks.

North Cascades National Park’s report details possible futures under different climate change scenarios.

Produced by fossil fuel use, climate change alters temperatures, the way in which precipitation falls, and the severity of storms, floods, drought and wildfires, in different ways throughout the national parks.

The North Cascades National Park is already warming at a swift rate — an increase of 3.7 degrees per century since 1970.

In that time period, nights have grown warmer and the difference between day and night temperatures has lessened.

The overall temperature increase is likely to continue, according to the newly released report.

All temperature projections for 2050 are now above the average from 1979 to 2012, though there’s still a range between futures.

The study’s average temperature projections range from an additional 1.6 degrees to another 6.9 degrees by 2050.

“Average temperatures under both climate futures would generally exceed anything experienced at (North Cascades National Park) in recent history,” the report reads.

Rising average temperatures impact the park in multiple ways, including stressing plants and animals, worsening drought and increasing wildfire risk.

The changes to precipitation are less apparent than those to temperature.

Under the report’s projections, annual precipitation could drop by 2.7 inches (a decrease of 2.2%) or rise by 17 inches (an increase of 13.6%), or somewhere in between.

However, even in the models with increased precipitation, the researchers still found increased extremes in precipitation. This means there would still be individual years that are much drier than the historical record. So although overall precipitation would increase under these models, it’s likely there would be climate change-caused drought.

Under the projected futures, the park would see an additional 9.5 to 17.9 days per year with a temperature surpassing the 99th percentile of the park’s historic temperature.

Between models, there’s disagreements between how climate change would affect drought’s frequency in the park, but both agree the drought that does occur will be more severe than historical record.