Toolkit home > Understand > Regional Science
The National Park Service Inventory and Monitoring Program (I&M) hosts a repository of scientific documents related to nearly all national parks. If you're looking for resources related to a specific park, use the I&M search feature to search for your park and the words climate change to narrow down the results.
All Regions
What Climate Change Means for Your State fact sheets
The EPA published a set of fact sheets for each state, focusing on the major climate impacts specific to the region. This is especially useful to those wanting to connect their park's climate story to residents and visitors from the surrounding community.
Alaska
This site is run by the University of Alaska Fairbanks and contains a tremendous amount of climate and weather data for the state of Alaska. This resource will be helpful for those looking at impacts specifically in Alaska.
State of Change Visitor Guide [PDF]
This visitor guide is available at all of Alaska's national park sites. It's an overview of climate impacts around the state from differing perspectives of several individuals.
Great Lakes
Wisconsin
Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts
Great overview of impacts to Wisconsin; in particular, the Impacts and Adaptation publication is helpful.
Rocky Mountains
Glacier, Yellowstone, Grand Teton National Parks
Climate and Terrestrial Ecosystem Change in the U.S. Rocky Mountains and Upper Columbia Basin
Great publication with overview of tons of stuff
Glacier National Park
Predicting Effects of Climate Change on Aquatic Ecosystems
This handy guide provides an overview of the various climate impacts to the Flathead River watershed and the species within.
USGS Climate Change in Mountain Ecosystems Program
Climate change poses special problems for mountain protected areas, such as national parks, because most of the land area within their boundaries is at higher elevations. What will be the effects of continued climate change on national parks? How should managers monitor and react to climate change? To answer these questions, the Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center has been monitoring, conducting research, and modeling ecosystem responses to climatic variability since 1991.
Yellowstone National Park
Special issue of Yellowstone Science [PDF] about climate change
South Central U.S.
SCIPP focuses on Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Mississippi, with a particular focus on extreme weather events. Studies and datasets are available for various areas within this region.
Southwest
Southwest Climate Change Network
The Institute of the Environment and Climate Assessment for the Southwest at the University of Arizona administer this network.
West Coast
CaliforniaSierra Nevada Network climate change resource brief [PDF]
Looks at snowpack, small mammal ranges, and vegetation changes.
Links to lots of info about climate change in California
Pacific Northwest
Lots of data here!
Last updated: February 5, 2024