Global climate change could dramatically reshape America's public lands
and the government's ability to manage them as seas rise, species are
threatened with extinction and wildfire threats increase, Interior
Department officials told a House panel yesterday.
"On the ground, we're seeing a lot of changes," Deputy Secretary Lynn Scarlett said. "Some of them dramatic."
Changing temperatures have spurred the movement of wildlife, forcing
managers to rethink how to protect animals and habitat. "Many parks,
refuges and other conservation areas were created to preserve a
specific mix of species within specific boundaries," Scarlett said. "Is
on-site conservation possible within current, fixed boundaries, if
species composition is changing and moving?"
And people's use of public lands are also likely to change,
said Ron Huntsinger, the Bureau of Land Management's science
coordinator.
"We can anticipate further reductions in the level of
allowable uses on public lands due to the loss of productivity and
capacity," Huntsinger said. "The results are more fragile ecosystems, a
greater susceptibility to the outbreaks of attacks by parasites and
disease, increased vulnerability to wildland fire and erosion, and an
overall reduction in the carrying capacity of the land."
Don Neubacher, superintendent of California's Point Reyes
National Seashore, said the park regularly experiences severe winter
storm damage that requires emergency spending. "The intensity of the
storms and the number of storms each year has been increasing,"
Neubacher said.
At Everglades National Park, Superintendent Dan Kimball is
concerned about rising seas threatening the nation's largest freshwater
wetland and primary recharger of drinking water supplies for 5 million
South Floridians. The park's highest point is 11 feet above mean sea
level, and 60 percent of the park is less than 3 feet above sea level.
"Sea level rise would likely push salt water into the
Everglades and threaten the viability of South Florida's drinking water
supply," Kimball said, citing the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change report that predicted sea levels could rise between 7
inches and 23 inches this century.
The $11 billion restoration plan designed to restore natural
freshwater flows into the Everglades could make the ecosystem more
resilient if sea levels rise, Kimball noted. "More water in the
Everglades would create a freshwater head that would act as a barrier
to the landward push of saltwater."
'Not in denial'
The chairman of the Interior Appropriations subcommittee, Rep.
Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), said in an interview he was pleased with
Interior's presentation.
"They're not in denial," Dicks said. "They're doing more than most people know about."
Nevertheless, Dicks and other Democratic subcommittee members
appeared eager to boost climate research funds for the U.S. Geological
Survey and land management agencies. "My sense is the administration
has not asked for the kinds of resources needed to combat global
warming," said Rep. Tom Udall (D-N.M.). "They talk a good game, but
then they don't deliver the resources."
USGS has requested $26 million for climate change research and
monitoring -- money split among several accounts, including drought
monitoring, permafrost thawing in the Arctic, snowpack runoff and
wildland fire.
Tom Armstrong, USGS senior adviser for global change programs,
said the agency could use more money to provide "broader, more
consistent national coverage of the effects of climate change" and
improve models to provide a better picture of local changes. "Obviously
with additional resources we could build that capacity," he said.
The IPCC recently said global warming is likely to cause
widespread West Coast water shortages, rising seas on the East Coast
and timber losses upward of $1 billion per year (Greenwire, April 17),
but since Interior is in the land management business, the department
needs improved regional models and projections.
"Global climate modeling is currently unable to provide
meaningful descriptions and projections at the regional and smaller
scales that are needed to be useful for land managers on the ground,"
Scarlett said. "For us at Interior, because we're on the ground
managing stuff, those details really matter."
BLM and the Forest Service, for instance, are considering
climate change when they develop management plans for individual units.
Sea ice, polar bears
The highest-profile climate change battle thus far is the
potential Endangered Species Act listing for the polar bear due to
disappearing sea ice in the Arctic. "I believe the polar bear case
study is a clear and serious example of the threats facing us due to
global warming," Dicks said.
USGS is scheduled to deliver a major report on sea ice and the
polar bear population by the end of August, said Susan Haseltine, USGS
associate director for biology. Haseltine noted that because the
effects of climate change are more exaggerated at the poles, the polar
bear issue might be the best signal yet of the potential effect of
global warming.
"Perhaps polar bears are a clearer signal because they are so
dependent on sea ice," Haseltine said. "They may be in that sense a
canary in the cage."
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