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Writer's pictureBruce Smith

Shrinking Alpine

Jackson Glacier, Glacier National Park 1911.

After countless days recreating and studying mountain goats in alpine habitats, these remote and rugged places occupy a special place in my heart. The alpine zone, with its glaciers, snowfields, and cold-adapted plants and animals, became a natural setting for my climate-crisis-themed novel series, Legend Keepers.


Jackson Glacier in Glacier National Park, Montana, 2009. Explore the impact of climate change on alpine habitats in this compelling blog post. Discover the rapid alterations and cascading impacts on native biota. Glaciers in Glacier National Park are shrinking due to climate change.

One consequence of the overheating of Earth's atmosphere in recent decades is the rapid alteration of alpine areas worldwide. Glaciers and snowfields in retreat, forests marching to higher elevations, drying of alpine soils, and invasive species' colonization are some of the well-documented effects of warming that have cascading impacts--mostly negative--on native alpine biota. These photos of Jackson Glacier in Montana's Glacier National Park, from 1911 then retaken in 2009, show how rapidly glaciers are disappearing.

The attached article in Inside Climate News offers a brief overview of how human-caused global warming is disrupting nutrient cycling in alpine meadows, which may contribute to species losses.

High, treeless mountaintop areas are storehouses of species adapted over millennia to the pre-industrial climate. As Earth's climate warms twice as fast at the highest altitudes and latitudes--compared to the global average--species bound to these places are the vanguard of what lies ahead.

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