Yellowstone is not only home to one of the world’s most powerful volcanoes, but is the only remaining place in the United States where large packs of wolves and bison roam freely. However, this will soon change for the snow-covered national park, with experts warning that rising global temperatures will soon put a halt to this. Researchers who have spent years studying the 8800 square kilometres say the next few decades will see decreased snowfall, increased fires, less forest and more grassland.
Since 1948, the average annual temperature of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, which is a massive 89,030 square kilometres across the State of Wyoming, has risen by 1.1 degrees Celsius.
With this, scientists say winter has become 10 days shorter on average.
And this steady warming will see Yellowstone National Park drastically change.
Patrick Gonzalez, a forest and climate change scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, said: “For the Northern Rockies, snowpack has fallen to its lowest level in eight centuries.
“By the time my daughter is an old woman, the climate will be as different for her as the last ice age seems to us.”
Recent years have seen a migration of elk away from the park as there is less of a ‘green wave’ – where greenery flourishes during summer.
And where the elk go, the wolves follow, meaning the ecosystem is steadily changing too.
Andrew Hansen of Montana State University said: It is a very interesting mix of land-use change and climate change, possibly leading to quite dramatic shifts in migration and to thousands of elk on private land.”
Waterways are also receding which will have a huge effect on the landscape of Yellowstone National Park.
Daniel Isaak of the US Forest Service told the New York Times that as waters recede, fish become more concentrated allowing disease to more easily spread, which in turn will contribute to their die off, and those of animals higher up in the food chain.
He added: “We can very definitely see warming trends during the summer and autumn.
“Stream and river flows are declining as snowpack declines.”