Climate Change in Mountain Ecosystems (CCME)
Science Center Objects
Climate change is widely acknowledged to be having a profound effect on the biosphere with many and diverse impacts on global resources. Mountain ecosystems in the western U.S. and the Northern Rockies in particular are highly sensitive to climate change. In fact, the higher elevations of the Northern Rockies have experienced three times the global average temperature increase over the past century. These same ecosystems provide up to 85% of the water humans depend on as well as a host of other ecosystem services such as snow-based recreation, timber, unique flora and fauna, and critical habitat for rare and endangered species such as bull trout and grizzly bear. Climate change poses special problems for mountain protected areas, such as national parks and wilderness areas, because most of the land area within their boundaries is at higher elevations. The Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center has been monitoring, conducting research, and modeling ecosystem responses to climatic variability since 1991, first at Glacier National Park but eventually throughout the western U.S. and worldwide in collaboration with other scientists.
Glacier Research: As Glacier National Park’s namesake glaciers recede, CCME staff are monitoring many of the park’s glaciers to determine the causes of change, assess their ecological and hydrological effects, and predict future changes and effects. Intensive research to determine the mass balance of Sperry Glacier will determine whether small cirque glaciers like Sperry can serve as reliable indicators of current climate variability. Analysis of aerial photography, repeat photography, and glacier margin surveys document the rapid retreat of these mid-latitude glaciers as increasing temperatures influence mountain ecosystems world wide.
Snow and Avalanche Research: Since 1991, CCME staff have conducted snow surveys throughout Glacier National Park. These data have contributed to regional climate change and hydrologic models. Snowpack characteristics have also been evaluated in relation to avalanche forecasting and plowing of GNP’s Going to the Sun Road efforts. Studies of natural snow avalanches reveal connections with large-scale climate and wildfire patterns as well as the influence on the creation of characteristic habitat vulnerable to climate change.
Landscape Change Photography: Repeat photography is being used by the CCME program to document landscape change. Glaciers have been the primary focus of this park-wide survey and this collection of repeat photographs, available for download on the CCME website, have been used to illustrate the effects of climate change in venues across the globe. These powerful images, with their inherent ease of interpretation, have become icons of climate change. Researchers will continue to expand the collection of repeat photographs of glaciers as well as panoramic photos from fire lookouts in an effort to document landscape change in this period of dramatic climate warming.
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Date published: July 13, 2018Status: ActiveVolunteer Repeat Photography
Documenting the loss of ice among the glaciers of Glacier National Park has become an integral part of the USGS Climate Change in Mountain Ecosystems program. Repeating historic photographs augments research and provides an effective means of visually communicating climate change. The USGS encourages volunteer photographers to participate in capturing and submitting repeat photographs of...
Contacts: Lisa McKeonAttribution: Ecosystems, Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center -
Date published: April 11, 2016Status: ActiveRepeat Photography Teacher Trunk
This trunk was made possible from a grant from NASA’s Global Precipitation Measurement Mission. It is designed to get students thinking about measuring precipitation - snow and ice, as well as rain- not just to do it, but why we would want to do it.
Contacts: Lisa McKeon -
Date published: April 6, 2016Going-to-the-Sun Road Avalanche Forecasting Program
The Going-to-the-Sun Road (GTTSR) is one of the premier attractions in Glacier National Park (GNP), Montana. It opened in 1933 after 12 years of construction and is one of GNP’s most heavily used facilities. The two-lane, 80-kilometer road traverses the park from west to east, crossing the Continental Divide at Logan Pass at 2026m elevation. The Park closes a 56km section of the road each...
Contacts: Erich Peitzsch, Ph.D, Daniel B Fagre, Ph.D. -
Date published: March 3, 2016Status: ActiveClimate change links fate of glaciers and rare alpine stream invertebrates in Glacier National Park
The extensive loss of glaciers in Glacier National Park (GNP) is iconic of the global impacts of climate warming in mountain ecosystems. However, little is known about how climate change may threaten alpine stream species, especially invertebrates, persisting below disappearing snow and ice masses in GNP. Two alpine stream invertebrates – the meltwater stonefly and the glacier stonefly – have...
Contacts: Clint Muhlfeld, Ph.D., Joe Giersch -
Date published: March 2, 2016Integrated bioassessment of imperiled alpine aquatic ecosystems using NPS vital signs and USGS research data: Implications for conservation under a warming climate
Climate warming in the mid- to high-latitudes and high-elevation mountainous regions is occurring more rapidly than anywhere else on Earth, causing extensive loss of glaciers and snowpack. The loss of glaciers in Glacier National Park (GNP) is iconic of the combined impacts of global warming and reduced snowpack−all remaining 25 glaciers are predicted to disappear by 2030. These changes will...
Contacts: Clint Muhlfeld, Ph.D.
Parsing complex terrain controls on mountain glacier response to climate forcing
Glaciers are a key indicator of changing climate in the high mountain landscape. Glacier variations across a mountain range are ultimately driven by regional climate forcing. However, changes also reflect local, topographically driven processes such as snow avalanching, snow wind-drifting, and radiation shading as well as the initial glacier...
Florentine, Caitlyn Elizabeth; Harper, Joel T.; Fagre, Daniel B.
Glacier retreat in Glacier National Park, Montana
Currently, the volume of land ice on Earth is decreasing, driving consequential changes to global sea level and local stream habitat. Glacier retreat in Glacier National Park, Montana, U.S.A., is one example of land ice loss and glacier change. The U.S. Geological Survey Benchmark Glacier Project conducts glaciological research and collects field...
Florentine, Caitlyn Research Note: How old are the people who die in avalanches? A look into the ages of avalanche victims in the United States (1950-2018)
Since the winter of 1950-1951, 1084 individuals perished in snow avalanches in the United States. In this study, we analyze the ages of those killed (n=900) by applying non-parametric methods to annual median ages and for age groups and primary activity groups. Change point detection results suggest a significant change in 1990 in the median age...
Peitzsch, Erich; Boilen, Sara; Birkeland, Karl W.; Logan, Spencer Reanalysis of the U.S. Geological Survey Benchmark Glaciers: Long-term insight into climate forcing of glacier mass balance
Mountain glaciers integrate climate processes to provide an unmatched signal of regional climate forcing. However, extracting the climate signal via intercomparison of regional glacier mass balance records can be problematic when methods for extrapolating and calibrating direct glaciological measurements are mixed or inconsistent. To address this...
O'Neel, Shad; McNeil, Christopher J.; Sass, Louis C.; Florentine, Caitlyn; Baker, Emily; Peitzsch, Erich; McGrath, Daniel J; Fountain, Andrew G.; Fagre, Daniel B. Glacier recession since the Little Ice Age: Implications for water storage in a Rocky Mountain landscape
Glacial ice is a significant influence on local climate, hydrology, vegetation, and wildlife. We mapped a complete set of glacier areas from the Little Ice Age (LIA) using very high-resolution satellite imagery (30-cm) within Glacier National Park, a region that encompasses over 400,000 hectares. We measured glacier change across the park using...
Mikle, Chelsea; Fagre, Daniel B. Local topography increasingly influences the mass balance of a retreating cirque glacier
Local topographically driven processes – such as wind drifting, avalanching, and shading – are known to alter the relationship between the mass balance of small cirque glaciers and regional climate. Yet partitioning such local effects from regional climate influence has proven difficult, creating uncertainty in the climate representativeness of...
Florentine, Caitlyn; Harper, Joel T.; Fagre, Daniel B.; Moore, Johnnie; Peitzsch, Erich H. On the exchange of sensible and latent heat between the atmosphere and melting snow
The snow energy balance is difficult to measure during the snowmelt period, yet critical for predictions of water yield in regions characterized by snow cover. Robust simplifications of the snowmelt energy balance can aid our understanding of water resources in a changing climate. Research to date has demonstrated that the net turbulent flux (FT)...
Stoy, Paul C.; Peitzsch, Erich H.; Wood, David J. A.; Rottinghaus, Daniel; Wohlfahrtd, Georg; Goulden, Michael; Ward, Helen Glaciological measurements and mass balances from Sperry Glacier, Montana, USA, years 2005–2015
Glacier mass balance measurements help to provide an understanding of the behavior of glaciers and their response to local and regional climate. In 2005 the United States Geological Survey established a surface mass balance monitoring program on Sperry Glacier, Montana, USA. This project is the first quantitative study of mass changes of a glacier...
Clark, Adam; Fagre, Daniel B.; Peitzsch, Erich H.; Reardon, Blase A.; Harper, Joel T. Case study: 2016 Natural glide and wet slab avalanche cycle, Going-to-the-Sun Road, Glacier National Park, Montana, USA
The Going-to-the-Sun Road (GTSR) is the premier tourist attraction in Glacier National Park, Montana. The GTSR also traverses through and under 40 avalanche paths which pose a hazard to National Park Service (NPS) road crews during the annual spring snow plowing operation. Through a joint collaboration between the NPS and the U.S. Geological...
Hutchinson, Jacob; Peitzsch, Erich H.; Clark, Adam Using structure from motion photogrammetry to examine glide snow avalanches
Structure from Motion (SfM), a photogrammetric technique, has been used extensively and successfully in many fields including geosciences over the past few years to create 3D models and high resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) from aerial or oblique photographs. SfM has recently been used in a limited capacity in snow avalanche research and...
Peitzsch, Erich H.; Hendrikx, Jordy; Fagre, Daniel B. Floristic similarity, diversity and endemism as indicators of refugia characteristics and needs in the West
The floras of mountain ranges, and their similarity, beta diversity and endemism, are indicative of processes of community assembly; they are also the initial conditions for coming disassembly and reassembly in response to climate change. As such, these characteristics can inform thinking on refugia. The published floras or approximations for 42...
Malanson, George P.; Zimmerman, Dale L.; Fagre, Daniel B. Glacier-derived August runoff in northwest Montana
The second largest concentration of glaciers in the U.S. Rocky Mountains is located in Glacier National Park (GNP), Montana. The total glacier-covered area in this region decreased by ∼35% over the past 50 years, which has raised substantial concern about the loss of the water derived from glaciers during the summer. We used an innovative...
Clark, Adam; Harper, Joel T.; Fagre, Daniel B.-
Date published: March 11, 2020USGS Benchmark Glacier Project Comprehensive Data Collection
Mountain glaciers are closely coupled to climate processes, ecosystems, and regional water resources. To enhance physical understanding of these connections, the USGS maintains a collection of glacier mass balance and climate data across the western United States and Alaska. In some cases, records of glacier mass balance extend back to the mid-1940s. These data have been incorporated from
Attribution: Alaska Science Center -
Date published: December 19, 2019Tree ring dataset for a regional avalanche chronology in northwest Montana, 1636-2017
This dataset includes processed tree ring data from avalanche paths in Glacier National Park and the Flathead National Forest in northwest Montana. The data were processed in three distinct phases that resulted in this dataset: collection, processing, and avalanche signal analysis. This dataset consists of samples from 647 trees with 2304 growth disturbances identified from 12 avalanche pat...
Attribution: Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center -
Date published: June 17, 2019
Alpine Vegetation Trends in Glacier National Park, Montana 2003-2018
This dataset is focused on alpine plant species presence/absence, species turnover, and trends in species abundance on four mountain summits in Glacier National Park, Montana, USA from 2003 through 2014. Two summit sites were established in 2003 on Dancing Lady and Bison Mountain, east of the continental divide. Two additional summit sites were established in 2004 on Pitamakin and Mt. Seward,...
Attribution: Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center -
Date published: January 1, 2019
A comprehensive inventory of perennial snow and ice in Glacier National Park in 2005
These polygon features represent a comprehensive inventory of perennial snow and ice on the landscape in Glacier National Park (GNP) in 2005. This dataset does not include the 2005 extent of the named glaciers in GNP, which have been previously published. Of the perennial snow and ice features delineated here, 1.68 km2 (15.08%) of the total area exhibits characteristics indicative
Attribution: Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center -
Date published: January 1, 2018
A comprehensive inventory of maximum glacial extent in Glacier National Park during the peak of the Little Ice Age
These polygon features represent the maximum extent of glaciers in Glacier National Park and two glaciers on U.S. Forest Service’s Flathead National Forest land during the peak of the Little Ice Age (mid-nineteenth century). Glacial margins are based on moraine deposits that result from active glaciation, and do not depict perennial snow and ice. The criteria used for determining wh
Attribution: Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center -
Date published: January 1, 2018
A comprehensive inventory of maximum glacial extent in Glacier National Park during the peak of the Little Ice Age
These polygon features represent the maximum extent of glaciers in Glacier National Park and two glaciers on U.S. Forest Service’s Flathead National Forest land during the peak of the Little Ice Age (mid-nineteenth century). Glacial margins are based on moraine deposits that result from active glaciation, and do not depict perennial snow and ice. The criteria used for determining wh
Attribution: Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center -
Date published: May 9, 2017Full USGS ScienceBase data release for Montana Glacier Margins
In 2017, the USGS published a time series analysis of the glacier margins of the named glaciers of Glacier National Park. The areas measured are from 1966, 1998, 2005 and 2015/2016, marking approximately 50 years of change in glacier area. S
Attribution: Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center
