Managing for a new and chaotic norm in Glacier

Last summer, Glacier National Park superintendent Jeff Mow was dealing with a record snowpack as Park crews struggled to get the Going-to-the-Sun Road open as snows fell until late June.

This summer, the Park is at the other end of the spectrum, with record drought and large wildfires.

Climate change is certainly exacerbating the extremes in Glacier's weather and chaos seems to be a new normal. The question is, how do you manage the Park in trying circumstances?

There are no easy answers, Mow noted in a recent talk.

He spends a lot of time scenario planning, trying to adapt Park management to the "what ifs."

Scenario planning is nothing new, Mow noted. It was first used by the oil industry in the 1970s in response to the Mideast oil crisis, when countries in that region clamped down on world oil supplies. In response, companies like Royal Dutch Shell invested in oil reserves in Asia.

While the Park isn't worried about oil, it does have to worry about things like staffing, wildlife and getting highways open to the public. Often, good management means being flexible and adaptable. When Mow was superintendent at Kenai Fjords National Park in Alaska, the Harding ice field was melting at such a rapid clip, that it flooded one of the main highways in the Park. The water across the road wasn't too deep, just a few inches, but it ran across the highway for weeks on end. They had to send interpretative staff at the Park to highway flagging school to help direct traffic, he said.

The problem with climate change is Park managers are seeing wild variability. Last year, Glacier had more water than it knew what to do with after a snowy winter and spring. This year, the Park had to fly in a water tank to Granite Park chalet just to make sure the facility had enough water to make it through the hot, dry summer.

In the words of a colleague, "develop your zest for ambiguity," Mow said.

The superintendent said he was pleased the Park Service is considering incorporating scenario planning and an adaptive management strategy into future management of the Going-to-the-Sun Road corridor. That strategy gives the Park flexibility in managing the road - and the crowds that come with it - into the future, rather than one set policy, which has been the Park Service tact of the past.

Park managers are also looking at mitigation from the effects of climate change. On the flora and fauna end of things, biologists have already begun to move fish like bull trout into lakes where they haven't been before in an effort to preserve the species. They're also actively planting disease-resistant trees, like whitebark pine, in an effort to save that species.

But the true shift in Park Service policy could come if the Service begins moving species outside of current ecosystems, like from a southern park to a northern park. The Park Service isn't there yet, Mow noted.

"That would be a huge change for the Park Service, if we ever get there," he said.

One thing the Park Service doesn't shy away from is talking about climate change, Mow said. Despite the political nature of the debate, Mow said managers stick to the science in their message, and the mountain of evidence in front of them.

With 300 million visitors annually to national parks across the U.S., almost all of which are impacted by climate change in one way or another, the Service has a large audience.

Of the people who visit national parks, 22 percent are "extremely concerned" about climate change, Mow noted and most people believe it is a problem and is human caused.

"We have a bully pulpit," he said. "We have an opportunity to speak to a lot of people."