Yellowstone National Park escaped the summer without any large conflagrations in its forests, but that could be an anomaly under the current pace of climate change. Pikas could vanish from parks such as Lassen Volcanic and Great Basin. Glaciers and Joshua trees could be seen only in photographs and paintings in their namesake parks, and Virgin Islands and Hawai'i Volcanoes national parks could see diminished rainfall.

By the end of the century, sea level rise is expected to inundate many coastal communities and more than a few National Park System sites. With that in mind, the National Park Service has developed a handbook for park managers to turn to as they work to adapt their sites to cope with sea level rise.

With a trekking pole in one hand and an ice ax in the other, I am naked except for the rigid mountaineering boots on my feet. With all my clothes in my backpack, I cross three braids of the glacier-fed Chitina River in Alaska, stopping to partially recover from the cold on the gravel bars in between. But I know the last ford is going to be the trickiest.

In a move the National Park Service maintains is only temporary and necessary to make information available to those with disabilities, nearly 100 documents pertaining to climate change in the National Park System have been removed from websites around the system.