Climate Monitoring Program in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve Environmental Assessment

Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve

The National Park Service (NPS) is considering expansion of the Southeast Alaska Network (SEAN) Inventory and Monitoring Program’s weather and climate monitoring system. Long-term placement of up to eight remote automated weather stations (RAWS) and two data-logging thermistors is being proposed for Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve (GLBA or “the park”). The SEAN Weather and Climate Inventory report (Davey et al. 2007) determined that, based on climate change considerations alone, a recommended monitoring strategy would entail placement of stations in the pure coastal zone, in the pure interior zone, at higher elevations closer to the location of what is currently quasi-permanent ice, and in transition regions such as drainage divides. Additionally, the report states that climate inventory and monitoring activities should be based on a set of guiding fundamental principles. Any evaluation of a weather/climate monitoring program begins with asking the following question: What is the purpose of weather and climate measurements? The report concludes that existing weather stations in the vicinity of GLBA do not provide adequate data for understanding climate change within the park. The reasons for this include coverage gaps that preclude the ability to assess weather and climate across a west-to-east coastal-to-interior gradient, a north-to-south fjord head-to-lower bay gradient, and an elevational gradient. The action alternative in this environmental assessment (EA) would expand the NPS monitoring program by establishing additional stations to collect basic climatological data including air and soil temperature, precipitation, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, solar radiation, and 32 depth.