Yellowstone Hot Spring

The vibrant colors of Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park are captured in all their glory in this photo taken by Josh Haner of The Times from a helicopter. Grand Prismatic sits above a powerful super volcano that drives the spring and other geological activity.

This image was published with The Times article, “Your Children’s Yellowstone Will Be Radically Different,” Nov. 15, 2018. The story detailed how climate change is altering the landscape and ecosystem in America’s oldest national park, established in 1872. Winters are shorter. Less snow is falling. Summers are hotter and drier. In a few decades, Yellowstone’s iconic landscape won’t be the same.

“The Yellowstone of charismatic megafauna and of stunning geysers that four million visitors a year travel to see is changing before the eyes of those who know it best,” wrote Marguerite Holloway. “Researchers who have spent years studying, managing, and exploring its roughly 3,400 square miles say that soon the landscape may look dramatically different.

“Over the next few decades of climate change, the country’s first national park will quite likely see increased fire, less forest, expanding grasslands, more invasive plants, and shallower, warmer waterways ÛÓ all of which may alter how, and how many, animals move through the landscape. Ecosystems are always in flux, but climate change is transforming habitats so quickly that many plants and animals may not be able to adapt well or at all.”