Climate Change Brings Visitors to Parks Earlier

From the comments, I see that once again, the far right has to deny reality to defend their agenda.

When the climate naturally changes here in MN, I dress accordingly... If it is October and the temp dips below 50, I wear jeans instead of shorts... If it's March and hits 50, I wear shorts instead of jeans... Climate change happens often here in MN... It's quite cyclical...

Is that why we couldn't drive thru Glacier Nat'l Park on May 18th this year?

This is great. We are witnessing natural cycles in our generation. Hope it gets warmer because I an sick of the cold in Michigan.

This article is disturbing as they call temperature change a problem. We only have two possibilities colder or warmer temperatures so we have a problem 100% of the time so we are doomed. We can't fix it unless we get Goldilocks to make just right. Sad to promote fear.

Let's see 55 parks excluded 28 from the study and used 27 parks. Only nine of the of the 27 or 33% got warmer, therefore 66% of the 27studied had no change or may have gotten colder and the people went later in the year. I say 9 out of 55 got warmer and they decided to ignore the other 46 because it doesn't suit the agenda. Then they wonder why people don't believe the studies.

Yellowstone NEVER gets very warm until mid to late June, yet all kinds of people start going there in droves in April. Global warming is NOT the reason.

Or maybe it's because school calendars have changed. Rather than the historical post-Labor Day start and mid-June end, many school districts now start school in early August and end one or two weeks before Memorial Day. Families are going on summer vacations earlier than 32 years ago, and thus park attendance shifts towards early.

"In the Grand Canyon, for example, the peak attendance date shifted from July 4 in 1979 to June 24 in 2008." Or maybe people have just elected to go during non-peak periods to avoid crowds. Remember, correlation does not equal causation. However, correlation is often very attractive to those with a political agenda, or those who wish to see their funding continue without disruption.

Ha! Park attendance! The clearest proof yet....!
of man-made catastrophic weather derailment! Ha! No other factors could possibly explain, it's so solid!

Didn't Canada just pull out completely from that Kyoto garbage ....? Did we even see a word of that covered by these, yahoos?

Ha!

You know the old saying. There are three kinds of lies. Lies, damned lies and statistics. If you play with statistics enough, you can get them to say almost anything you want them to.

"...Nine of the parks experienced significant increases in mean spring temperatures..." and "...Meanwhile, of the 18 parks without significant temperature changes..." I'd be looking at unemployment rates that allow people to visit parks earlier that normal holiday weekend attendance.

That's how I plan my vacation. It's 1/2 degree warmer now, so we'll go 4 days earlier than we used to go. If you believe that, you'll believe anything. Pure political #$%$

I don't buy into it. Of course there are more visitors these days, the parks are constantly "begging" and advertising for people to visit in the "off" seasons trying to keep up revenue. I am a regular visitor to Yosemite, hiking during all seasons, and, more and more people are opting to trek in, hense the reasons for the increasing deaths and accidents by inexperienced visitors. Many die or are injured because they believe it's similar to an amusement park, all due to the hype coming from the greedy national park offiicals -- advertising for all walks of the public to play in wet/cold seasons, despite the hazards and conditions.

Talk about a lack of science in this little piece of trash article written by a couple "greenies". People are just like plants. They begin driving to national parks days earlier than they would have for no other reason than it's a little warmer a couple days earlier over a couple years. What an embarrassment to REAL scientists who actually study issues, and have their conclusions peer-reviewed before publishing them. This is just more Warminst #$%$

There have been four volcanic eruptions in the last decade that EACH put more greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere than man has since showing up on this planet. EACH eruption put more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere than the ENTIRETY of greenhouse gasses introduced by man EVER. Maybe we should pass a law outlawing volcanic eruptions, or maybe put a bazillion dollars into installing scrubbers around the top of volcanic cones.

Lol. 55 parks total. But, half thrown out because they didnt help the study, so we are down to 27 for data. Now, only 7 of these showed a change in attendance with temp. (notice how all numbers are numeric and then they write seven out... so people wont notice it) There were also parks that did not change in temp, but 3 of them still had change of attendance. So 7 of 55 parks changed attendance with temp and 3 of 55 changed with out temp. They say that the peak attendance at the grand canyon in 1979 was july 4th.... the grand canyon is not even open for fireworks on the 4th now. you think that may change the attendance on that?

Maybe schools getting out earlier in the last decade could be a factor. Most schools get out by the middle of may now and not the end. Schools also start in the middle of august now and not labor day like they did in 79. How about park promotions? The gov. has spent a lot of money over the last couple decades to get people to the parks. We also moved forward daylight savings so that it would be light longer now in the spring time. So many variables in this study that it is not even worth reporting.

Another nonsense article brought to you by the liberal loons at Yahoo.

Over the last decade, temperatures in the US have actually been declining. Don't believe it? LOOK IT UP YOURSELF on the US’s official temperature record website.

Go to the National Climate Data Center’s "NCDC U.S. Climate at a Glance" webpage. Click on "National" in the blue oval. You'll see a page that allows you to plot the actual data yourself.

Under the "Period" drop down menu, choose "Annual"; that will give you the annually averaged temperatures - if you don't change this you'll get January temperatures.

Under "first year to display" choose 2001 if you want to see what's happened in the last decade. Under "Base Period" also choose 2001 for the Beginning year and 2011 as the end; that will give you the average temperature over the last decade. Press submit.

See that black line? That's the average temp in the last decade. See the green line? That's the trend. The average temperature in the US has been going DOWN for a decade.

If the parks are seeing visitors come earlier in the last 10 years, it isn't because of Global Warming - THERE HASN'T BEEN ANY. Perhaps the real reason is overcrowding - people are going earlier just to avoid the crowds.

I had to scratch my #$%$ 3 times more this year than last year. Im sure its global warming and Bushes fault.

the only thing I needed to read to understand climate change was the children's book "Chicken Little".