Climate Change Challenges and Science-Based Optimism

Abstract

Since that day in 1986, however, published scientific research shows that human-caused climate change has fundamentally altered that scene. Hotter temperatures, including a 1.2oC increase in Yosemite since 1895 (Gonzalez et al. 2018), have melted spring snowpack more than 20% in the Sierra Nevada (Pierce et al. 2008; Mote et al. 2018), doubled wildfire area above natural levels across the western United