Baby Olympic marmots are being eaten alive in their burrows. Wildflowers are shifting bloom time. Pikas are running out of cold mountain redoubts, and alpine meadows are being invaded by trees. Glaciers are melting. Seasons are changing.
Caused by climate warming, these aren’t abstract effects. The sights and sounds of our mountains that make Washington home are changing — and even disappearing. Plants and animals that have adapted to and rely on these habitats are facing a new world.
These species live where they do because the altitude and climate create the conditions they need for all that is essential for their survival. They have a particular zone of life — a concept that dates back to German geographer, explorer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, who laid the foundation for the modern understanding of biogeography in his studies in the Americas around 1800. Isotherms — lines connecting points of equal temperature — can be used to map these zones of life, particularly vegetation zones.
When those zones shift, animals and plants adapt where they can — and suffer when they can’t. Some will eventually go locally extinct. They can no longer den, nest, breed, feed, rest and live where they always have.
Montane zones of life
Parklike, subalpine meadows depend on the depth and duration of snowpack each winter to keep trees from encroaching on open spaces. As climate change reduces snowpack and tree lines advance upward in elevation, subalpine meadows are disappearing.
There isn’t a single answer for what the years ahead will hold. Some species — including invasive ones — will flourish and even sometimes bring infectious diseases. Others, like pollinators or pikas, will struggle and, perhaps, even die out. The shift is already noticeable at our highest elevations: Glaciers have lost on average 40% of their volume in Washington since the 1980s.
Generally speaking, humans expected that a region like the Pacific Northwest would only ever grow so cold or hot, so wet or dry. But the range of these limits is expanding, pushing our world toward more extremes.
In this story, Seattle Times journalists document some of these changes already underway in our melting mountains — shifts and species threats that will continue to intensify if fossil fuel emissions are not controlled and the planet continues to warm.
Glaciers
Think of glaciers as conveyor belts of ice and snow. They’re constantly in motion, pushing downhill. Their ice melts along lower elevations, sending water into nearby streams and rivers. Winter snow then builds the formation back among the higher elevations.
The frozen formations roll on.
But global warming is melting the ice at lower elevations. And warmer winters mean more precipitation is falling as rain rather than snow, meaning glaciers aren’t building back nearly as much.
A glacier in retreat
Mount Rainier’s Emmons Glacier, like other Washington glaciers, is slowly disappearing. A quarter of the glacier is covered in debris from erosion and rockfalls. In warmer months, thin areas of dark debris absorb the sun’s energy, melting ice immediately below. Meltwater percolates through crevasses and moulins, lubricating the glacier’s base and accelerating melting.
So the conveyor belts are shrinking, said Louis Sass, an Alaska-based glaciologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.
Alaska has enough glaciers to cover an area the size of Lake Superior, Sass said. Since 2000, those glaciers have thinned on average by about 70 feet.
“Imagine if Lake Superior had dropped 70 feet since the year 2000,” Sass said.
The distinction of having the second-most glaciers in the U.S. belongs to Washington. And since the mid-’80s, they’ve lost an average of 40% of their volume, said Mauri Pelto, a glaciologist at Nichols College in Massachusetts.
A little over a decade ago, there were years when these glaciers would grow over the winter, Pelto said. But no more.
“Now every year is a bad year,” he said.
Here or there, in the Alps, Andes, Himalayas or Rockies, the glaciers are all trending toward their doom, Pelto said. As the snow and ice retreats, brush habitat and even some trees will extend their range upward. Exposed mountainsides will see more rockfalls or landslides. Water from these frozen reservoirs will dwindle when we need it most, cutting into hydropower and irrigation supply. This will also mean low stream flows and deadly high temperatures for salmon, Pelto said.
Some glaciers are large enough to hold out for decades or more, should the current trend continue, Sass said. In Washington, those atop Mount Rainier will likely be the last to melt thanks to their elevation.
— Conrad Swanson
Pika
EEE!
Their squeals burst from talus patches in Washington’s Cascades. These formidable russet-potato-shaped rabbit relatives can be found with a neat bouquet in their tiny mouths.
Pikas don’t hibernate. They collect vegetation in the summers and store it in “haypiles” often found under the overhang of larger boulders. Snowfall insulates their winter homes under the rocks, protecting them from extreme cold.
Pikas have been dubbed a harbinger of climate change in part because of their inability to tolerate heat over about 78 degrees for sustained periods, their reliance on snowpack for thermal insulation, and their limited ability to disperse to different elevations.
In the spring, they rely on the cool, steady snowmelt to provide a big pantry of vegetation to feast on in the warm months.
Lower elevation pika populations are likely the most susceptible to warming.
A year after 2015’s record-low snowpack, researchers found declines in pikas’ presence at some elevations in the North Cascades.
Pikas seek refuge from warming temperatures in the shaded areas in the crevices below these rocks that can be up to 40 degrees cooler in the summer months. Meanwhile, summer surface temperatures in the talus patches surveyed in the North Cascades have increased by an average of about 0.67 degrees over the last decade.
Research has shown that the genetic diversity of pika has decreased with increased average annual temperatures and increased with more annual precipitation.
“With increased warming, these micro habitat refugia become even more important for survival and we have a lot of that in the North Cascades,” said Roger Christophersen, a wildlife biologist at North Cascades National Park. “We’re pretty fortunate here, unlike some of the areas in more southern latitudes, like the Great Basin area, (where) there’s populations that may very well wink out before too long.”
— Isabella Breda
White-tailed ptarmigan
Unlike the Canada jay and the gray-crowned rosy-finch, which flit along and live in the trees, the white-tailed ptarmigan is one of the few birds that spend most of their lives above the tree line. The little but stocky member of the grouse family feasts on willow and flowers in alpine meadows in the summer and burrows in soft snow in the winter to stay warm, said Noah Greenwald, the endangered species director for the Center for Biological Diversity.
The bird is around a foot long and transforms from snow white in the winter to mottled brown or black in summer to hide from predators. Its heavily feathered feet can work like snowshoes. It’s thought to live up to 15 years and is believed to make its home in the Cascades, from southern British Columbia to Mount Adams, though scant population counts exist.
Because it thrives in high elevation, the white-tailed ptarmigan is especially vulnerable to climate change and experiences physiological stress at 70 degrees. Rain falling on snow hardens it into a crust, making it difficult for the bird to burrow, and the disappearing glaciers and trees moving uphill will threaten the bird’s habitat.
In the coming decades, the ptarmigans are likely to lose up to 95% of their habitat, according to the center.
The Center for Biological Diversity petitioned for the white-tailed ptarmigan to be protected under the Endangered Species Act in 2010. The bird was granted threatened status last year after the center sued.
— Amanda Zhou
Mountain goat
Clinging to cliffs few others would dare to clamber over, mountain goats have evolved with rugged mountainous landscapes across the northwestern U.S.
The goats are experiencing stressors, such as extreme heat, loss of snowfields, avalanches, predation, disease and parasites, finding less to eat during drought and enduring increasingly stormy winters. They also face increasing pressure from recreation, changing alpine ecosystems and the loss of habitat connectivity.
Surveyed mountain goat populations in Washington, with one exception, have been declining since at least 2018. The sharpest drop has been in the North Cascades.
Survey data from 2018 to 2024 shows a greater than 90% reduction in goats in most herds near Darrington, Snohomish County, according to the Stillaguamish Tribe.
The tribe’s Climate Change Adaptation Plan, produced in partnership with the University of Washington’s Climate Impacts Group, found that by the 2080s, mountain goats are expected to be “extremely vulnerable” to climate change.
“I think that’s optimistic,” said Jennifer Sevigny, a wildlife program manager with the Stillaguamish Tribe. “I think they’re extremely vulnerable now.”
Researchers know that some of the dead goats with GPS collars have been found in avalanche chutes. They know summer temperatures are increasing, as is recreation in the North Cascades. They know cougars have been documented hunting the goats in Washington and British Columbia.
It’s going to be a monumental task to figure out what’s going on, and it’s probably a combination of things — even more challenging now that the goats are entirely gone from some areas, Sevigny said.
“We’re in a pretty bad place with a species that is in trouble,” Sevigny said, adding that federal climate change funding is being cut alongside reductions in state funding.
— Isabella Breda
Wildflowers
Bud. Flower. Fruit. Seed. These are the crucial reproductive stages of alpine flowers. Each of these stages has a precise window that must align with the arrival of pollinators like bees, butterflies, moths, hoverflies and hummingbirds, all of which rely on pollen for nourishment.
With climate change, however, and snowpack melting earlier, scientists are worried these windows might move out of sync. This is especially concerning for Mount Rainier National Park, where abundant alpine meadows not only attract tourists but also stabilize slopes and moderate water flows.
Elli Theobald, a University of Washington biology professor, studied how wildflower blooming changed in 2015 at Mount Rainier, when snow melted so early it broke records, a preview of the climate of the future.
She found there was a longer period when the ground was bare and without flowers, which could lead to more invasive species. Theobald also found that the order in which the flowers bloomed changed. This might lead to certain species competing with others for pollination, or possibly pollinators being served different types of pollen in the wrong nutritional order.
While there is no way to know for sure what will happen, Theobald said she believes some flowering plants, like the avalanche lily, might fare all right in the face of climate change. The recognizable white flower, often with six petals and a yellow center, is one of the first species to flower in the spring, sometimes budding through the snow.
But she worries for species like the magenta paintbrush and bracted lousewort, which cannot tolerate shade and could be threatened by an advancing tree line. The paintbrush is also culturally significant to tribes and relies on the roots of other nearby plants for nutrients, meaning it would be difficult to reestablish.
“Late-season droughts and fires, that’s going to be a huge problem for all living things, plants included,” Theobald said.
— Amanda Zhou
Marmot
Marmot squeaks are the sound of the high country in the Olympics. Olympic marmots live above 4,000 feet, spending the long summer days basking, sipping dew, munching flowers, loafing and playing. A member of the squirrel family, Olympic marmots have coats with colors that range widely, from a golden brown to gray and blond. Also called, rather unkindly, rock chucks and whistle pigs, Olympic marmots are about the size of a large house cat and are very socially active and gregarious.
The Olympic marmot’s home range is almost entirely within Olympic National Park, where their antics of staking out their burrows enliven hikes through flower-flecked alpine meadows.
Marmot populations are threatened by coyote predation, scientists have found, as well as habitat fragmentation due to a rising tree line — also caused by declining snow pack and climate change, according to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the U.S. Department of Interior last year to list the Olympic marmot as a threatened species, and it advocates protecting the marmot from extinction in part by reintroducing wolves to the park to reduce coyote populations. The department hasn’t responded to the petition.
The marmots’ decline has coincided with years when there is less snowpack in the Olympics. Less snow might be making it easier for coyotes — which are not native to the park — to dig marmots out of their dens and prey on them as they emerge from hibernation.
— Lynda Mapes
