RMCO's Reports

RMCO has written and released, in partnership with national organizations, several reports detailing the effects of climate disruption on the West and across the country:

Special Places at Risk in the Gulf: Impacts of the BP Oil Catastrophe (May 2010) -- see the next page.

National Parks in Peril: The Threats of Climate Disruption. A RMCO-Natural Resources Defense Council report, October 2009. This report identifies 25 national parks across the country most threatened by a changing climate and documents 11 different types of risks to our parks that are already underway or could result from emissions of heat-trapping pollution. The report also includes 32 recommendations for actions specific to our national parks to address climate change and its impacts.

Glacier National Park in Peril: The Threats of Climate Disruption. A RMCO-NRDC profile, April 2010, documenting how an altered climate puts at risk both Glacier National Park's spectacular resources and the tourism -- a mainstay of Montana's economy -- attracted by the park's scenery, wildlife, and other resources.

Hotter and Drier: The West's Changed Climate. A RMCO-Natural Resources Defense Council report, March 2008. This report documented that the West has gotten hotter at a faster rate than the planet as a whole. Across the 11 states of the American West, temperatures in 2003-2007 were 1.7°F higher than the 20th-century average for the region. By contrast, global temperatures in that five-year period were 1.0°F hotter than the planet's 20th-century average. The report also presents similar data for each of the 11 western states, and documents other ways in which the West's climate is already changing and the impacts of those changes.

See also a summary of that report, the news release announcing it, a copy of key figures from the report, and a PowerPoint slide of those figures. The figures and slide may be used freely, so long as credit is given.

Losing Ground: Western National Parks Endangered by Climate Disruption. A RMCO-Natural Resources Defense Council report, July 2006. This report identifies 12 national parks in the western states most vulnerable to a changing climate.

Less Snow, Less Water: Climate Disruption in the West. A RMCO-Clear the Air report, September 2005. This report pulls together evidence of how an altered climate may affect the arid and semi-arid West's scarce snow and water resources. The report includes a new analysis of declines in snowpacks in the Colorado, Columbia, Missouri, and Rio Grande river basins.

All these reports have been widely covered in the news media. For links to particular news articles, see the section of this website on RMCO in the News, where the articles are listed chronologically near the dates of release of the reports.