Winter 2015 print issue of the Environmental Monitor is in the mail

The Winter 2015 print edition of the Environmental Monitor has left the printer and is on the way to subscribers this week. This issue’s highlight is a five-story series on research in national parks across the country. From Yosemite to the Everglades, we talked to scientists working in some of the last vestiges of the nation’s natural heritage, where human impacts persist despite protection under the parks system.

• In Yosemite National Park, the 2013 Rim Fire that burned 78,895 acres of the park after a hunter’s fire went wild encroached on a reservoir that supplies San Francisco’s drinking water. Parks scientists are looking at the burned landscape’s effects on water quality.
• In Sequoia National Park, scientists studying a remote lake high in the Sierra Nevada mountains find that influences on water temperatures are more complicated than just rising atmospheric temperatures.
• In Glacier National Park, the disappearance of a rare insect from five streams suggests that unique ecosystems will fade away with the remaining glaciers predicted to melt in the next three decades.
• In Rocky Mountain National Park, lakes and streams in pristine high-elevation watersheds have carried surprisingly high levels of nitrate, likely a result of air pollution urban growth along the Front Range.
• In Everglades National Park, scientists are experimenting with restoring natural flows in the River of Grass’ long-altered hydrology while determining what the economic value of those efforts might be.

Designer Nate Christopher spilled a box of fresh Winter 2015 issues on the floor and took a picture before he cleaned it up. (Credit: Nate Christopher)

Along with the parks series, our designer Nate Christopher upgraded our article on a data buoy in Buffalo Pound Lake with a sharp diagram of their equipment setup. He’s also got a new infographic on changes in the planet’s polar ice caps. That’s in addition to the usual departments rounding up new monitoring gear and Great Lakes research, as well as a new comic and crossword puzzle.

A PDF version of this issue and all other back issues are available here. Sign up for a free subscription to get your print version of the next issue coming in May.