Parks are an important climate solution—but warmer temperatures and storms put them at risk.
By DANIELLE RENWICK Popular Science
When Hurricane Ida dumped more than 3 inches of rain on Central Park in a single hour, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) called it a “1-in-500 year rainfall event.”
The downpour broke the park’s previous rainfall record, set just 11 days earlier. It damaged scores of trees, flooded the Loeb Boathouse, transformed the area surrounding Bethesda Fountain into a massive pool, and rendered much of the park inaccessible for days. It illustrated just how vulnerable the city’s parks are to the effects of climate change—and how little is understood about the relationship between parks and shifts in weather patterns.
“We have been witnessing the increasing impacts of climate change throughout Central Park for some time now,” said Michelle Mueller Gamez, manager of climate change research at Central Park Conservancy, the nonprofit that manages Central Park. Those impacts include harmful algae blooms during the summer, extreme and frequent heat waves, and intense rain over short periods of time that cause flooding, she said. “The damage that’s caused to Central Park during these extreme events makes it increasingly harder for our staff to maintain and care for all 843 acres.”
Earlier this year, the Central Park Conservancy, together with the Yale School of the Environment and Natural Areas Conservancy, launched the Central Park Climate Lab. The goal, Mueller Gamez said, is to collect data on ways in which the park is changing so its custodians can care for it accordingly. “Other urban parks are facing similar challenges,” she said. “We hope our findings can be a resource to exchange and share information with other urban landscapes.”
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