Covering the Adirondacks beat, you hear two words surface in a lot of conversations: climate refugees.

The idea is simple enough. As temperatures warm and the effects of climate change increase drought and water shortages, threaten deadly summer heat and render some parts of the country (let alone world) unlivable, many people may be looking at the Adirondack Park region with new interest.

Water is abundant. High temperatures will remain bearable for the foreseeable future and access to nature is plentiful. While the term typically applies to people around the world who will be forced to leave their homes, it may also apply to city-dwellers looking to escape the concrete jungle in the heat of summer.

During an online discussion last week, Paul Smith’s climate scientist Curt Stager made an interesting point about the growing pressures the park could face from a surge in interest. It could threaten the park’s robust protections enshrined in state law and constitution.

Stager said he was worried about the “gentrification” of the park that could follow from more people turning to the region for refuge and the temptation to weaken development restrictions aimed at preserving the park’s natural state.

Stager joined me for the online Q and A about a recent paper he and colleagues at Paul Smith’s College published last month, which outlines how warming temperatures have already altered plant and animal behaviors and threatens the human culture and economy built around winter.

The paper concluded that more than any individual species, human culture may face the most existential risk in a warming world. Think about the Adirondacks without ice fishing and winter carnivals, a ski season measured in weeks not months.

It also raises a litany of other important questions about how climate change will shape the park in the coming decades. Stager said over the long term, the Adirondacks may start to look more like the Blue Ridge Mountains of the mid-Atlantic.

Much more research is needed to understand ecological mismatches that may arise as species that rely on one another shift their habits at different speeds. Ground-nesting bees depend on emerging around the same time as pollen on nearby plants; if pollen flushes out earlier and earlier, the bees could lose out on critical pollen-collecting time.

Water quality will also be a key issue. Water temperatures are increasing, disrupting the important thermal dynamics within lakes and reducing oxygen levels in the deeper reaches of the water. Warming temperatures could also influence cyanobacteria and the growth of harmful algal blooms. Plenty to keep track of in the years ahead.

 ALSO:

• Other Climate News: A UN report this week warned that nations are not meeting their emissions-reduction targets and that the planet is likely on the more dire trajectory outlined in Stager’s study. Dry conditions in the Midwest has the Mississippi River lower than many people can remember.

• Another trail overhaul years in the making can serve as model for sustainable trails
• Beech leaf disease another hit to the tree species

Photo at top: Lake George in winter. Explorer file photo by Mike Lynch

Editor’s note: This first appeared in Zach’s weekly “Water Line” newsletter. Click here to sign up.