It took Patrick Gonzalez, the principal climate change scientist for the National Park Service, several hours to travel from his Berkeley office to the Point Reyes National Seashore in December, considering his commitment to public transportation. In a presentation at the Red Barn for park employees and others, he said that national parks are disproportionately exposed to climate change. A study he published last year found that many parks lie in areas where changes are most extreme, based on a spatial analysis of historical and projected temperature and precipitation across all 417 national parks. Temperatures have increased the most in Alaska, which  has extensive national parks; accordingly, between 1895 and 2010, the mean annual temperature increase across national parks was double the rate for the United States. The analysis revealed “significant” declines in annual precipitation on 12 percent of parkland, compared to on 3 percent of lands across the U.S.: the park service manages extensive acreage in the arid southwest. These trends will continue. From 2000 to 2100, under the highest emissions scenario the study considers, park temperatures could increase between 3 and 9 degrees Celsius, “with climate velocities outpacing dispersal capabilities of many plant and animal species.” Even under reduced emissions, temperature increases could exceed 2 degrees Celsius in 58 percent of national parklands, compared to 22 percent of non-parklands. Dr. Gonzalez said countless studies document physical and ecological changes that can be attributed to human-caused climate change in parks, including the bleaching of coral reefs in American Samoa and the Caribbean; the melting of permafrost in Alaska parks like Denali, Noatak and Kobuk Valley; the shift of subalpine forest upward into subalpine meadows in Yosemite; and the 40 percent reduction in bird species richness in the Mojave Desert over the past century. In Northern California in particular, there are a range of concerns, he said. Climate change could increase atmospheric river days between 30 and 300 percent, and double the frequency of extreme rain events by 2100. At the same time, climate change increases the probability that, by the middle of this century, every year will see a severe drought. California current waters could warm by 2 to 4 degrees by 2100 and ocean acidity increase by 60 percent by 2063. Extensive areas of the seashore are highly vulnerable to erosion from sea-level rise and storm surges; cliffs here retreated nearly four meters between 1998 and 2010. Dr. Gonzalez touched on the local effects on flora and fauna. Since the pine pitch canker fungus grows faster in higher temperatures, bishop pine mortality at Point Reyes is expected to increase; sea-level rise of 50 centimeters could inundate most of the northern elephant seal habitat; bird species are expected to shrink by 32 species in the summer and by 24 species in the winter; and intertidal species will be extremely vulnerable to heat and acidification. More than conservation and adaptation strategies—such as species protection, seed saving, prescribed burning and dune restoration—Dr. Gonzalez focused on preventative measures and the importance of individual parks reducing their emissions. In 2008, the seashore joined the Climate Friendly Parks Program, which sets a goal of all member parks becoming carbon neutral by 2020. The Golden Gate National Recreation Area achieved that goal this year, both by reducing emissions within the park by 30 percent and by purchasing carbon credits. The seashore last reported a reduction in emissions by 22 percent, but has yet to achieve carbon neutrality. In his talk, Dr. Gonzalez highlighted the unique opportunity for the seashore to collaborate with ranchers to employ methane digesters to convert manure into electrical energy and heat. “Methane is a complete waste, it just goes up into the atmosphere. [But] there are a lot of proven technologies for capturing it,” he said. “It could make the farms some money, it’s good for the atmosphere, and would be an opportunity for the park to offset emissions—there are a lot of opportunities.”