Meteorology is being factored into the future of visitation at Big Bend National Park, at least when it comes to finding a room in the rugged and sprawling swath of Chihuahuan ecosystem protected by the park in West Texas.

Jon Jarvis took a detour from the typical retirement path after his National Park Service career, which he wrapped up with eight years as director of that agency. Instead of traveling for enjoyment and relaxation, he's working to help guide the Park Service's approach to climate change from outside the agency.

As delegates from nearly 200 countries gathered for the recent international conference on climate change, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres decried the “utterly inadequate” global response to the crisis so far. He warned that the “point of no return is no longer over the horizon” but that “It is in sight and hurtling toward us.” Nowhere are the consequences more visibly “hurtling,” and landing, than in Alaska. And in the northern state’s national parks and preserves, that means growing pressures on the very resources the National Park Service is charged with protecting.

You still can find some climate change information on the vast nps.gov domain, but there isn't much that's terribly recent. That's a troubling development when if you believe the National Parks Conservation Association's contention that climate change was a significant concern for 80 percent of all national park units.