PubMed · 10710786
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J S Wettlaufer, J G Dash. 2000. Melting below zero.. https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican0200-50
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The warming of the Alaskan Arctic during the past 150 years has accelerated over the last three decades and is expected to increase vegetation productivity in tundra if shrubs become more abundant; indeed, this transition may already be under way according to local plot studies and remote sensing. Here we present evidence for a widespread increase in shrub abundance over more than 320 km of Arctic landscape during the past 50 years, based on a comparison of historic and modern aerial photographs. This expansion will alter the partitioning of energy in summer and the trapping and distribution of snow in winter, as well as increasing the amount of carbon stored in a region that is believed to be a net source of carbon dioxide.
Interannual variability in aboveground net primary production (ANPP) was assessed with long-term (mean = 12 years) data from 11 Long Term Ecological Research sites across North America. The greatest interannual variability in ANPP occurred in grasslands and old fields, with forests the least variable. At a continental scale, ANPP was strongly correlated with annual precipitation. However, interannual variability in ANPP was not related to variability in precipitation. Instead, maximum variability in ANPP occurred in biomes where high potential growth rates of herbaceous vegetation were combined with moderate variability in precipitation. In the most dynamic biomes, ANPP responded more strongly to wet than to dry years. Recognition of the fourfold range in ANPP dynamics across biomes and of the factors that constrain this variability is critical for detecting the biotic impacts of global change phenomena.
The problem of the radioactive pollution of the ice cover is discussed in this paper. An estimation of the possible transport of the radionuclides by drifting ice from the Kara Sea into the Arctic Ocean is presented. The conclusion about the importance of the contribution of drifting ice to the contamination of the Greenland coastal water is based on the comparison of estimates of the multiyear export of radioactive drifting ice from the Kara Sea with the observed concentrations of the radionuclides in the Greenland coastal water.