Role of Land-Surface Changes in Arctic Summer Warming

A major challenge in predicting Earth's future climate state is to understand feedbacks that alter greenhouse-gas forcing. Here we synthesize field data from arctic Alaska, showing that terrestrial changes in summer albedo contribute substantially to recent high-latitude warming trends. Pronoun...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science
Main Authors: Chapin, F. S., Sturm, M., Serreze, M. C., McFadden, J. P., Key, J. R., Lloyd, A. H., McGuire, A. D., Rupp, T. S., Lynch, A. H., Schimel, J. P., Beringer, J., Chapman, W. L., Epstein, H. E., Euskirchen, E. S., Hinzman, L. D., Jia, G., Ping, C.-L., Tape, K. D., Thompson, C. D. C., Walker, D. A., Welker, J. M.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 2005
Subjects:
Arctic
albedo
Alaska
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1117368
https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.1117368
Description
Summary:A major challenge in predicting Earth's future climate state is to understand feedbacks that alter greenhouse-gas forcing. Here we synthesize field data from arctic Alaska, showing that terrestrial changes in summer albedo contribute substantially to recent high-latitude warming trends. Pronounced terrestrial summer warming in arctic Alaska correlates with a lengthening of the snow-free season that has increased atmospheric heating locally by about 3 watts per square meter per decade (similar in magnitude to the regional heating expected over multiple decades from a doubling of atmospheric CO 2 ). The continuation of current trends in shrub and tree expansion could further amplify this atmospheric heating by two to seven times.

Similar Items