Arctic climate shifts drive rapid ecosystem responses across the West Greenland landscape
Abstract Prediction of high latitude response to climate change is hampered by poor understanding of the role of nonlinear changes in ecosystem forcing and response. While the effects of nonlinear climate change are often delayed or dampened by internal ecosystem dynamics, recent warming events in t...
Published in: | Environmental Research Letters |
---|---|
Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
Other Authors: | , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | unknown |
Published: |
IOP Publishing
2019
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab2928 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab2928 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab2928/pdf |
id |
crioppubl:10.1088/1748-9326/ab2928 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
crioppubl:10.1088/1748-9326/ab2928 2024-09-15T18:02:10+00:00 Arctic climate shifts drive rapid ecosystem responses across the West Greenland landscape Saros, Jasmine E Anderson, Nicholas John Juggins, Stephen McGowan, Suzanne Yde, Jacob C Telling, Jon Bullard, Joanna E Yallop, Marian L Heathcote, Adam J Burpee, Benjamin T Fowler, Rachel A Barry, Christopher D Northington, Robert M Osburn, Christopher L Pla-Rabes, Sergi Mernild, Sebastian H Whiteford, Erika J Andrews, M Grace Kerby, Jeffrey T Post, Eric National Science Foundation Natural Environment Research Council 2019 http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab2928 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab2928 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab2928/pdf unknown IOP Publishing http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://iopscience.iop.org/info/page/text-and-data-mining Environmental Research Letters volume 14, issue 7, page 074027 ISSN 1748-9326 journal-article 2019 crioppubl https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab2928 2024-08-12T04:14:18Z Abstract Prediction of high latitude response to climate change is hampered by poor understanding of the role of nonlinear changes in ecosystem forcing and response. While the effects of nonlinear climate change are often delayed or dampened by internal ecosystem dynamics, recent warming events in the Arctic have driven rapid environmental response, raising questions of how terrestrial and freshwater systems in this region may shift in response to abrupt climate change. We quantified environmental responses to recent abrupt climate change in West Greenland using long-term monitoring and paleoecological reconstructions. Using >40 years of weather data, we found that after 1994, mean June air temperatures shifted 2.2 °C higher and mean winter precipitation doubled from 21 to 40 mm; since 2006, mean July air temperatures shifted 1.1 °C higher. Nonlinear environmental responses occurred with or shortly after these abrupt climate shifts, including increasing ice sheet discharge, increasing dust, advancing plant phenology, and in lakes, earlier ice out and greater diversity of algal functional traits. Our analyses reveal rapid environmental responses to nonlinear climate shifts, underscoring the highly responsive nature of Arctic ecosystems to abrupt transitions. Article in Journal/Newspaper Climate change Greenland Ice Sheet IOP Publishing Environmental Research Letters 14 7 074027 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
IOP Publishing |
op_collection_id |
crioppubl |
language |
unknown |
description |
Abstract Prediction of high latitude response to climate change is hampered by poor understanding of the role of nonlinear changes in ecosystem forcing and response. While the effects of nonlinear climate change are often delayed or dampened by internal ecosystem dynamics, recent warming events in the Arctic have driven rapid environmental response, raising questions of how terrestrial and freshwater systems in this region may shift in response to abrupt climate change. We quantified environmental responses to recent abrupt climate change in West Greenland using long-term monitoring and paleoecological reconstructions. Using >40 years of weather data, we found that after 1994, mean June air temperatures shifted 2.2 °C higher and mean winter precipitation doubled from 21 to 40 mm; since 2006, mean July air temperatures shifted 1.1 °C higher. Nonlinear environmental responses occurred with or shortly after these abrupt climate shifts, including increasing ice sheet discharge, increasing dust, advancing plant phenology, and in lakes, earlier ice out and greater diversity of algal functional traits. Our analyses reveal rapid environmental responses to nonlinear climate shifts, underscoring the highly responsive nature of Arctic ecosystems to abrupt transitions. |
author2 |
National Science Foundation Natural Environment Research Council |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Saros, Jasmine E Anderson, Nicholas John Juggins, Stephen McGowan, Suzanne Yde, Jacob C Telling, Jon Bullard, Joanna E Yallop, Marian L Heathcote, Adam J Burpee, Benjamin T Fowler, Rachel A Barry, Christopher D Northington, Robert M Osburn, Christopher L Pla-Rabes, Sergi Mernild, Sebastian H Whiteford, Erika J Andrews, M Grace Kerby, Jeffrey T Post, Eric |
spellingShingle |
Saros, Jasmine E Anderson, Nicholas John Juggins, Stephen McGowan, Suzanne Yde, Jacob C Telling, Jon Bullard, Joanna E Yallop, Marian L Heathcote, Adam J Burpee, Benjamin T Fowler, Rachel A Barry, Christopher D Northington, Robert M Osburn, Christopher L Pla-Rabes, Sergi Mernild, Sebastian H Whiteford, Erika J Andrews, M Grace Kerby, Jeffrey T Post, Eric Arctic climate shifts drive rapid ecosystem responses across the West Greenland landscape |
author_facet |
Saros, Jasmine E Anderson, Nicholas John Juggins, Stephen McGowan, Suzanne Yde, Jacob C Telling, Jon Bullard, Joanna E Yallop, Marian L Heathcote, Adam J Burpee, Benjamin T Fowler, Rachel A Barry, Christopher D Northington, Robert M Osburn, Christopher L Pla-Rabes, Sergi Mernild, Sebastian H Whiteford, Erika J Andrews, M Grace Kerby, Jeffrey T Post, Eric |
author_sort |
Saros, Jasmine E |
title |
Arctic climate shifts drive rapid ecosystem responses across the West Greenland landscape |
title_short |
Arctic climate shifts drive rapid ecosystem responses across the West Greenland landscape |
title_full |
Arctic climate shifts drive rapid ecosystem responses across the West Greenland landscape |
title_fullStr |
Arctic climate shifts drive rapid ecosystem responses across the West Greenland landscape |
title_full_unstemmed |
Arctic climate shifts drive rapid ecosystem responses across the West Greenland landscape |
title_sort |
arctic climate shifts drive rapid ecosystem responses across the west greenland landscape |
publisher |
IOP Publishing |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab2928 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab2928 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab2928/pdf |
genre |
Climate change Greenland Ice Sheet |
genre_facet |
Climate change Greenland Ice Sheet |
op_source |
Environmental Research Letters volume 14, issue 7, page 074027 ISSN 1748-9326 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://iopscience.iop.org/info/page/text-and-data-mining |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab2928 |
container_title |
Environmental Research Letters |
container_volume |
14 |
container_issue |
7 |
container_start_page |
074027 |
_version_ |
1810439473811423232 |