Recent climate warming drives ecological change in a remote high-Arctic lake

Abstract The high Arctic is the fastest warming region on Earth, evidenced by extreme near-surface temperature increase in non-summer seasons, recent rapid sea ice decline and permafrost melting since the early 1990’s. Understanding the impact of climate change on the sensitive Arctic ecosystem to c...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific Reports
Main Authors: Lineke Woelders, Jan T. M. Lenaerts, Kimberley Hagemans, Keechy Akkerman, Thomas B. van Hoof, Wim Z. Hoek
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Nature Portfolio 2018
Subjects:
Medicine
R
Science
Q
Arctic
Svalbard
Arctic Lake
Barentsøya
Climate change
Ice
permafrost
Sea ice
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-25148-7
https://doaj.org/article/658f753be8ee45cc9852812fb5b25448
Description
Summary:Abstract The high Arctic is the fastest warming region on Earth, evidenced by extreme near-surface temperature increase in non-summer seasons, recent rapid sea ice decline and permafrost melting since the early 1990’s. Understanding the impact of climate change on the sensitive Arctic ecosystem to climate change has so far been hampered by the lack of time-constrained, high-resolution records and by implicit climate data analyses. Here, we show evidence of sharp growth in freshwater green algae as well as distinct diatom assemblage changes since ~1995, retrieved from a high-Arctic (80 °N) lake sediment record on Barentsøya (Svalbard). The proxy record approaches an annual to biennial resolution. Combining remote sensing and in-situ climate data, we show that this ecological change is concurrent with, and is likely driven by, the atmospheric warming and a sharp decrease in the length of the sea ice covered period in the region, and throughout the Arctic. Moreover, this research demonstrates the value of palaeoclimate records in pristine environments for supporting and extending instrumental records. Our results reinforce and extend observations from other sites that the high Arctic has already undergone rapid ecological changes in response to on-going climate change, and will continue to do so in the future.

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