The Torneträsk System - A basis for predicting future subarctic ecosystems
Arctic and subarctic areas have experienced a rapid warming and substantial increases in precipitation in recent decades. The frequency and intensity of some extreme events, such as fires, winter warming events, extreme rainfall, and droughts, has also increased. These climatic changes and other ant...
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| Format: | Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University
2022
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| Online Access: | https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/27d2c5fd-3849-434b-9b4a-30db0414dec0 https://portal.research.lu.se/files/126720587/KAPPA_thesis_summary.pdf |
| Summary: | Arctic and subarctic areas have experienced a rapid warming and substantial increases in precipitation in recent decades. The frequency and intensity of some extreme events, such as fires, winter warming events, extreme rainfall, and droughts, has also increased. These climatic changes and other anthropogenic factors have caused profound changes in arctic and subarctic ecosystems with important implications for the local residents and for the global population, which are likely to exacerbate under the predicted climate change scenarios. Thus, a better understanding of potential future ecosystem changes is paramount for defining climate change mitigation goals and adaptation strategies.Dynamic ecosystem models are powerful tools to study the influences of climatic and other drivers on ecosystem processes. Nevertheless, predictions of ecosystem changes still hold large uncertainties, arising mostly from insufficient observational data, lack of process understanding, difficulties in quantifying the effects of different ecosystem processes and their interactions, and/or model limitations in representing these interacting processes. The Torneträsk area, in the Swedish subarctic, has an unrivalled history of environmental observations spanning over 100 years, and is one of the most studied sites in the Arctic. The area has undergone substantial climatic and ecosystem changes. By studying its rapidly-transforming ecosystems we can obtain critically important information needed to improve our understanding and predictions of future ecosystem changes at a larger scale. This thesis summarized and ranked the direct and indirect drivers of ecosystem change in the Torneträsk area, and proposed research priorities to improve predictions of ecosystem change. Winter warming events (WWEs) were the top-ranked research priority. Hence, this thesis further examined the impacts of WWEs on subarctic ecosystems using monitoring data, manipulation experiments and modelling. The monitoring and manipulation data suggest an increasingly ... |
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