Plants in the Arctic are growing taller because of climate change, according to research from a global scientific collaboration.
While the region is usually thought of as a vast, desolate landscape of ice, it is in fact home to hundreds of species of low-lying shrubs, grasses and other plants that play a critical role in carbon cycling and energy balance.
Now, a team of experts led by the University of Edinburgh has discovered that the effects of climate change are behind an increase in plant height across the tundra over the past 30 years.
Species spread
As well as the Arctic’s native plants growing in stature, in the southern reaches of the Arctic taller species of plants are spreading across the tundra.
Vernal sweetgrass, which is common in lowland Europe, has now moved in to sites in Iceland and Sweden.
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh and the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (BiK-F) in Frankfurt led the international team of 130 scientists in the project, funded by NERC.
More than 60,000 data observations from hundreds of sites across the Arctic and alpine tundra were analysed to produce the findings, which were published in Nature.
Fast-changing
Rapid climate warming in the Arctic and alpine regions is driving changes in the structure and composition of plant communities.
This has important consequences for how this vast and sensitive ecosystem functions.
Arctic regions have long been a focus for climate change research, as the permafrost lying under the northern latitudes contains 30 to 50 percent of the world’s soil carbon.
Taller plants trap more snow, which insulates the underlying soil and prevents it from freezing as quickly in winter.
An increase in taller plants could speed up the thawing of this frozen carbon bank, and lead to an increase in the release of greenhouse gases.
“We found that the increase in height didn’t happen in just a few sites, it was nearly everywhere across the tundra. If taller plants continue to increase at the current rate, the plant community height could increase by 20 to 60 percent by the end of the century.”
Quantifying the link between environment and plant traits is critical to understanding the consequences of climate change, but such research has rarely extended into the Northern hemisphere, home to the planet’s coldest tundra ecosystems. This is the first time that a biome-scale study has been carried out to get to the root of the critical role that plants play in this rapidly warming part of the planet.
The team now has a comprehensive data set on Arctic tundra plants, collected from sites in Alaska, Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia and Russia.
Alpine sites in the European Alps and Colorado Rockies were also included in the study.
The team assessed relationships between temperature, soil moisture and key traits that represent plants’ form and function.
Plant height and leaf area were analysed and tracked, along with specific leaf area, leaf nitrogen content and leaf dry matter content, as well as woodiness and evergreenness.
Surprisingly, only height was found to increase strongly over time.
Plant traits were strongly influenced by moisture levels in addition to temperature.
While most climate change models and research have focused on increasing temperatures, our research has shown that soil moisture can play a much greater role in changing plant traits than we previously thought. We need to understand more about soil moisture in the Arctic. Precipitation is likely to increase in the region, but that’s just one factor that affects soil moisture levels.
This research is a vital step in improving our understanding of how Arctic and alpine vegetation is responding to climate change. Shrub growth and expansion could have a profound impact not only on the Arctic ecosystem, but also further afield if it results in an increase in the release of greenhouse gases.”
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They just need to eat from the other side of the ‘shroom.
From the article: “Rapid climate warming in the Arctic and alpine regions”
Hyperbole.
Please define “rapid” in this context.
Both my kids are taller than me. Must be the global warming…
Different father?
Ah no, not too tall.
Its becoming to real now the horror of climate change.
All the leaves falling off the tree’s and the plants dying here, its like a bad movie.
Don’t get me started with that. Recently they clear-cut all of the old-growth corn fields around here. The devastation is heart-rending. Our grandchildren will not know corn.
+++++many as i wipe the monitor;-) 😉
Those poor starved Arctic plants would be also appreciating all that beautiful nourishing extra CO2 too along with the beneficial warmth that has happened along.
Its called the “Greening of the Planet”thanks to all the CO2, helped by the likes of India and China.
MJE
Jeezuz! Here we go again. To look at a natural plant and tell it it is not growing ”correctly” is total insanity.
I think you mistake the “Green Movement” as being for an increase in plant life on Earth. They are actually promoting the green (synonymous with money) going into the pockets of politicians as payment for laws and regulations which lead to the destruction of industrial civilization. The latter has been their goal since the New Left emerged in the 1960s.
“carbon bank”
Oh do f&%$ off.
“Vernal sweetgrass, which is common in lowland Europe, has now moved in to sites in Iceland and Sweden.”
Nonsense. Vernal Sweetgrass is ubiquitous in Sweden and has been at least since Linnaeus’ days back in the LIA (not much data before that). Here is a map of the distribution from Hulténs “Atlas över växternas utbredning i Norden” (1950):
http://linnaeus.nrm.se/flora/mono/poa/antho/anthodon.jpg
Just where is it supposed to be moving in?
And the world distribution, from the same source:
http://linnaeus.nrm.se/flora/mono/poa/antho/anthodov.jpg
It is indeed absent from central Iceland which is almost completely vegetationless, so I suppose it might be spreading there.
For those not familiar with Eric Hultén, he was the worlds’ leading authority on arctic plants.
Well spotted! Another BS lie exposed.
tty,
But has it been in alpine sites? That, I believe, is the issue here. I don’t read Swedish, but I’m guessing the bottom distribution on the Sweden map says something like “up to 600 m in the north.”
This suggests A odoratum doesn’t flower in alpine areas, while it does in lowlands. From 1999. Different area, I’m guessing, but may be relevant?
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4201345?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
(Remember, it’s just a PR, which often aren’t very accurate with details!)
“The team now has a comprehensive data set on Arctic tundra plants, collected from sites in Alaska, Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia and Russia.”
And by the way there is no tundra in Scandinavia since permafrost only occurs very locally. Only montane heath.
But that organic carbon didn’t get there by plants growing when the ground was frozen or covered with ice/snow. Plants grow when it is warmer. The alarmist viewpoint about a warming Arctic is broken from the start.
The fact that they contain so much carbon suggests that when they are active/thawed they are a carbon sink.
“the permafrost lying under the northern latitudes contains 30 to 50 percent of the world’s soil carbon”
And this carbon is trapped because the ground stays frozen. BUT the carbon had to get there somehow and to do so the soil MUST have been unfrozen at some time in the past.
So if temperatures were high enough long enough to unfreeze the ground and allow all this carbon to be stored, then why didn’t those previous higher temperatures for an extended period cause all the problems we are being told they will cause this time? And how did the temperature ever decrease to freeze the now carbon rich soil if we are being told this time those temperatures will cause a run away greenhouse?
“An increase in taller plants could speed up the thawing of this frozen carbon bank, and lead to an increase in the release of greenhouse gases.” It would seem any nature story has to have some reference to how it impacts or is impacted by climate change. It seems to be the only topic that matters.
John,
Those stories that talk about a link with climate change are the only ones likely to be discussed here. It isn’t exactly an unbiased sample.
The title of this post, by enclosing in quotation marks, “too tall,” suggests that phrase is used somewhere in the post itself. It doesn’t.
Some have commented about the fact that there is all this carbon stored in the soil, suggesting the climate has been warmer. Well, yes. No one has denied that.
“So if temperatures were high enough long enough to unfreeze the ground and allow all this carbon to be stored, then why didn’t those previous higher temperatures for an extended period cause all the problems we are being told they will cause this time? And how did the temperature ever decrease to freeze the now carbon rich soil if we are being told this time those temperatures will cause a run away greenhouse?” (mm1palmer)
Whether something is a “problem” depends a lot on the rate of warming or cooling, and how humans and other organisms adapt to the change.
The decrease in temperature could have been due to a variety of circumstances (the sun, a period of strong volcanic activity, capture of CO2 by plants and geological processes…). There have always been changes in the Earth’s climate.
I think the idea of the “runaway greenhouse effect” was seized by the media based on a few papers without discussing the kinds of conditions necessary for it to happen. The idea that it’s likely to occur due to human causes has been pretty well debunked, though it could happen in a couple billion years as the sun heats up.
How revealing that so many comments here are about the stupidity of the researchers. It’s as if, based on a PR, WUWT readers know all there is to know about not only this research, but all research related to it. Just because the PR doesn’t discuss the effects of CO2 uptake, for example, that must mean that no one has.
What arrogance to consider oneself to be smarter and better informed than those who have spent years studying something.
It’s so easy to despise the knowledge of others, especially when they acknowledge that they don’t know everything there is to know. That, in turn, makes it easy to dismiss whatever evidence scientists come up with to support any hypotheses about climate change.
Jibes and insults suggest ignorance and inability to consider something rationally than to any failing of the scientists. At least read the paper before trashing the work.