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 degrees C higher and mean winter precipitation doubled from 21 to 40 mm; since 2006, mean July air temperatures shifted 1.1 degrees 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.
1.Univ Maine, Climate Change Inst, Orono, ME 04469 USA 2.Univ Maine, Sch Biol & Ecol, Orono, ME 04469 USA 3.Loughborough Univ, Dept Geog, Loughborough, Leics, England 4.Newcastle Univ, Sch Geog Polit & Sociol, Newcastle, England 5.Univ Nottingham, Sch Geog, Nottingham NG7 2RD, England 6.Western Norway Univ Appl Sci, Dept Environm Sci, Sogndal, Norway 7.Newcastle Univ, Sch Nat & Environm Sci, Newcastle, England 8.Univ Bristol, Sch Biol Sci, Bristol, Avon, England 9.Sci Museum Minnesota, St Croix Watershed Res Stn, St Paul, MN USA 10.Ctr Ecol & Hydrol, Bangor LL57 2UW, Gwynedd, Wales 11.North Carolina State Univ, Dept Marine Earth & Atmospher Sci North, Raleigh, NC USA 12.Ctr Ecol Res & Forestry Applicat, CREAF, Barcelona, Spain 13.Nansen Environm & Remote Sensing Ctr, Bergen, Norway 14.Univ Magallanes, Antarctic & Subantarctic Program, Punta Arenas, Chile 15.Nottingham Trent Univ, Sch Sci & Technol, Nottingham, England 16.Univ Southampton, Natl Oceanog Ctr, Ocean & Earth Sci, Southampton, Hants, England 17.Dartmouth Coll, Neukom Inst Computat Sci, Hanover, NH 03755 USA 18.Univ Calif Davis, Dept Wildlife Fish & Conservat Biol, Davis, CA 95616 USA
Recommended Citation:
Saros, Jasmine E.,Anderson, Nicholas John,Juggins, Stephen,et al. Arctic climate shifts drive rapid ecosystem responses across the West Greenland landscape[J]. ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH LETTERS,2019-01-01,14(7)