ENRI director contributes to recent issue of 'Nature Climate Change'

Environment and Natural Resources Institute (ENRI) Director Jeffrey Welker, Ph.D., and 46 national and international coauthors have published a letter in the June 2012 issue of Nature Climate Change (Elmendorf, et al. 2012) that documents plot-level evidence of the effects of a changing global climate on Arctic ecosystems.

In the article, "Plot-scale evidence of tundra vegetation change and links to recent summer warming," this team of scientists analyzed data gathered over the 30-year period between 1980 and 2010 from more than 150 ecosystems and 40 locales in the circumpolar region. Their analysis shows that the height of the plant canopy has increased at the plot level throughout the Arctic during this time period, that bare ground has diminished and that the prevalence of shrubs and other vascular plants has increased.

Studies of differences among the various sites show that the amount of summer warming that each site experienced is correlated with the increase in prevalence of shrubs, forbs and rushes; ecosystem moisture levels and the absence or presence of permafrost also affected the increase in vascular plants.

The letter is available online at http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v2/n6/full/nclimate1465.html.