A new measurement station near Umiujaq in Canada, a transition zone from forest to tundra. Credit: Florent Domine, Université Laval and CNRS, Canada
Key Points:
- A new study reveals the extent to which diverse Arctic vegetation plays in energy exchange.
- Depending on the type of vegetation, either the surface or the air can be warmed to varying degrees.
- Due to its changing nature, the study authors call for the creation of more climate stations in Arctic landscapes with limited data.
According to a new study that delves deep into energy exchange, the Arctic’s diverse vegetation—which is disregarded in climate models—is one of the key factors in the energy budget between the Earth’s land surface and the atmosphere.
“Remarkably, in summer the difference in heat flux between two types of vegetation——such as a landscape dominated by lichens and mosses and one with shrubs—is about the same as between the surface of glaciers and green grasslands,” said University of Zurich postdoctoral researcher Jacqueline Oehri, first author of the study.
Arctic vegetation is highly diverse and ranges from dry grasslands and wetlands to scrubland dominated by dwarf shrubs, as well as barrens with mosses and lichens. The researchers linked this vegetation diversity to all available energy exchange data collected by 64 measuring stations in the Arctic between 1994 and 2021.
Their focus was on the summer months between June and August, during which sunlight, and thus energy absorption, is particularly high. Depending on the type of vegetation, either the surface or the air is warmed to varying degrees. In addition, they found that with increasing shrub density, land warms up earlier after winter.
“The shrubs’ dark branches emerge from under the snow early, absorb sunlight and pass it on to the surface long before the snow melts away,” said Oehri.
The researchers say the study data, published in Nature Communications, allows others to incorporate the effects of different plant communities and their distribution into climate predictions, resulting in improved climate models.
Although the Arctic is changing rapidly and has a major impact on the climate dynamics of the entire planet, there are only few reliable measuring stations in this region. In addition to calling for current stations to remain in operation, the study authors believe new stations are needed in those Arctic landscape types that could only be partially analyzed due to incomplete data.
Information provided by University of Zurich.