Widespread Arctic Warming Crosses Critical Ecological Thresholds
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050308100441.htm
Kingston, ON – Unprecedented and maybe irreversible effects of Arctic warming, linked to human intervention, have been discovered by a team of international researchers led by Queen’s University biologist John Smol and University of Alberta earth scientist Alexander Wolfe.
The researchers have found dramatic new evidence of changes in the community composition of freshwater algae, water fleas and insect larvae (the base of most aquatic food webs) in a large new study that covers five circumpolar countries extending halfway around the world and 30 degrees of latitude spanning boreal forest to high arctic tundra ecosystems.
“This is an important compilation of data that human interference is affecting ecosystems on a profound scale,” says Dr. Smol, Canada Research Chair in Environmental Change and 2004 winner of Canada’s top science award, the Gerhard Herzberg Gold Medal. “We’re crossing ecological thresholds here, as shown by changes in biota associated with climate-related phenomena like receding ice cover in lakes. Once you pass these thresholds it’s hard to go back.”
The team’s findings, in the largest study of its kind, will be published the week of February 28 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).