Role of Land-Surface Changes in Arctic Summer Warming
Abstract
A major challenge in predicting Earth's future climate state is to understand feedbacks that alter greenhouse-gas forcing. Here we synthesize field data from arctic Alaska, showing that terrestrial changes in summer albedo contribute substantially to recent high-latitude warming trends. Pronounced terrestrial summer warming in arctic Alaska correlates with a lengthening of the snow-free season that has increased atmospheric heating locally by about 3 watts per square meter per decade (similar in magnitude to the regional heating expected over multiple decades from a doubling of atmospheric CO 2 ). The continuation of current trends in shrub and tree expansion could further amplify this atmospheric heating by two to seven times.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Oct 28, 2005
- Source ID
- 10.1126/science.1117368
Entities
People
- A. D. Mcguire
- A. H. Lloyd
- A. H. Lynch
- C. D. C. Thompson
- C.-l. Ping
- D. A. Walker
- E. S. Euskirchen
- F. S. Chapin Iii
- G. Jia
- H. E. Epstein
- J. Beringer
- J. M. Welker
- J. P. Mcfadden
- J. P. Schimel
- J. R. Key
- K. D. Tape
- L. D. Hinzman
- M. C. Serreze
- Martin Sturm
- T. S. Rupp
- W. L. Chapman
Organizations
- Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory
- University of Alaska Fairbanks
- University of Alaska System