Arctic turning green with climate change

Plant life is starting to grow more vigorously in the arctic thanks to climate change, according to Nasa.

"Higher northern latitudes are getting warmer, Arctic sea ice and the duration of snow cover are diminishing, the growing season is getting longer and plants are growing more," Ranga Myneni of Boston University's Department of Earth and Environment told Nasa.

"In the north's Arctic and boreal areas, the characteristics of the seasons are changing, leading to great disruptions for plants and related ecosystems."

A team of university and Nasa scientists examined the relationship between surface temperature and vegetation growth from 45 degrees north latitude to the arctic ocean, and found that temperature and vegetation growth new resemble that found 4 to 6 degrees farther south of that latitude as recently as 1982.

"It's like Winnipeg, Manitoba, moving to Minneapolis-Saint Paul in only 30 years," said co-author Compton Tucker of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

In order to figure out what was going to happen in the future, Nasa reports that the researchers used 17 models. These showed that warmer temperatures would mean a 20 degree latitude shift by the end of this century compared to the period 1951 to 1980.

The scientists cautioned however that this would not necessarily mean more plant growth.

"Satellite data identify areas in the boreal zone that are warmer and dryer and other areas that are warmer and wetter," said co-author Ramakrishna Nemani of Nasa's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "Only the warmer and wetter areas support more growth."

You can read the full story on Nasa.gov.