The World in 2050_ Four Forces Shaping Civilization's Northern Future - Laurence C. Smith [157]
296 Hill and Gaddy use the term Siberian Curse to argue that Soviet planners shortchanged their country economically by seeking to develop its cold hinterlands. I am co-opting the term here to more broadly include biological factors as well. F. Hill and C. Gaddy, The Siberian Curse (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2003), 303 pp.
297 This summary drawn from Chapter 2, “Arctic Climate: Past and Present,” of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 1,042 pp.; and Working Group II Report, Chapter 15, “Polar Regions,” of the IPCC AR4 (2007). See also S. J. Déry, R. D. Brown, “Recent Northern Hemisphere Snow Cover Extent Trends and Implications for the Snow-Albedo Feedback,” Geophysical Research Letters 34, no. 22 (2007): L22504. Much of the observed warming is not caused by greenhouse forcing directly, but instead to atmospheric circulation changes, suggesting that the Arctic is just in the early stages of the human-induced greenhouse gas signature. M. C. Serreze, J. A. Francis, “The Arctic Amplification Debate,” Climatic Change 76 (2006): 241-264.
298 For example, a +8% increase in peak greenness north of 65° N latitude from 1982 to 1990; a +17% increase in northern Alaska from 1981 to 2001. R. Myneni et al., “Increased Plant Growth in the Northern Latitudes from 1982 to 1991,” Nature 386 (1997): 698-702; G. J. Jia, H. E. Epstein, D. A. Walker, “Greening of Arctic Alaska, 1981-2001,” Geophysical Research Letters 30, no. 20 (2003): 2067; also M. Sturm, C. Racine, K. Tape, “Climate Change: Increasing Shrub Abundance in the Arctic,” Nature 411 (2001): 546-547; I. Gamach, S. Payette, “Height Growth Response of Tree Line Black Spruce to Recent Climate Warming across the Forest-Tundra of Eastern Canada,” Journal of Ecology 92 (2004): 835-845.
299 Arctic-wide average net primary productivity is forecast to rise from 2.8 to 4.9 Pg C/year by the 2080s under the “optimistic” IPCC B2 scenario, Table 7.13, ACIA (2005).
300 This paragraph and others drawn from personal interviews and anecdotes collected 2006/2007 throughout Canada, Alaska, and Finland, including Fort Chipewyan, Fort McMurray, Cumberland House, Whitehorse, High Level, Hay River, Yellowknife, Churchill, Fairbanks, and Barrow. Also G. Beaugrand et al., “Reorganization of North Atlantic Marine Copepod Biodiversity and Climate,” Science 296 (2002): 1692-1694; A. L. Perry et al., “Climate Change and Distribution Shifts in Marine Fishes,” Science 308 (2005): 1912-1915; N. S. Morozov, “Changes in the Timing of Migration and Winter Records of the Common Buzzard (Buteo buteo) in the Central Part of European Russia: The Effect of Global Warming?” Zoologichesky Zhurnal 86, no. 11 (2007): 1336-1355; G. Jansson, A. Pehrson, “The Recent Expansion of the Brown Hare (Lepus europaeus) in Sweden with Possible Implications to the Mountain Hare (L. timidus),” European Journal of Wildlife Research 53 (2007): 125-130; N. H. Ogden, “Climate Change and the Potential for Range Expansion of the Lyme Disease Vector Ixodes scapularis in Canada,” International Journal for Parasitology 36, no. 1 (2006): 63-70; S. Sharma et al., “Will Northern Fish Populations Be in Hot Water Because of Climate Change?” Global Change Biology 13 (2007): 2052-2064; S. Jarema et al., “Variation in Abundance across a Species’ Range Predicts Climate Change Responses in the Range Interior Will Exceed Those at the Edge: A Case Study with North American Beaver,” Global Change Biology 15 (2009): 508-522.
301 Cartoons and children’s books that show penguins and polar bears coexisting together perpetuate a widespread myth about their geographic distribution. Polar bears are found only in the far northern hemisphere. Penguins are found only in the southern hemisphere. Unlike the Arctic, with its bears,