What is tundra?
World’s coldest and driest biomes
- Located at latitudes 55° to 70° North( circumnavigating the North pole)
- 3 types of tundra: Arctic tundra, alpine tundra, and Antarctic tundra
- vast and treeless land which covers about 20% of the Earth’s surface
- cold, and the land is pretty stark
- low growing plants like mosses, heaths, and lichen
- covered with marshes, lakes, bogs and streams(When melt)
- insects and many migrating birds
- main seasons are winter and summer
- winds can blow between 30 to 60 miles per hour
Direct changes on tundra because of global warming
- Winter temperatures have increased
- Snow and sea ice coverage have shrunk
- unprecedented mass-melting
- glaciers are in retreat throughout the Arctic
Deeper influence according to these changes
- The permafrost is starting to melt
- pent-up carbon is already leaking into the air in the form of CO2 and CH4 powerful greenhouse gases
- They release CO2 and CH4 into the air as by products, gases that warm the planet by trapping heat energy from the sun
- allow plants to grow vigorously
- suck up huge amounts of carbon out from the atmosphere through photosynthesis(perhaps even enough to cancel out greenhouse gas emissions from the soil)
- Arctic soils harbour two to three times more carbon than is currently aloft in Earth’s atmosphere
