Essay On Tundra

Tundra is the coldest of all the biomes on earth. Tundra comes from the Finnish word tunturia, which means treeless plain. It is a distinctive biome due to its peat covered landscapes, extremely low temperatures, little precipitation, poor nutrients, and short growing seasons which all act as driving factors. Tundra is found at latitudes 60° to 70° North, with the majority in Canada and Russia. Like the ocean, tundra is one of Earth's major carbon dioxide sinks. A carbon dioxide sink is a biomass which takes in more carbon dioxide than it releases. Carbon dioxide is a major greenhouse gas that contributes to global climate change. During the short summer tundra's vegetation takes in carbon dioxide, sunlight and water through the process of photosynthesis. The plants normally give off carbon dioxide after they die and decompose. But because of the short, cool summer and freezing winter temperatures of the tundra, plants can't decompose and the carbon dioxide is not released. The remains of plants thousands of years old have been found in the tundra’s layer of decomposing vegetation called permafrost. This is how the tundra traps the carbon dioxide and removes it from the atmosphere thus making it a sink. Today the global warming trend is melting the permafrost of the tundra and every year several feet of tundra are lost. As the tundra’s permafrost melts, the plant mass can now decompose and return the carbon dioxide to the atmosphere making it now a source and further exacerbating the problem. Very resent studies have found that there is a correlation between the effects of global warming and the melting of permafrost and if this trend continues there is no telling if we can halt it.

4. Introduction

The tundra is a very delicate en...

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...that something must be done to slow the global warming trend and help preserve the fragile tundra biome. There is clear evidence for increases in temperature, and in turn the melting of sea ice and changes in precipitation amounts. It will be interesting to see how plants and animals who call this biome home will adapt and evolve over time to these new climatic conditions. It is not just plants and animals that could be affected by global warming, humans will also have to adapt to the changes within their own respective biomes. There is no telling what the tundra biome will look like thousands of years from now or if it will even exist because of global warming but something must be done to preserve the youngest of the biomes. There is clearly a “snow ball effect” from the global warming trend and the melting of the permafrost within the tundra will only enhance it.