Effects of Global Warming on the Arctic Tundra Biome

The Effect of Global Warming on the Arctic Tundra Biome

The climate system refers to the atmosphere , but there are close interactions with the seas and the oceans and with the land surface , in terms of fluxes of energy , water and carbon dioxide . The atmosphere has only a small buffer capacity , but the oceans and , to a lesser extent the glaciers and icecaps are gigantic buffers for heat and water

Tundra is a cold , vast , treeless region . The word tundra ' comes from the word tunter in the language of the Sami people . It

means treeless land . Most tundra 's are pretty flat , but some have mountains . Tundra 's have long , very cold winters and short , cool summers and sort , cool summers

The tundra has not that much of vegetation only about 1 ,700 various species , mostly shrubs , sedges , mosses grasses and lichens . The growing season of 400 varieties of flower is only about 50 to 60 days long . It is considered to be one of the Earth 's sink of carbon dioxide it is a biomass from which carbon dioxide takes than it releases . It is familiar to us that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas together with other gases found in the atmosphere

It is during the short summer where tundra 's plants take in carbon dioxide which also aids in the process of photosynthesis with the action of sunlight and water . It is a normal function for plants to give off carbon dioxide once they die and putrefy . Because of the climate of short , cool summer and freezing temperature that the tundra has therefore plants cannot decompose

The decayed plants thousands of years ago can be found in tundra permafrost , in this process carbon dioxides has been trapped in the tundra removing this gas from the atmosphere . But the present situation global warming is now melting the permafrost and for several years several feet of tundra are lost . When the tundra melts , the plant mass continue to decompose and returns CO2 to the atmosphere

The tundra is a place hard to live in because of its extreme cold temperatures , for a certain animal to live in the tundra it will takes time to cope up and adapt . The tundra is a functional land despite its delicate environment , the plants and animals that make it a home they possess the implausible adaptations to its cold environment

The bare , rocky ground is frozen and covered with snow for much of the year . Below the surface soil is a layer of permafrost . Arctic tundra 's have existed have existed for only 10 ,000 years . This makes the youngest biome on earth . A biome is a community of plants and animals that live together in a region and depend on each other

Permafrost is defined as a thermal condition in which soils and rocks remain at or below 0 degrees C for at least two consecutive years Consequently , water occurs as ice throughout the year in at least a portion of the...