Slow March of Plants, Trees into Canadian Arctic Studied

Researchers with the National Research Council in Ottawa are using satellite photos to view how climate change is urging vegetation to move north.

Ian Olthof and his research team from Ottawa's National Research Council are using satellite photos of a national park in the western Arctic to show how climate change is prompting vegetation from southern Canada to slowly move into the tundra. This relocation may pose a threat to the northern ecosystem. The thousands of photos they are looking at are of Ivvavik National Park, which straddles the tree line west of Aklavik, N.W.T. The team is comparing the satellite images to similar photographs taken of the park 20 years ago in order to see how vegetation normally found in southern climates is slowly invading the tundra. "What we're primarily seeing is that there is an increase in vegetation in northern Canada," Olthof, who is with the council's Canada Centre for Remote Sensing, told CBC News in an interview. "Areas that were normally occupied by herbs, for example, are becoming occupied by shrubs. We're seeing a migration of the tree line northwards. These sorts of changes have implications on wildlife and the people who depend on wildlife in the North." The researchers also anticipate seeing shrubs and herbs displacing non-vascular plants, such as lichens and mosses, that have long existed on the tundra. Last month, the team visited the park for a closer view of the plants that are there. All the satellite images will be fed into a computer, then spend the team will spend the winter analyzing the data. They hope to have some preliminary results within a year. The migration of trees and plants such as willows and alders could have a disastrous effect on northern animals such as caribou. "If the tundra disappears, then these wildlife populations will disappear as well, and the whole way of life that goes along with it," he said.