As scientists attempt to understand how climate change has affected the globe, a new study suggests that the Arctic region is "under-sampled".
The Arctic region experiences severe environmental changes provoked by global temperature rise. In order to quantify those changes, field surveys and sampling need to be implemented in less investigated areas.
A new research effort, conducted by the University of Helsinki and Lund University in Sweden examined the areas of interest and used a database of the fieldwork conducted in the past. "We utilize an existing literature database of around 1.800 field studies across the Arctic”, Dan Metcalfe, a senior lecturer in Lund University, stated. As a result, locations of potential site investigations that would provide data related to several environmental sciences (e.g. Geosciences, Geographic Information Systems, Meteorology, Remote Sensing, etc.) were identified.
The major characteristics to environmentally assess a region are the vegetation, topography and geology. During the past decade, new data regarding the aforementioned characteristics were collected. However, most field surveys were carried out in specific locations and do not account for the whole Arctic region.
The research team suggests that more field sampling should be conducted in the following regions:
Those regions are characterized by cold or frozen soils and moderate vegetation. As climate change has resulted in global warming, frozen soils may experience thaw, a fact that would drastically alter the surrounding environmental conditions. Nevertheless, the total impact of this phenomenon is not fully understood yet due to the lack of the necessary data. “We hope these results will help prioritize future research efforts across all environmental science disciplines, thus increasing our knowledge about the Arctic environmental change”, Miska Luoto, Professor of Physical Geography at the Department of Geosciences and Geography, University of Helsinki, stated.
Fortunately, the regions that need to be thoroughly studied are close to existing infrastructure, therefore making them relatively accessible. However, the authors point out that field surveys in the Arctic are very challenging due to the extreme weather so predicting the conditions and carefully planning the campaigns is of high importance.
Source: University of Helsinki
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