Icy surfaces impose challenges for northern societies, wildlife and agriculture. However, there have been relatively few studies of the impacts of anoxic ground ice on non-agricultural plants. During the winter of 2009–2010, an extreme winter warming event led to thick ground-ice layer development in the world’s northernmost botanical garden in Tromsø, in subarctic Norway, due to much rain on ...

As the Arctic warms, vegetation is responding, and satellite measures indicate widespread greening at high latitudes. This ‘greening of the Arctic’ is among the world’s most important large-scale ecological responses to global climate change. However, a consensus is emerging that the underlying causes and future dynamics of so-called Arctic greening and browning trends are more complex, variable ...

Vegetation indices are corner stones in vegetation monitoring. However, previous field studies on lichens and NDVI have been based on passive sensors. Active handheld sensors, with their own light sources, enables high- precision monitoring under variable ambient conditions. We investigated the use of handheld sensor NDVI for monitoring pale lichen cover across three study sites from boreal heathlands ...

Research in global change ecology relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature in open areas at around 2 m above the ground. These climatic grids do not reflect conditions below vegetation canopies and near the ground surface, where critical ecosystem functions occur and most terrestrial species reside. Here, we provide global maps of soil temperature and bioclimatic ...

Climate change-induced snow thaw and subsequent accumulation of ice on the ground is a potential, major threat to snow-dominated ecosystems. While impacts of ground-ice on arctic wildlife are well explored, the impacts on tundra vegetation is far from understood. We therefore tested the vulnerability of two high-arctic plants, the prostrate shrub <i>Salix polaris</i> and the graminoid <i>Luzula ...

<i>Allocetraria madreporiformis</i> is a small, finger-like, fruticose lichen with isolated occurrences in the inner fiord section of the long, straight fiord Wijdefjorden in Svalbard. Several new localities are added and mapped here, and we show that the species is confined to exclusive high-arctic steppe habitats on finetextured, moderately alkaline soil, exposed to wind erosion and aeolian transport ...

This report summarises consequences of a planned wind park at the Sneqord peninsula, Måsøy municipality. Impact assessments are conducted for landscape perspectives, flora, fauna, outdoor recreation, cultural heritage and reindeer herding. The whole peninsula, 150 km2. is evaluated, with the main focus on higher parts where the potential wind turbines will be located. For the landscape, a wind park ...

Use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) gives the opportunity to carry out research with a re-duced environmental footprint. Unmanned aircraft, including both fixed wing and multi rotor types (helicopters) allow us to collect very high resolution image data for vegetation mapping without the need for any personnel walking into the site and thereby potentially disturbing the sensitive Arctic ecosystems. ...

I 2006 og 2007 ble deler av de eldre elveforbygningene ved Bones i Salangselva i Troms restaurert. Et eldre elveløp samt et større meander ble igjen åpnet for vann-gjennomstrømning samt at det ble gjennomført flere mindre justeringer på det gam-le inngrepet. NINA og Akvaplan-niva ble engasjert av NVE for å vurdere eventuelle miljøeffekter av restaureringstiltaket. Det ble gjennomført for- og ...