A major challenge in predicting Earth's future climate state is to understand feedbacks that alter greenhouse-gas forcing. Here we synthesize field data from arctic Alaska, showing that terrestrial changes in summer albedo contribute substantially to recent high-latitude warming trends. Pronounced terrestrial summer warming in arctic Alaska correlates with a lengthening of the snow-free season that has increased atmospheric heating locally by about 3 watts per square meter per decade (similar in magnitude to the regional heating expected over multiple decades from a doubling of atmospheric CO2). The continuation of current trends in shrub and tree expansion could further amplify this atmospheric heating by two to seven times.

The Arctic climate is changing. Permafrost is warming, hydrological processes are changing and biological and social systems are also evolving in response to these changing conditions. Knowing how the structure and function of arctic terrestrial ecosystems are responding to recent and persistent climate change is paramount to understanding the future state of the Earth system and how humans will need to adapt. Our holistic review presents a broad array of evidence that illustrates convincingly; the Arctic is undergoing a system-wide response to an altered climatic state. New extreme and seasonal surface climatic conditions are being experienced, a range of biophysical states and processes influenced by the threshold and phase change of freezing point are being altered, hydrological and biogeochemical cycles are shifting, and more regularly human sub-systems are being affected. Importantly, the patterns, magnitude and mechanisms of change have sometimes been unpredictable or difficult to isolate due to compounding factors. In almost every discipline represented, we show Climatic Change (2005) 72: 251-298 how the biocomplexity of the Arctic system has highlighted and challenged a paucity of integrated scientific knowledge, the lack of sustained observational and experimental time series, and the technical and logistic constraints of researching the Arctic environment. This study supports ongoing efforts to strengthen the interdisciplinarity of arctic system science and improve the coupling of large scale experimental manipulation with sustained time series observations by incorporating and integrating novel technologies, remote sensing and modeling.

We examined relationships between tree ring-width and climate at 232 sites around the circumpolar boreal forest to explore variability in two types of response to temperature: a browning response characterized by inverse correlations between growth and temperature, and a greening response characterized by positive correlations between growth and temperature. We used moving-window correlation analysis for eight 30-year time windows, lagged by 10 years, to characterize the climate response at each site from 1902 to 2002. Inverse growth responses to temperature were widespread, occurring in all species, all time periods, and in nearly all geographic areas. The frequency of the browning response increased after 1942, while the frequency of the greening response declined. Browning was concentrated in five species (Picea abies, Picea glauca, Picea mariana, Picea obovata and Pinus banksiana), and occurred more frequently in the warmer parts of species' ranges, suggesting that direct temperature stress might be a factor. In some species, dry sites were also more likely to experience browning; moisture stress might thus be an additional explanation in some cases. As inverse responses to temperature are widespread, and occur in a broad array of species, there is unlikely to be any single explanation for their occurrence.

We reconstructed a 3500-yr history of fluctuations in treeline elevation and tree abundance in the southern Sierra Nevada. Treeline elevation was higher than at present throughout most of the last 3500 yr. Declines in the abundance of live trees and treeline elevation occurred twice during the last 1000 yr: from 950 to 550 yr BP and from 450 to 50 yr BP. The earlier decline coincided with a period of warm temperatures (relative to present) in which at least two severe, multidecadal droughts occurred. This decline was apparently triggered by an increase in the rate of adult mortality in treeline forests. The more recent decline occurred during a period of low temperatures lasting for up to 400 yr and was apparently caused by a sustained failure of regeneration in combination with an increased rate of adult mortality. The apparent past importance of precipitation in controlling the position and structure of the treeline ecotone suggests that climatic controls over treeline may be more complex than previously thought. In the Sierra Nevada, responses of highelevation forests to future warming may depend strongly on water supply.