Current warming and likely future impacts - Climate Change: Biological and Human Aspects - page 308

Jnr's administration downplayed the second finding, and opposed strong emissions
controls. The report had been due out earlier, and there was speculation that Bush
had delayed the ACIA 's publication until after the US presidential elections. Not
surprisingly, the report was not only in line with the IPCC view, but also drew on
the IPCC's 2001 assessment's scenario forecasts and actually referred in the text to
'anthropogenic climate change', which at the time the President did not accept was
happening.
With regards to ecological impacts, the ACIA said that observations had provided
evidence of nutritional stresses on many animals that were indicative of a changing
environment and changes in food availability. New species, never before recorded
in the Arctic, had also been observed and the distribution ranges of some species
of birds, fish and mammals now extended further to the north than in the past.
These observations were significant for indigenous communities since changes likely
to occur in traditional food resources will have both negative and positive impacts
on the culture and economy of arctic peoples. The ACIA considered some Arc-
tic species, especially those that are adapted to the cold Arctic environment (e.g.,
mosses, lichens and some herbivores and their predators) especially at risk of loss in
general, or displacement from their present locations. Present species diversity is
more at risk in some of Arctic regions than others; for example, Beringia has a higher
number of threatened plant and animal species than any other ACIA region. Overall
it concluded that while there will be some losses in many arctic areas, movement
of species into the Arctic is likely to cause the overall number of species and their
productivity to increase, so overall biodiversity measured as species richness is likely
to increase along with major changes at the ecosystem level. However, some high-
latitude species were at risk of extinction. For example, as forests expand and in
some areas, where present-day tundra occupies a narrow zone, are likely to reach
the northern coastline. The expansion, the assessment considered, would be slowed
by increased fire frequency, insect outbreaks and vertebrate herbivory, as has already
been observed in some parts of the Arctic. With regards to carbon, the assessment
concluded that methane fluxes were likely to increase as vegetation grows in tundra
ponds, and as wetlands become warmer (until they dry out). Methane fluxes were
also likely to increase when permafrost thaws (see section 6.1.5 for carbon loss in
peri-Arctic Siberia).
In 2008 Canadian scientists Donald Lemmen, Fiona Warren, Jacinthe Lacroix
and Elizabeth Bush produced From Impacts to Adaptation: Canada in a Changing
Climate 2007 . It too drew on the IPCC and noted that climate change was affecting
every region of the country. Loss of permafrost was considered one of the more
serious natural system issues, in addition to impacts on water supply in some
regions such as the Prairies. It was also noted that the warming of the Prairies
would mean less harsh winters, which some agricultural systems rely on to remove
pests. However, the Canadian Prairie productivity gains through warming were
not signalled in the report and this was probably related to concerns about water
availability. This was due to the report's focus on adapting to impacts. The report was
one of the first comprehensive, and indeed first Canadian governmental, assessments
of Canadian climate change impacts.