WEBVTT FILE

1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.840
[Music]

2
00:00:01.860 --> 00:00:09.289
As Arctic summers warm, Earth’s northern landscapes are changing.

3
00:00:09.309 --> 00:00:12.550
Using satellite images to track Arctic tundra ecosystems over decades,

4
00:00:12.570 --> 00:00:15.820
a new study found the region has become greener.

5
00:00:15.840 --> 00:00:24.371
Greening reflects increasing plant growth. Affecting people, wildlife, and the atmosphere.

6
00:00:24.391 --> 00:00:27.774
Global Change Ecologist, Logan Berner, who led the recent research says:

7
00:00:27.794 --> 00:00:31.411
“The Arctic tundra is one of the coldest biomes on Earth, and it’s also one of the most rapidly warming,”

8
00:00:31.431 --> 00:00:36.816
“This Arctic greening we see is really an indicator of global climatic change”

9
00:00:36.836 --> 00:00:44.620
This study is the first to measure vegetation changes across the Arctic tundra using satellite data from Landsat.

10
00:00:44.640 --> 00:00:49.696
Berner and his colleagues used the Landsat data from 1985 to 2016

11
00:00:49.716 --> 00:00:55.360
to estimate annual peak greenness at 50,000 randomly selected sites across the tundra.

12
00:00:55.380 --> 00:01:02.942
These Landsat data showed greening at about 38% of the tundra sites across Alaska, Canada, and western Eurasia.

13
00:01:02.962 --> 00:01:08.415
This study was part of NASA’s Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE).

14
00:01:08.435 --> 00:01:15.522
Lead of the ABoVE science team, Scott Goetz says: “Landsat is key for these kinds of measurements”

15
00:01:15.542 --> 00:01:23.761
“There’s a lot of microscale variability in the Arctic, so it’s important
to work at finer resolution while also having a long data record

16
00:01:24.884 --> 00:01:27.620
[Music]

17
00:01:27.640 --> 00:01:29.135
NASA USGS Science for a changing world.

18
00:01:29.155 --> 00:01:31.838
Landsat is a joint program of NASA and USGS:
www.nasa.gov/landsat www.usgs.gov/core-science-systems/nli/landsat