Fig. 2: Location, extent and characteristics of the study region. | Communications Earth & Environment

Fig. 2: Location, extent and characteristics of the study region.

From: Expert elicitation of state shifts and divergent sensitivities to climate warming across northern ecosystems

Fig. 2

The study region is a 100 km-wide strip of land covering a vast latitudinal gradient (3700 km) in northeastern North America. Mean annual air temperature along the transect currently ranges from −25–0 °C from north to south (see Supplementary Fig. 1 for July temperatures), while annual precipitation ranges from 100–200 to 800–1000 mm. Simplified illustrations of the current 28 contrasting states observed along the transect for six ecosystem components (permafrost, peatlands, lakes, winter snowpack, vegetation and endothermic vertebrate assemblages) are presented alongside the map. Detailed illustrations are available in Figs. 3–8. Black lines represent the southern limit (± 2.5 degrees of latitude) of each state identified along the latitudinal transect. The southern limit of the southernmost state for each component lies outside of the transect, and thus is not shown on this figure.

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