Ecosystems at Glacier Margins Can Serve as Climate?Change Laboratories

Reconstructing how biota have responded to fast-paced warming events in the past can help predict their responses rapid climate changes future. Here we suggest that natural communities located near glaciers are useful laboratories for this purpose as they experienced accentuated by ice-margin fluctuations. By reconstructing an Alaskan glacier's position over a 166-year period and measuring periglacial air temperatures last 3 years, estimate adjacent temperate rainforest episodically cooled warmed 0.5–0.7°C/decade. These rates of change exceed most historical trends measured elsewhere on Earth comparable predicted next century. The ring-width yellow-cedar trees growing at varying distances from ice edge illustrate potential using ecosystems forests may respond