Compared to a photo-like image, a false-color image of the lake-dotted tundra near Barrow, Alaska, reveals more detail about the different plant communities occupying wetter or drier areas of the landscape.
Rising temperatures have brought a longer growing season in the high latitudes. Once-treeless tundra ecosystems have greened the most, while boreal forests had a more mixed response.
In the first weeks of June 2010, winter snow disappears from the lake-dotted tundra of Alaska’s North Slope like a dust cover whisked off a stained glass work of art.