Table 3.1. Summary of historical population estimates for 22 circumpolar caribou and wild reindeer herds. Data courtesy of Circum-Arctic Rangifer Monitoring Assessment Network (CARMA) and D.E. Russell & A. Gunn; www.carmanetwork.com/display/ public/home. Data vary substantially among herds and over time in accuracy and precision, and represent only general patterns of abundance. Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna, CAFF 2013 - Akureyri . Arctic Biodiversity Assessment. Status and Trends in Arctic biodiversity. - Mammals(Chapter 3) page 91

Albedo is a reflection coefficient that describes the reflecting power of a surface. Data compiled for CAFFs Land Cover Change Initiative with dataset for the firs of very month during 2001- 20112. - <a href="http://www.caff.is/indices-and-indicators/land-cover-change-index" target="_blank"> Land Cover Change Initiative (LCC)</a>

Biogeographic borders in the Barents Sea based on species distributions of bryozoans. Average position of the border with 50:50% of Atlantic boreal and Arctic species numbers is indicated by the pink line, and the red and green lines indicate the extreme positions of the border in cold and warm periods respectively. Area III between them is the transitional zone between the Atlantic boreal and the Arctic regions. Thus, area I always has > 50% Atlantic boreal species, and area II always > 50% Arctic species (after Denisenko 1990).

The two species of murres, thick-billed Uria lomvia and common U. aalge, both have circumpolar distributions, breeding in Arctic, sub-Arctic and temperate seas from alifornia and N Spain to N Greenland, high Arctic Canada, Svalbard, Franz Josef Land and Novaya Zemlya (Box 4.3 Fig. 1). Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna, CAFF 2013 - Akureyri . Arctic Biodiversity Assessment. Status and Trends in Arctic biodiversity. - Birds(Chapter 4) page 163

Extensive oil and gas activity has occurred in the Arctic, primarily land-based, with Russia extracting 80% of the oil and 99% of the gas to date (AMAP 2008). Furthermore, the Arctic still contains large petroleum hydrocarbon reserves and potentially holds one fifth of the world’s yet undiscovered resources, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS 2008) (Fig. 14.4). While much of the currently known Arctic oil and gas reserves are in Russia (75% of oil and 90% of gas; AMAP 2008), more than half of the estimated undiscovered Arctic oil reserves are in Alaska (offshore and onshore), the Amerasian Basin (offshore north of the Beaufort Sea) and in W and E Greenland (offshore). More than 70% of the Arctic undiscovered natural gas is estimated to be located in the W Siberian Basin (Yamal Peninsula and offshore in the Kara Sea), the E Barents Basin and in Alaska (offshore and onshore) (AMSA 2009). Associated with future exploration and development, each of these regions would require vastly expanded Arctic marine operations, and several regions such as offshore Greenland would require fully developed Arctic marine transport systems to carry hydrocarbons to global markets. In this context, regions of high interest for economic development face cumulative environmental pressure from anthropogenic activities such as hydrocarbon exploitation locally, together with global changes associated with climatic and oceanographic trends. Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna, CAFF 2013 - Akureyri . Arctic Biodiversity Assessment. Status and Trends in Arctic biodiversity. - Marine ecosystems (Chapter 14 - page 501). Figure adapted from the USGS

The number of species depends partly on what has been studied. Proportions vary somewhat around the Arctic, but diatoms and dinoflagellates are the most diverse groups everywhere. The greatest sampling effort has been in the Laptev Sea, Hudson Bay, and the Norwegian sector of the Barents Sea. Species shown are among the most commonly recorded. Published in the Life Linked to Ice released in 2013, page 26. Life Linked to Ice: A guide to sea-ice-associated biodiversity in this time of rapid change. CAFF Assessment Series No. 10. Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna, Iceland. ISBN: 978-9935-431-25-7.

The MODIS Sea Surface Temperature (SST) product provided is a 4km spatialresolution monthly composite made from nighttime measurements from the Aqua Satellite.The nighttime measurements are used to collect a consistent temperature measurement that isunaffected by the warming of the top layer of water by the sun.

Trends in water temperature and salinity (A) and density of phytoplankton of two size ranges (B), Canada Basin, 2004 to 2008. Stratification of the water column increased throughout the Canada Basin over a recent five-year period, accompanied by a change in phytoplankton communities. The upper ocean layer showed trends of increased temperature and decreased salinity (Figure 18A), which combine to make this layer progressively less dense. The layer of water below this did not change in density over this period (not shown). The larger size class of phytoplankton (which would include diatoms) decreased in abundance, while the smaller types of plankton increased (Figure 18B). In addition to the trends shown, nutrient content in the upper ocean water layer decreased. Abundance of microbes (bacteria and similar organisms) that subsist on organic matter increased. Total phytoplankton biomass, however, remained unchanged. If this trend towards smaller species of phytoplankton and microbes is sustained, it may lead to reduced production of zooplankton, an impact that would be transmitted through the food web to birds, fish and mammals. Published in the Life Linked to Ice released in 2013, page 30. Life Linked to Ice: A guide to sea-ice-associated biodiversity in this time of rapid change. CAFF Assessment Series No. 10. Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna, Iceland. ISBN: 978-9935-431-25-7.

Figure 4.1. Avian biodiversity in different regions of the Arctic. Charts on the inner circle show species numbers of different bird groups in the high Arctic, on the outer circle in the low Arctic. The size of the charts is scaled to the number of species in each region, which ranges from 32 (Svalbard) to 117 (low Arctic Alaska). CAFF 2013. Arctic Biodiversity Assessment. Status and Trends in Arctic biodiversity. Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna, Akureyri - Birds (Chapter 4) page 145

Colored Dissolved Organic Matter (CDOM) is a measurement of the absorption of light in the UV and visible spectrum by the colored components of dissolved organic carbon. It is essentially the yellow substance in water as a result of decaying detritus. It is important to measure because it limits the amount of sunlight penetration, and thus restricts the growth of plankton populations. It is measured in a unit-less CDOM index. Data generated as part of CAFFs Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program (CAFF) and its Land Cover Change Initiative (LCC) Trends visible in the MODIS dataset show an overall decrease in the mean CDOM from 2003 to 2012, with a percent change of -31.7%. This trend can be seen in Figure 40. This decrease corresponds to the increase in total yearly primary productivity (Figure 30), as a decrease in the CDOM allows for sunlight to penetrate deeper into the water, boosting chlorophyll concentrations and thus primary productivity.