Cumulative numbers of marine fish diversity (n = 633, Appendix 6.2) in the Arctic Ocean and adjacent seas (AOAS) from 1758 to the present. Species are broadly grouped according to zoogeographic pattern (cf. Section 6.3.1): Arctic (A, blue symbols) and non-Arctic (Σ AB, B, WD, red symbols). Grey bars denote periods with many descriptions of new Arctic species. Note that 75% of the non-Arctic species known to science were described by 1912, whereas the same proportion for Arctic species was only reached in 1976. See text for further information. Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna, CAFF 2013 - Akureyri . Arctic Biodiversity Assessment. Status and Trends in Arctic biodiversity. - Fishes(Chapter 6) page 220

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

Map of the Arctic Ocean showing the distribution of species richness of Bryozoa for different shelf seas along the Eurasian continental shelf. Diameters of circles are proportional to the number of bryozoan species given in Tab. 8.3. Species numbers partitioned into six zoogeographical affinities are shown from the: Barents Sea (Denisenko 1990), Kara Sea (Gontar & Denisenko 1989); Laptev Sea (Gontar 2004), East Siberian Sea (Denisenko 2010), Chukchi Sea (Denisenko 2008). Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna, CAFF 2013 - Akureyri . Arctic Biodiversity Assessment. Status and Trends in Arctic biodiversity. - Marine Invertebrates(Chapter 8) page 282

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

Arctic Biodiversity Assessment (ABA) 2013. Table 18.1. Marine incidents involving cruise ships in Arctic and Antarctic waters (the same vessels often alternate polar region according to season) (aggregated from reports from national coast guards, admiralty courts and insurers, and www.cruisejunkie.com).

<img src="http://geo.abds.is/geonetwork/srv/eng//resources.get?uuid=59d822e4-56ce-453c-b98d-40207a2e9eec&fname=cbmp_small.png" alt="logo" height="67px" align="left" hspace="10px"> The Arctic marine data set contains a total of 111 species and 310 population time series from 170 locations. Species coverage is about 34% of Arctic marine vertebrate species (100% of mammals, 53% of birds, and 27% of fishes) (Bluhm et al. 2011). At the species level, even though the representation of Arctic fish species is lower than that of mammals and birds, the data are dominated by fishes, primarily from the Pacific Ocean (especially the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands). However, there are more population time series in total for bird species, which is reflective of this group being both better studied historically and also monitored at many small study sites compared to fish and marine mammal species, which are regularly monitored at a much larger scale through stock management. Note that the time span selected for marine analyses is 1970 to 2005 (compared with 1970 to 2007 for the ASTI for all species). CAFF Assessment Series No. 7 April 2012 - <a href=http://caff.is/asti/asti-publications/28-arctic-species-trend-index-tracking-trends-in-arctic-marine-populations" target="_blank"> The Arctic Species Trend Index - Tracking trends in Arctic marine populations </a>

Map of the Arctic Ocean with superimposed stacked bars representing species numbers of macrozoobenthos from different shelf sea areas: Crustacea+Mollusca+Echinodermata (blue) and Annelida (black). Compiled by Piepenburg et al. (2011). Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna, CAFF 2013 - Akureyri . Arctic Biodiversity Assessment. Status and Trends in Arctic biodiversity. - Marine Invertebrates(Chapter 8) page 282

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 Land Cover Dynamics MODIS product is a yearly product that represents thetiming of vegetation phenology globally. Sub-datasets include vegetation growth, maturity,senescence, and dormancy. This product also includes the NBAR-(Nadir Bidirectionalreflectance distribution function (BRDF) adjusted Reflectance) based EVI, in part becausethe EVI is used to create the Land Cover Dynamics. The Land Cover Dynamics product uses both Terra and Aqua MODIS data. Version005 (provided) has a 500 m spatial resolution, which is an improvement from the 1,000 mversion 004 product. This product is only available in MODIS tiles, so the tiles needed tocover the CAFF pan-Arctic region has been downloaded but not clipped to the pan-Arcticextent at this time.

The Arctic territory is roughly subdivided along two main axes in latitudinal subzones (Fig. 9.1) and longitudinal floristic provinces (Fig. 9.2). The latitudinal northsouth axis mainly reflects the present climate gradient divided into five different subzones, which are separated according to climate and vegetation in the lowlands of each zone. Published in the Arctic Biodiversity Assessment, Chapter 9 - released in 2013