Baffin coastal tundra

• Category: Grassland, Tundra, and Human Biomes.
• Geographic Location: North America.
• Summary: The Baffin coastal tundra, one of the coldest year-round lands on Earth, is subtly beautiful and home to various low-growing plants and northern wildlife.

The Baffin coastal tundra is located along the northeastern coast of Baffin Island and corresponds with the Baffin Island coastal lowlands ecoregion of the Arctic Cordillera ecozone. Clyde River or Kanngiqtugaapik (in Inuktitut) is the largest village, with a population of approximately 1,100 of mostly Nunatsiarmuit (“People of the Beautiful Land”), an Inuit subgroup. The Baffin Coastal Tundra biome spans some 3,500 square miles (9,065 square kilometers). The climate of the region, among the world's coldest, is classified as high Arctic. Humid, with long, cold winters and very short, cold, foggy summers, the Baffin version of this climate features an average annual temperature of 11.3 degrees F (minus 11.5 degrees C). The average winter temperature is minus 8.5 degrees F (minus 22.5 degrees C), while the summer average is 33.8 degrees F (1 degree C). Annual precipitation is 8 to 12 inches (20 to 30 centimeters).

This coastal plain is approximately 25 miles (40 kilometers) wide. It is mostly treeless, with a frozen subsurface. It is dissected by many fjords, such as Clark, Gibbs, Eglinton, and McBeth; most fjords extend landward to the Davis Highlands. There are several inlets (e.g., Scott and Clyde), capes (e.g., Hewett and Adair), and bays (e.g., Hamilton and Isabella) along the shore. The gently rolling landscape has been sculpted and warped by frost weathering and ice wedging.

Surface deposits of alluvial, residual, and/or glacial deposits appear, but bare bedrock and small bedrock outcrops are the dominant features. The coastal areas are predominately rocky, with low bluffs. The beaches are made of sand and gravel, and there are marine terraces. The Baffin coastal tundra has deep, continuous, low-ice-content permafrost.

Flora

The coastal plain is sparsely covered with vegetation, due to poor soil conditions, low precipitation, cold temperatures, and the limited growing season. Low biotic diversity and simple vegetation structure are characteristic; much of it consists of prostrate and low-lying dwarf shrubs, mosses, low-growing forbs, sedges, shrubs, rushes, and lichens. In the wet areas, vegetation coverage can reach 60 percent, and is mostly made up of various mosses, rushes (e.g., wire rush and Arctic and northern woodrush), and saxifrages.

Resident forbs include alpine mountain sorrel, alpine bistort, and moss campion. Typical mosses are turgid aulacomnium, tomentypnum, juniper polytrichum, and splendid feather moss. Lichen species include Cetrariella deliseii, felt, snow, chocolate chip, and whiteworm. Other vegetation includes tundra grass, Arctic and polar willows, white Arctic mountain heather, Lapland rosebay, mountain avens, various berries, mushrooms, river beauty, purple saxifrage, kobresia, sedge, Arctic poppies, and seaweed from the ocean. All vegetation on the coastal plain is vulnerable to frost at any time.

Fauna

The Baffin coastal tundra supports a limited number of mammalian species. Common year-round mammals include barren-ground caribou (Rangifer tarandus groenlandicus); polar bears; Arctic wolves, foxes, and hares; short-tailed weasels (stoat or ermine); and American brown and Peary Land collared lemmings. Marine mammals include walrus; harp, ringed, and bearded seals; as well as several whales, such as beluga, orca, bowhead, and narwhal. Common fish species just off the coast in Baffin Bay include Arctic char, polar cod, Arctic flounder, halibut, turbot, four-horned sculpins, capelin, and herring. Baffin Bay and Davis Strait are home to large cold-water reefs, sponges, clams, shrimp, and echinoderm species.

Birds present year-round are the gyrfalcon, snowy owl, common raven, and rock and willow ptarmigan. Most birds of the Baffin coastal tundra are migratory. Common such fowl are snow, Ross, Brant, and Canadian geese; tundra swans; king and common eiders; surf scooters; and long-tailed ducks. There are several loon species, including red-throated, Pacific, common, and yellow-billed, as well as plovers (white-faced, American golden-plover, and semi-palmated). Birds of prey include the rough-legged hawk, peregrine falcon, and short-eared owl.

Other common migratory birds include sandhill cranes, Arctic terns, thick-billed murres, black guillemots, black-legged kittiwakes, horned larks, Wheater thrush, Savannah sparrows, Lapland longspurs, snow buntings, and redpolls (common, Greenland, and Arctic). There are several species of sandpipers (semi-palmated, pectoral, Baird's, least, and buff-breasted) and gulls (ivory, sabine, Ross's herring, and Iceland). The ecoregion has no reptiles or amphibians.

Land Use and Conservation

Land use consists mostly of subsistence use. The area is mostly intact, but the coastal line, naturally fragmented by fjords, is vulnerable to human land use and activity. Other concerns are transboundary heavy metals and pesticide pollution. There is the possibility of oil spills, which would be disruptive to the tundra environment. In cold temperatures, oil has a low evaporation rate, and spilled oil would persist for many years, disturbing the thin layer of fragile vegetation and resulting in thermokarst erosion.

In 2008, after a 26-year Inuit-initiated effort, the first National Marine Wildlife Area was established in Canada. Niginganiq (formerly called Igaliqtuuq) National Wildlife Area (Isabella Bay), simply called Niginganiq, is an 830,274-acre (336,000-hectare) conservation and bowhead-whale preserve. Inuit conservationists continue to lobby for additional protections for the area and are leading initiatives to educate individuals about the importance of preserving the arctic.

Arctic tundra is a regulator of global climate, in the sense that permafrost is a temperature-sensitive carbon sink; as temperatures rise, methane gas that originated in dead organic matter is released from within the thawing permafrost. This contributes to the atmospheric carbon load in a positive feedback loop as this potent greenhouse gas in turn adds to climate warming trends. Ultimate effects of this trend could mean a shortened snow season, disruption of pollination patterns, altered terrestrial food web across areas of the tundra, and saltwater inundation of coastal areas from sea-level rise.

Bibliography

Derocher, Andrew E. and Wayne Lynch. Polar Bears: A Complete Guide to Their Biology and Behavior. Johns Hopkins UP, 2012.

Ricketts, T., et al. Terrestrial Ecoregions of North America: A Conservation Assessment. World Wildlife Fund–United States and Canada. Island Press, 1999.

Sempels, Jean-Marie. “Coastlines of the Eastern Arctic.” Arctic, vol. 35, no. 1, 1982.

Watson, Adam. A Zoologist on Baffin Island, 1953. Paragon Publishing, 2011.

Weichenrieder, Simone. “Leveraging Indigenous Knowledge for Effective Nature-Based Solutions in the Arctic.” The Arctic Institute, 27 Aug. 2024, www.thearcticinstitute.org/leveraging-indigenous-knowledge-effective-nature-based-solutions-arctic/. Accessed 11 Oct. 2024.