The tundra is the coldest of all biomes on the planet. Tundra comes from the Finnish word tunturia, meaning treeless plain. It is a distinctive biome due to its peat-covered landscapes, extremely low temperatures, low precipitation, low nutrients, and short growing seasons which all act as determining factors. Tundra is found at latitudes 60° to 70° north, with a majority in Canada and Russia. Like the ocean, the tundra is one of Earth's major carbon dioxide sinks. A carbon dioxide sink is biomass that absorbs more carbon dioxide than it releases. Carbon dioxide is a major greenhouse gas that contributes to global climate change. During the short summer, tundra vegetation absorbs carbon dioxide, sunlight, and water through the process of photosynthesis. Plants normally release carbon dioxide after they die and decompose. But because of the tundra's short, cool summers and freezing winter temperatures, plants cannot decompose and carbon dioxide is not released. The remains of plants thousands of years old were discovered in the tundra's layer of decaying vegetation called permafrost. This is how the tundra traps carbon dioxide and removes it from the atmosphere, making it a sink. Today, the trend towards global warming is melting the permafrost of the tundra and each year several meters of tundra disappear. As the permafrost in the tundra melts, the plant mass can now decompose and release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, now making it a source and making the problem even worse. Very recent studies have shown that there is a correlation between the effects of global warming and the melting of permafrost and if this trend continues, it is unclear whether we can stop it.4. IntroductionThe tundra is a very delicate environment......middle of paper......something must be done to slow the trend of global warming and help preserve the fragile tundra biome. There is clear evidence of an increase in temperature and, consequently, melting of sea ice and changes in precipitation amounts. It will be interesting to see how the plants and animals that inhabit this biome will adapt and evolve over time to these new climatic conditions. It's not just plants and animals that could be affected by global warming: humans will also need to adapt to changes within their own respective biomes. It's unclear what the tundra biome will look like thousands of years from now or if it will even exist because of global warming, but something must be done to preserve the youngest biome. There is clearly a “snowball effect” due to the global warming trend and the melting of permafrost in the tundra will only accentuate it...