In early studies, northern vegetation response to global warming recognised both increases in biomass/cover and shrinking of species’ distributional ranges. Subsequent field measurements focussed on vegetation cover and biomass increases (“greening”), and more recently decreases (“browning”). However, satellite observations show that more than 50% of arctic vegetation has not changed significantly despite rapid warming. While absence of change in remote sensing data does not necessarily mean no ecological change on the ground, the significant proportion of the Arctic that appears to be stable in the face of considerable climate change points to a greater need to understand Arctic ecosystem stability. In this paper, we performed an extensive review of the available literature to seek balances or imbalances between research focussing on “greening”, “browning” and “stability/no change”. We find that greening studies dominate the literature though two relatively small areas of the Arctic are disproportionately represented for this main change process. Critically, there are too few studies anywhere investigating stability. We highlight the need to understand the mechanisms driving Arctic ecosystem stability, and the potential longer-term consequences of remaining stable in a rapidly changing climate.

在早期研究中，北方植被对全球变暖的反应认识到生物量/覆盖度的增加和物种分布范围的缩小。随后的实地测量重点关注植被覆盖和生物量的增加（“绿化”），以及最近的减少（“褐变”）。然而，卫星观测显示，尽管气候变暖迅速，但50%以上的北极植被并未发生明显变化。虽然遥感数据没有变化并不一定意味着地面上的生态没有变化，但在巨大的气候变化面前，北极地区很大一部分地区似乎保持稳定，这表明我们更需要了解北极生态系统的稳定性。在本文中，我们对现有文献进行了广泛的回顾，以寻求“绿化”、“褐变”和“稳定/不变”研究之间的平衡或不平衡。我们发现，绿化研究在文献中占主导地位，尽管北极两个相对较小的区域在这一主要变化过程中所占比例不成比例。关键的是，调查稳定性的研究太少。我们强调需要了解推动北极生态系统稳定的机制，以及在快速变化的气候中保持稳定的潜在长期后果。