Arctic climate change has already resulted in amplified and accelerated regional warming, or the Arctic amplification. Satellite observations have captured this climate phenomenon in its development and in sufficient spatial details. As such, these observations have been—and still are—indispensable for monitoring of the amplification in this remote and inhospitable region, which is sparsely covered with ground observations. This study synthesizes the key contributions of satellite observations into an understanding and characterization of the amplification. The study reveals that the satellites were able to capture a number of important environmental transitions in the region that both precede and follow the emergence of the apparent amplification. Among those transitions, we find a rapid decline in the multiyear sea ice and subsequent changes in the surface radiation balance. Satellites have witnessed the impact of the amplification on phytoplankton and vegetation productivity as well as on human activity and infrastructure. Satellite missions of the European Space Agency (ESA) are increasingly contributing to amplification monitoring and assessment. The ESA Climate Change Initiative has become an essential provider of long-term climatic-quality remote-sensing data products for essential climate variables. Still, such synthesis has found that additional efforts are needed to improve cross-sensor calibrations and retrieval algorithms and to reduce uncertainties. As the amplification is set to continue into the 21st century, a new generation of satellite instruments with improved revisiting time and spectral and spatial resolutions are in high demand in both research and stakeholders’ communities.

The rapidly warming Arctic undergoes transitions that can influence global carbon balance. One of the key processes is the shift towards vegetation types with higher biomass underlining a stronger carbon sink. The shift is predicted by bioclimatic models based on abiotic climatic factors, but it is not always confirmed with observations. Recent studies highlight the role of disturbances in the shift. Here we use high-resolution remote sensing to study the process of transition from tundra to forest and its connection to wildfires in the 20 000 km² area in northwest Siberia. Overall, 40 % of the study area was burned during a 60-year period. Three-quarters of the burned areas were dry tundra. About 10 % of the study area experienced two–three fires with an interval of 15–60 years suggesting a shorter fire return interval than that reported earlier for the northern areas of central Siberia (130–350 years). Based on our results, the shift in vegetation (within the 60-year period) occurred in 40 %–85 % of the burned territories. All fire-affected territories were flat; therefore no effect of topography was detected. Oppositely, in the undisturbed areas, a transition of vegetation was observed only in 6 %–15 % of the territories, characterized by steeper topographic slopes. Our results suggest a strong role of disturbances in the tree advance in northwest Siberia.

Climate change represents a global challenge that impacts the environment, traditional lifestyle and health of the Indigenous Peoples in the Arctic zone of Western Siberia and threatens their food security. Reindeer are an important food source for this population since reindeer herding products are used as traditional nutrition and effective preventive means and remedies for adapting to the cold and geomagnetic activity in the High North. Longer off-season periods, high summer and winter temperatures, melting ice, and forest and tundra fires have a significant impact on the trampling and degradation of reindeer pastures. These effects may lead to massive reindeer losses and changes in the traditional diet of the Indigenous Peoples in the Arctic, which result in increases in the prevalence of respiratory diseases, overweight and hypertension. This study applied a multidisciplinary approach based on ecological and medical research methods with the inclusion of socioeconomic analysis. The primary sources included data on the longitudinal dynamics of air temperature as a climate change indicator and reindeer livestock populations (1936–2018), consumption of reindeer products and physiological impacts on the Yamal Indigenous population collected during expeditions to the Arctic zone of Western Siberia in 2012–2018.

Persistent warm urban temperature anomalies – urban heat islands (UHIs) – significantly enhance already amplified climate warming in the Arctic. Vulnerability of urban infrastructure in the Arctic cities urges a region-wide study of the UHI intensity and its attribution to UHI drivers. This study presents an overview of the surface and atmospheric UHIs in all circum-Arctic settlements (118 in total) with the population larger than 3000 inhabitants. The surface UHI (SUHI) is obtained from the land surface temperature (LST) data products of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) archive over 2000–2016. The atmospheric UHI is obtained from screen-level temperature provided by the Urban Heat Island Arctic Research Campaign (UHIARC) observational network over 2015–2018. Several other UHI studies are included for comparisons. The analysis reveals strong and persistent UHI during both summer and winter seasons. The annual mean surface UHI magnitudes vary from −0.6 ^∘C (Hammerfest) to 4.3 ^∘C (Murmansk). Thus, the observed UHI is likely an important climatic factor that must be included in future adjustment of urban construction, safety, and environmental quality codes.

Wildfires in permafrost areas, including smoldering fires (e.g., “zombie fires”), have increasingly become a concern in the Arctic and subarctic. Their detection is difficult and requires ground truthing. Local and Indigenous knowledge are becoming useful sources of information that could guide future research and wildfire management. This paper focuses on permafrost peatland fires in the Siberian subarctic taiga linked to local communities and their infrastructure. It presents the results of field studies in Evenki and old-settler communities of Tokma and Khanda in the Irkutsk region of Russia in conjunction with concurrent remote sensing data analysis. The study areas located in the discontinuous permafrost zone allow examination of the dynamics of wildfires in permafrost peatlands and adjacent forested areas. Interviews revealed an unusual prevalence and witness-observed characteristics of smoldering peatland fires over permafrost, such as longer than expected fire risk periods, impacts on community infrastructure, changes in migration of wild animals, and an increasing number of smoldering wildfires including overwintering “zombie fires” in the last five years. The analysis of concurrent satellite remote sensing data confirmed observations from communities, but demonstrated a limited capacity of satellite imagery to accurately capture changing wildfire activity in permafrost peatlands, which may have significant implications for global climate.

Urban landscape combines built-up areas with strongly altered natural (green and blue) and other open spaces. Voluminous literature examines urban socio-environmental interactions in tropical and temperate cities, whereas high-latitude cities are rarely considered. Here, we create a historical perspective on urban green (vegetation) and blue (water) spaces in a sub-Arctic city of Nadym in Russia. Our study explores a novel way to combine quantitative information from satellite imagery and biometric studies with qualitative information from interviews with stakeholders and residents. Such a joint analysis helps to understand dynamics of the urban green and blue space as well as its value for society. Furthermore, we propose objective indicators reflecting societal values of spaces in connection with recreational and ecological services. By contrast to temperate city studies, we found that green space is less used in summer, but still highly valued, deep lakes are used and valued more than warmer shallow lakes, and winter white space do not shrink but enhance the urban public space. Satellite images reveal inevitable loss of green space to urban construction and its remediation by artificial plantings (almost by 30% at present), whereas less valued blue space decreased almost three-fold. Interviews reveal that shallow lakes have reduced recreational values due to ice bottom and algae bloom. High values are attributed to deep artificial lakes, which are more than ten times deeper than natural lakes and do not freeze throughout in winter. Our biometric studies show that trees in urban environment are significantly taller than in the corresponding undisturbed areas. Since majority of the Arctic cities are built using very similar planning ideas and technologies, our findings shall help objective appreciation of green and blue spaces in other settlements.