Boreal Biome
The Taiga or Boreal Forest
World's Largest Land Biome
Is a biome characterized by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruces, and larches. The ecozone principally spans 8 countries: Canada, China, Finland, Japan, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States. The Boreal Biome or Taiga covers 17 million square kilometres (6.6 million square miles) or 11.5% of the Earth's land area, second only to deserts and xeric shrublands. The largest areas are located in Russia and Canada.
White spruce taiga in the Alaska
Taiga or Boreal Forest Land Coverage
Siberian Taiga
The circumboreal belt of forest represents about 30% of the global forest area, contains more surface freshwater than any other biome, and has large tracts of unmanaged forests across the high-latitude regions of Canada, Russia, and the United States. From a biological perspective, boreal forests are defined as forests growing in high-latitude environments where freezing temperatures occur for 6 to 8 months and in which trees are capable of reaching a minimum height of 5 m and a canopy cover of 10%.
North America Boreal Forest
Is the world’s largest intact forest ecosystem. It stretches across 1.2 billion acres (485 million hectares) of northern Canada, from the Yukon to Newfoundland and Labrador.
Represents 25 percent of the world’s remaining intact forest, even more than the Amazon rainforest.
Contains 25 percent of the world’s wetlands.
Includes more surface freshwater—about 200 million acres (81 million hectares)—than anywhere else on Earth.
Is North America’s bird nursery. Each year, 1 billion to 3 billion birds migrate north from the United States—and from as far away as South America—to nest in Canada’s boreal forest. Between 3 billion and 5 billion return south each fall after a successful breeding season.
Stores twice as much carbon per acre as tropical rainforests. In all, Canada’s boreal forests and peatlands lock in a minimum of 229 billion tons of carbon. Peatlands, also known as bogs and fens, are wetlands that include vegetation such as sphagnum mosses, shrubs, and spruce. This natural carbon storage helps cool the planet and provides a critical bulwark against climate change.
Is home to some of the cleanest and deepest freshwater lakes on the planet. Great Bear Lake, in the Northwest Territories, is considered the world’s largest unpolluted lake. Great Slave Lake, also in the Northwest Territories, is North America’s deepest.
June 2023, NYC smoke from the Canadian Boreal Forest burning. Photo Credit Gary Hershorn / Getty Images.
A snowballing heat effect appears to have begun. Yet humanity holds on to the past with no real response, only jokes about increasing heat effects. Mass famine could start to occur in the next 20 years across the Earth, and with that a collapse of the world's economies.
Climate Change in the Boreal Forest
During its relatively brief history since deglaciation, the boreal forest has experienced many fluctuations of its climatic environment. The current warming trend experienced by northern latitudes is, however, unprecedented in its speed and projected amplitude, and is also more pronounced than in the rest of the world. Resulting impacts are numerous and include the melting of permafrost, changes in tree growth rates, increased incidences of wildland fire, and changes in the dynamics of insect outbreaks. The causal links among these changes and their implications for the functioning of the boreal forest and the services it provides to local and global populations are not yet completely understood.