Coralline algae play important ecological roles throughout the photic zone of the world’s oceans. Recent studies have shown that attached-living coralline algae can contain records of past climate variability. So far, algal-based paleo-reconstructions are mainly available from mid- to high-latitudes, while in low latitude and temperate regions only few examples exist. Here, we investigate samples from the attached-living encru...

Long-term, high-resolution measurements of environmental variability are sparse in the High Arctic. In the absence of such data, we turn to proxies recorded in the layered skeletons of the long-lived crustose coralline algae Clathromorphum compactum. Annual growth banding in this alga is dependent on several factors that include temperature, light availability, nutrients, salinity, and calcium carbonate saturation state. It ha...

Paleoclimate and paleoenvironmental reconstructions from increment-yielding archives strongly depend on precise age models. Like bivalves, corals, trees, and speleothems, the coralline alga Clathromorphum compactum produces annual growth increments and shows considerable promise as an environmental archive for arctic and subarctic regions. Though their growth increment widths correlate with temperature and sea ice cover in hig...

The Arctic cryosphere is changing rapidly due to global warming. Northern Svalbard is a warming hotspot with a temperature rise of ~ 6 °C over the last three decades. Concurrently, modelled data suggest a marked increase in glacier runoff during recent decades in northern Svalbard, and runoff is projected to increase. However, observational data from before anthropogenic influence are sparse and the potential effects on the su...

Rising atmospheric carbon dioxide is warming Arctic seawater at a rate twice the global average due to multiple positive feedbacks. Thus, warming is disproportionately influencing data‐poor Arctic marine ecosystems. Subarctic flora are an important component of these ecosystems, along with the less biodiverse flora endemic to the Arctic. Warming will likely lead to an increasing dominance of subarctic flora that will be initia...