How Climate Change Is Growing Forests in the Arctic

"warming has led to “pop-up forests” in regions of the planet that usually see little more than summer shrubs. That’s a sign of just how the fast the Arctic in particular can respond to global environmental change. And as the Arctic greens, it could speed warming even more as the darker foilage absorbs sunlight that would have been reflected back into space by the white tundra."

Full article here - How Climate Change Is Growing Forests in the Arctic [i]

and Greenland was called green land because it was like your picture when they found it (long before fossil fuels).

R Scott wrote:and Greenland was called green land because it was like your picture when they found it (long before fossil fuels).

Greenland has always been tundra. It was a barren artic freakin' wasteland even way back -- Eric the Red named it that because he hoped that other settlers would be lured by the name and come join him in exile. All of the evidence -- both archeological and verbal sagas -- say that the peoples who inhabited Greenland lived mostly off whale hunting.

"Below is a brief account of the Viking settlement, based on Jared Diamond’s “Collapse“.

Greenland was called Greenland by Erik the Red (was he red?), who was in exile and wanted to attract people to a new colony. He thought you should give a land a good name so people would want to go there! It likely was a bit warmer when he landed for the first time than it was when the last settlers starved due to a number of factors — climate change, or at least some bad weather, a major one.

But it was never lush, and their existence was always harsh and meager, especially due to the Viking’s disdain for other peoples and ways of living. They attempted to live a European lifestyle in an arctic climate, side by side with Inuit who easily outlasted them. They starved surrounded by oceans and yet never ate fish! (Note: this was not a typical European behavior, and is a bit of a mystery to this day.)"

http://grist.org/climate-energy/greenland-used-to-be-green/

I live in Iceland, so I know what is happening here.

First, the climate is warming and much more here. That we know because we live here, and the warming here in much more than in Europe (where I also lived before).

Second, the climate here was warmer than it is now, 1000 years, not by much (agriculture was still easier 1000 years than nowadays), but that was a period that lasted some 400 years, and during that period, the first settlers found plenty of native forests which were later removed to wood use, and were never grown back again (only now they are recovering).

That happened because then the Little Ice Age followed, and the climate became much harsh and cold here, until the early 1900s. Then it got warmer, and significantly warmer after 1980 and even more after 1995 and during this decade. Forests covered Iceland in about 40% of the area, now they cover only 1%, but this was only 0.2% just a few decades ago. This number will jump much more because everyone is planting trees now, but still there is a VERY LONG way to go, and plenty of the country is suffering from huge erosion.

The weather office here in Iceland has no reason to lie, and is an independent body that confirms this, because it has been doing measurements for more than a century. Also people that live here, old people, tell me that. It used to snow much more, and to be much colder. Especially the summer is much warmer now, and it keeps like that year after year. The warming is indeed rapid, and well visible for everyone living here for a few years, like me. The effect on the glaciers is clear, and actually this warming is welcome in Iceland for obvious reasons.

So, the trees growing back at the Arctic makes sense, because of 1) the climate is becoming warm again, like it was 1000 years, and 2) humans are making an effort to grow that forest back and introducing many new species (that grow much faster than the natibe birch).

I know that this is a sensitive subject but this is just the truth as experience up north here.
Still, gardening is a challenging practice for me!