Canada’s north greening as world gets warmer

The northern part of the world is going green according to a new study.

Climate change and warming temperatures are lengthening growing seasons, allowing forests and crops to grow further north.

Northern latitudes now look more like other places four to six degrees further south as recently as 1982, said UPI.

That's about 250 to 430 miles south.

"It's like Winnipeg, Manitoba, moving to Minneapolis-Saint Paul in only 30 years," said study co-author Compton Tucker of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, in a statement.

Researchers analyzed data from satellite images to make the discovery.

They looked at the relationship between surface temperature changes and vegetation in northern latitudes between 1982 and 2011.

New vegetation has sprouted in a third of the northern latitudes in Canada and Russia equaling about 3.5 million square miles – a little less than the size of the United States, said UPI.

"Higher northern latitudes are getting warmer, arctic sea ice and the duration of snow cover are diminishing, the growing season is getting longer and plants are growing more," said Ranga Myneni of Boston University's Department of Earth and Environment, reported the New York Times.

"In the north's arctic and boreal areas, the characteristics of the seasons are changing, leading to great disruptions for plants and related ecosystems."

The Atlantic said that climate models show that arctic regions are facing an amazing 20-degree latitude shift by the end of the 21st century.