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Earth

Antarctica is 'Greening' at Dramatic Rate as Climate Heats 68

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Plant cover across the Antarctic peninsula has soared more than tenfold over the last few decades, as the climate crisis heats up the icy continent. From a report: Analysis of satellite data found there was less than one sq kilometre of vegetation in 1986 but there was almost 12km2 of green cover by 2021. The spread of the plants, mostly mosses, has accelerated since 2016, the researchers found. The growth of vegetation on a continent dominated by ice and bare rock is a sign of the reach of global heating into the Antarctic, which is warming faster than the global average. The scientists warned that this spread could provide a foothold for alien invasive species into the pristine Antarctic ecosystem. Greening has also been reported in the Arctic, and in 2021 rain, not snow, fell on the summit of Greenland's huge ice cap for the first time on record.

"The Antarctic landscape is still almost entirely dominated by snow, ice and rock, with only a tiny fraction colonised by plant life," said Dr Thomas Roland, at the University of Exeter, UK, and who co-led the study. "But that tiny fraction has grown dramatically -- showing that even this vast and isolated wilderness is being affected by human-caused climate change." The peninsula is about 500,000km2 in total. Roland warned that future heating, which will continue until carbon emissions are halted, could bring "fundamental changes to the biology and landscape of this iconic and vulnerable region." The study is published in the journal Nature Geoscience and based on analysis of Landsat images.

Antarctica is 'Greening' at Dramatic Rate as Climate Heats More | Reply

Antarctica is 'Greening' at Dramatic Rate as Climate Heats

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  • Great! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Friday October 04, 2024 @12:16PM (#64839597)

    Plants sequester CO2.

    • Mod parent funny

    • I don't know if you were going for the +5 Funny or a +5 Insightful. I would have given you the latter. Extra green can't absorb an unlimited amount of carbon, but whatever sequestering this new vegetation is providing seems like a good thing.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by CEC-P ( 10248912 )
      There's no science allowed the WEF. You take that back immediately, sir!

  • This could be valuable farmland. Put a bunch of greenhouses there. There probably aren't many pests, you could save on insecticide.

    • It would be better growing conditions than Mars.

      Why do people want to go to Mars?

      • Antartica won't be safe if there's global thermonuclear war.

        • It would still be better than Mars, if Mars had a small rock or an open the door war

          • The idea is that we should be multi-planetary across space, not just one location on Mars, but also asteroids, floating in deep space, etc. It's much easier to stay protected in deep space where you can see a missile coming for you months or years in advance.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
      There's no soil and it's dark for three months of the year. It's not very valuable. There won't be much in the way of soil for several thousand years.

  • Just like last time (Score:4, Informative)

    by Mspangler ( 770054 ) on Friday October 04, 2024 @12:50PM (#64839701)

    From Wikipedia on West Antarctic Ice Sheet

    "In the long term, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is likely to disappear due to the warming which has already occurred.[11] Paleoclimate evidence suggests that this has already happened during the Eemian period, when the global temperatures were similar to the early 21st century.[12][13] It is believed that the loss of the ice sheet would take place between 2,000 and 13,000 years in the future,[14][15] although several centuries of high emissions may shorten this to 500 years.[16]"

    If you are wondering when the Eemian was,

    "The Last Interglacial, also known as the Eemian, was the interglacial period which began about 130,000 years ago at the end of the Penultimate Glacial Period and ended about 115,000 years ago at the beginning of the Last Glacial Period. It corresponds to Marine Isotope Stage 5e."

    MIS 11 about 400,000 years ago melted down both the West Antarctic and most of Greenland. You can look that one up yourselves. It was an unusual long interglacial running about 40,000 years.

    • The upside, among more farmland, is that the freshwater from all the melted glaciers will reduce the salt content as a percentage, not much, but some, so that desalination plants have a little less salt to remove!

      • That sucks. That means the sale I add to my pool will be harder to get and cost more.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by HiThere ( 15173 )

        Just because plants grow doesn't mean crops grow. Not unless you like moss and lichen. After awhile there may be trees growing there (not soon), but they'll need to be thinks like arctic spruce, so they can survive months without sun.

        Food crops all require lots of light. (Well, except things like iceberg lettuce, that I barely consider food.) Eventually you might be able to grow rye or oats, but not soon.

        OTOH, IIRC there was a forest of deciduous trees that grew in Antarctica during one period of melt.

      • Re: Just like last time (Score:5, Informative)

        by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Friday October 04, 2024 @02:20PM (#64839977) Homepage Journal

        There will not be more farmland. There is already a net loss due to climate change and this will worsen. Just because some plants will grow there, that doesn't mean it's a good place for crops.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
        Farmland typically requires soil.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        Also, snow is very good at reflecting the heat away from the Earth. Plants, however absorb the heat. End result is it increases the amount of heat the Earth will get from the sun that isn't radiated or reflected into space.

        It's why even on a sunny warm day snow doesn't melt all that fast. Once a spot on the pavement dries up and collects the heat from sunlight, the spot very quickly starts melting the snow around it

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It's not the state that is unprecedented, it's the speed at which we get there.

      500 years might sound like a long time, but it's a rate of change that if fast enough to ensure we are going to see some fairly dramatic and catastrophic changes in my lifetime. Changes that happen too fast for us to deal with them without conflict, especially since there are 7 billion people now. It's not like the tribes can just migrate.

  • We still have 25-30 years left so not my problem. Sucks to be the rest of you.

  • The Guardian is NOT A SCIENCE NEWS SOURCE (Score:3, Informative)

    by davide marney ( 231845 ) on Friday October 04, 2024 @02:26PM (#64839997) Journal

    Please stop linking to science news from the Guardian. That is most decidedly NOT a reliable source for technical information, it's a general news site with a well-known political bias. You might as well link the New York Post or the Washington Post.

    The link to nature.com is much better, as is using the study abstract for the summary. Speaking of the abstract, note this line: "Antarctica has experienced significant increases in temperature over the past 60years, with rates of warming ... occurring much faster than global average warming." (emphasis added)

    Yes, as has been well documented for several decades now, there are dozens of volcanic hot spots under that continent, so localized warming "much faster" than the global average certainly is expected. To what degree other reasons for warming are responsible is something I don't believe we know the answer to, yet.

    • Isn't antarctica also impacted more than, say, the other pole, by albedo change as the glaciers melt? It's going to experience more rapid change for a variety of reasons.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
      The Arctic has also warmed much faster than the average. Are there lots of unexpected volcanoes there? And the volcanoes inn Antarctica only make a difference if they have become more active, for which there is no evidence. Polar amplification of warming is what physics predicts should happen, and it is happening at both poles, so invoking volcanoes is not required. Are you trying to deny that the climate is changing?

      • I didn't say volcanos, I said volcanism -- in this case, it takes the form of hot spots under the ice. The warming is definitely partly caused by these hot spots under the ice, of which there are, as I said previously, at least dozens. https://blogs.agu.org/geospace... [agu.org] has a handy map if you're interested.

    • it's a general news site with a well-known political bias. You might as well link the New York Post

      I'm curious as to what you are trying to achieve here with that statement. Most news has a slight bias. The Guardian being slightly left leaning is more likely to carry actual news about climate change, but the New York Post... what do you hope to get out of that one with its significantly right wing bias? A denialism story? Or are you saying link them both with Washington post so you get two slightly left and one very right source and end up at zero?

      Yes, as has been well documented for several decades now

      Oh man, you really need to tell Thomas P. Roland, Oliver

    • Speaking of the abstract, note this line: "Antarctica has experienced significant increases in temperature over the past 60years, with rates of warming ... occurring much faster than global average warming." (emphasis added)

      How could it not? Surely you realize that the greenhouse effect means less energy radiating from Earth, which means the coldest places will receive much more convection currents carrying heat. You'd need some specific combination of solar output increase plus greenhouse gas reduction to have the poles warm at the same rate as the global average.

    • Please stop linking to science news from the Guardian. That is most decidedly NOT a reliable source for technical information, it's a general news site with a well-known political bias. You might as well link the New York Post or the Washington Post.

      True, the Guardian has a bias. But comparing it, and the WP, to a tabloid like the NY Post is a bit telling.

      The link to nature.com is much better, as is using the study abstract for the summary. Speaking of the abstract, note this line: "Antarctica has experienced significant increases in temperature over the past 60years, with rates of warming ... occurring much faster than global average warming." (emphasis added)

      Yes, as has been well documented for several decades now, there are dozens of volcanic hot spots under that continent, so localized warming "much faster" than the global average certainly is expected. To what degree other reasons for warming are responsible is something I don't believe we know the answer to, yet.

      WTF, are you so desperate to deny global warming that you think a few volcanoes are heating up an entire continent?

      Yes, I saw your link showing up to something like 150 milliwatts/m2 of heat transfer [agu.org].

      Meanwhile, the sun sends about 1370 watt/m2 [bom.gov.au].

      So yeah, your big find is only about 10,000x weaker than the sun.

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