Towards an increasingly green Antarctica

Positive in part, but on the other hand very negative because of what this implies, the fact is that in Antarctica vegetation begins to proliferate where it could not live before. Vegetation cover on the Antarctic Peninsula has increased more than tenfold in the last four decades, new research reveals.

The Antarctic Peninsula, like many polar regions, is warming faster than the global average, and extreme heat events in Antarctica are becoming more frequent.

For the new study, carried out by scientists from the universities of Exeter and Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom, and the BAS (British Antarctic Survey) in the same country, satellite data was used to assess the extent to which the Antarctic Peninsula has become covering with vegetation as a consequence of global climate change.

Thomas Roland’s team (University of Exeter) has found that the area covered with vegetation across the entire peninsula increased from less than one square kilometer in 1986 to almost 12 square kilometers in 2021.

In the study, it has also been discovered that this trend of increasing vegetation cover accelerated by more than 30% in recent years (between 2016 and 2021) compared to the pace of the entire study period (1986-2021). ), expanding by more than 400,000 square meters per year in this period.

In a previous study, examining samples taken from moss-dominated ecosystems on the Antarctic Peninsula, the team found evidence that plant growth rates had increased dramatically in recent decades, telling evidence of the advance of global warming.

In the new study, the use of images captured from satellite has made it possible to corroborate the phenomenon throughout the Antarctic Peninsula.

Eloquently green landscape of Ardley Island, Antarctica. (Photo: Dan Charman)

As these ecosystems consolidate, and the climate continues to warm, the extent of vegetated area is likely to increase. In Antarctica, earthy soil suitable for plant growth is scarce and often of low quality, but, as Olly Bartlett of the University of Hertfordshire and a member of the research team warns, the proliferation of plants themselves will add organic matter and It will facilitate the formation of better quality soils, thus making it easier for many other kinds of plants to grow there, many of them probably invasive.

The study is titled “Satellites evidence sustained greening of the Antarctic Peninsula”. And it has been published in the academic journal Nature Geoscience. (Fountain: NCYT by Amazings)