Climate & environment
Antarctica's disturbing green

Agneta Elmegård

Published 2024-10-31 16.37

Photo: Nature / TT News Agency

Antarctica just keeps getting greener and greener. And this at an alarming rate. A study published in Nature Geoscience shows that extreme heat events in the region have significantly changed the continent's landscape in recent decades.

Using satellite data, a team of scientists has captured the dramatic increase in vegetation across the Antarctic Peninsula. They found that vegetation increased more than tenfold from 1986 to 2021, from 1 square kilometer to nearly 12 square kilometers. The study also shows that between 2016 and 2021, greenery on the peninsula increased by more than 30 percent compared to the entire time period, expanding by nearly 400,000 square meters per year over a five-year period.

- The plants we find on the Antarctic Peninsula - mostly mosses - grow in perhaps the harshest conditions on Earth," said Thomas Roland, researcher at the University of Exeter and lead author of the study, in an interview with Gismodo.

- The landscape is still dominated almost entirely by snow, ice and rock, with only a small fraction colonized by plant life, but that small fraction has grown dramatically - showing that even this vast and isolated 'wilderness' is affected by anthropogenic climate change.

Vegetation in Antarctica has increased more than tenfold from 1986 to 2021, according to a study published in Nature Geoscience. Photo: Nature Geoscience

The study highlights a worrying side effect of the warming climate affecting Antarctica and the Southern Ocean.

This past year, Antarctica experienced its most extreme heat wave on record with temperatures rising up to 28 degrees above normal in mid-July. The continent has experienced unusual heat waves that also strike during the winter months. The effects of the changing climate will likely affect Antarctica's growing green landscape in the future as well.

- As these ecosystems become more established, it is likely that the extent of greenery will increase, says Oliver Bartlett, researcher at the University of Hertfordshire and co-author of the study, reports Gismodo.

Although Antarctica today has little or no soil, the increase in plants will add organic matter and make room for other plants to grow because it facilitates soil formation, Bartlett says.
More and more areas of Antarctica are laid bare with the penalty that greenery can spread. Archive image.

More and more areas of Antarctica are laid bare with the penalty that greenery can spread. Archive image. Photo: Heiko Junge / NTB