For years scientists have been documenting dramatic changes occurring in the Antarctic. Its western side, including the Antarctic Peninsula, has suffered an unprecedented ice sheet melt that threatens massive sea level rises. At the same time, the eastern part of the continent has occasionally gained ice and has been seen growing in some areas.
But those changes may be just the tip of the iceberg, according to a new study. Suppose the world continues to burn fossil fuels at current rates. In that case, researchers say Antarctica and its surrounding ocean will “almost certainly” witness more common and severe extreme events like ocean heatwaves and ice loss that have global implications.
The new paper, published Tuesday in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science, is authored by University of Exeter glaciologist Martin Siegert and others. It adds to previous work that shows the effects of climate change are already being felt around Antarctica. This region is regarded as an oddball for human-caused warming because the white surface of its ice sheets helps cool Earth by reflecting sunlight into space.
The team notes that Antarctica and its Southern Ocean, or the southern waters surrounding it, have experienced more than a decade of extraordinary heat and sea surface temperature anomalies. They have also observed a decline in the amount of Antarctic sea ice and a growth in the size of some Antarctic glaciers.
These extremes have profoundly impacted the Antarctic and surrounding ecosystems, causing changes. For example, the warm temperatures have caused unprecedented surface melting, which leads to ponding of water that can then seep into crevasses or under ice shelves and speed up the flow of those glaciers and ice sheets. That, in turn, increases the speed of the icebergs that break off those glaciers, further increasing their movement rate and raising sea levels globally.
While some scientists point to natural cycles and climate shifts as the cause of these recent Antarctic extremes, the authors warn that continued greenhouse gas emissions will lead to more. They say it is essential to reduce emissions in Antarctica because its colossal store of ice is an essential global cooling system and will help keep oceans and the Earth’s atmosphere stable.
The researchers urge the international community to implement policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to support the Antarctic Treaty’s conservation, protection, and research mandates. They say that by continuing to explore, extract and burn fossil fuels everywhere in the world, humans are “causing Antarctica to be affected in ways inconsistent with its protected status.” Sky News reports that Britain’s Foreign Office commissioned the research. The paper’s authors include scientists from the Universities of Leeds and Exeter, the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), and the Polar Regions Department. The full paper is available here. The Met Office is a public service provider of weather and climate science in the UK. The Met Office’s news team provides journalists and bloggers with the latest weather, climate science, and business news.
