We're witnessing the gradual greening of Earth's coldest continent. Mosses are spreading through Antarctica, and other species will follow.
Antarctica is becoming greener due to climate change. Image Credit: Michala Garrison, based on data from Roland, T.P., et al. .
Landsats have watched as forest fires burn, as urban regions expand, as glaciers melt, and as Earth goes through many other changes. The research shows that the amount of land covered in vegetation on the Antarctic Peninsula has increased by more than 10x since 1986. The area of vegetated land rose from 0.86 sq. km. in 1986 to 11.95 sq. km in 2021. The coverage is restricted to the warmer edges of the peninsula, but it still indicates a shift in the region’s ecology, driven by our carbon emissions.pioneer species
Mosses dominate the green areas, growing in carpets and banks. In previous research, Roland and co-researchers collected carbon-dated core samples from moss banks on the western side of the AP. Those showed that moss had accumulated more rapidly in the past 50 years and that there’s been a boost in biological activity. That led them to their current research, where they wanted to determine if moss was not only growing upward to higher elevations, but outward, too.
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