A few years ago, researchers from the universities of Exeter and Hertfordshire (United Kingdom) and the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) noted, from samples taken on site, that plant growth rates in Antarctica had increased significantly in recent decades.
Antarctica greener than ever
Today it is on the databasedatabase satellites that the same scientists confirm in the journal Nature Geoscience that in Antarctica, the trend is towards greening.
A vegetated surface area increased more than tenfold in 40 years
“The Antarctic landscape is still almost entirely dominated by snow, ice and rock, with only a small fraction colonized by vegetation. But this small fraction has increased dramatically”specify the researchers. From less than 1 square kilometer in 1986, the green area has increased to 12 square kilometers in 2021. And the trend has accelerated by more than 30% over the last 5 years (2016-2021) compared to the whole of the study period.
“As the climate warms, ecosystems become established. It is therefore likely that greening will continue. Especially since the more plant life there is in Antarctica, the more the soil becomes enriched in mattermatter organic, the easier plants can grow. With the even risk of seeing non-native and invasive plants established there, transported by scientists or ecotourists. »
Concern for Antarctica
These findings are of great concern to scientists. They fear for the environmental future of the peninsulapeninsula Antarctica and the continent as a whole. And they now hope to understand what precisely causes such changes. By studying, for example, how landscapes that have recently lost their ice are colonized by plants and how the process might unfold in the future.
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