Climate Change Is Turning Antarctica Green
Antarctica, the desolate southernmost continent boasting the coldest climate on Earth, usually brings to mind visions of ice, snow and penguins.
But global warming is transforming Antarctica’s icy expanses, new research from the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom shows. Parts of the continent are “greening,” researchers say — and fast.
Moss has been growing on the Antarctic Peninsula at a dramatically faster rate in the past 50 years, and warming temperatures are the culprit, the researchers concluded in a paper published last week in the journal Current Biology.
“If you’d taken a photograph of these parts of the peninsula 50 years ago it would have been a monochrome shot of ice. Nothing but glaciers,” study co-author Dominic Hodgson told CNN. “Today that photo would show extensive patches of green.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/antarctica-green-climate-change-moss_us_5923df2ae4b034684b0f492d
Calli and Travis