There are some cute little plants growing in Antarctica, and they bode badly for the rest of the frozen continent and the future of our planet. A new study published in the journal Current Biology confirms that plants have been spreading rapidly due to high temperatures for ten years.
“Antarctica is like the canary in the coal mine,” explains Nicoletta Cannone, lead author of the study and associate professor of ecology at the University of Insubria. The frigid landscape of that continent means that few plants grow on it, and they usually do so far apart. In fact there are only two species that give flowers. The recently published study has focused precisely on these two species: Deschampsia antarctica, which is a type of herbaceous plant, and Colobanthus quitensis, which blooms with tiny yellow flowers. “These plants are well adapted to the Antarctic climate. They are able to photosynthesize in sub-zero or snow-covered temperatures and restart their growth when winter ends.”
Cannone and his colleagues have focused on studying the population of these two species on Signy Island, one of the islands that are part of the South Orknay archipelago. The reason for this choice is that there is a lot of historical data on the presence and extent of these plants on the islands since the 1960s. What the researchers have done is compare this historical record of data with observations of the plants made between 2009 and 2018.
During these nine years, the climate of the islands has become increasingly temperate, and it turns out that the plants love change. Colobanthus has grown at a rate three times faster in the last nine years compared to growth rates between 1960 and 2009. Deschampsia, for its part, is not that it has grown, it is that it has exploded to the point that its extension and growth is today ten times greater than a decade ago.
And it is not exactly that the islands have experienced an abrupt change in human terms. Temperatures have risen an average of 1 degree Celsius per year, but it’s clearly enough for plants to now feel at ease.
“The study is the first evidence of the accelerated impact of Climate Change in Antarctica”, explains Cannone. “Plants are the best indicator we have of the effects of climate change because they cannot move like animals when their environment changes.”
Although the continent is not experiencing changes as fast as the Arctic, it is clear that Antarctica is not immune to climate change as some scientists had come to theorize. A study published in 2020 warned that Antarctica has warmed at a rate three times faster than the rest of the world over the last 30 years.
In recent decades, Antarctica has also suffered a massive loss of ice. Between 2008 and 2015, that loss is estimated at 32 million tons of ice per year that is lost in the sea. Meanwhile, a study in 2019 reports that a quarter of the continent’s glaciers have become destabilized from how they were in 1992. Glaciers do a crucial job as valves that prevent ice loss, and there are some like the one at Thwaites ( aptly nicknamed the Glacier at the End of the World) that show a truly worrying aspect.
There are probably other factors involved in this abnormal flower growth. Seal activity often interferes with their growth, and seal populations have been declining in recent years, but the ultimate reason for the change remains rising temperatures, and we are seeing its effects at a much faster rate than expected. what we expected “We expected to see an increase in populations,” Cannone concludes. “But what we have recorded is off the charts and is a clear alarm bell about warming.”
