A group of scientists from Universities of Exeter and Hertfordshire, and the British Antarctic Survey, have carried out a survey of satellite images of the Antarctic Peninsula and concluded it is “getting greener with shocking speed”.
The research team studied Landsat images collected between 1986 and 2021 and used them to assess how much of the Antarctic Peninsula was covered in vegetation rather than bare rock or snow and ice. They found the area covered with plant growth increased from 0.863 sq kmin 1986 to 11.947 sq kmin 2021 – a 14 fold increase.
One of the researchers, Thomas Roland, an environmental scientist at the University of Exeter, UK, commented: “These numbers shocked us. It’s simply that rate of change in an extremely isolated, extremely vulnerable area that causes the alarm.” He went on to claim the results show “that even this vast and isolated ‘wilderness’ is being affected by anthropogenic climate change.”
The plant growth is mainly mosses, which can colonise bare rock and help create new soil, which can then support other kinds of plants, along with microbes and small invertebrates. Another researcher, Olly Bartlett from the University of Hertfordshire commented: “Soil in Antarctica is mostly poor or non-existent, but this increase in plant life will add organic matter, and facilitate soil formation – potentially paving the way for other plants to grow. This raises the risk of non-native and invasive species arriving, possibly carried by eco-tourists, scientists or other visitors to the continent.”
Thomas Roland also commented: Our findings raise serious concerns about the environmental future of the Antarctic Peninsula, and of the continent as a whole. In order to protect Antarctica, we must understand these changes and identify precisely what is causing them.”
References: Nature News 4 October 2024; ScienceDaily 7 October 2024; Nature Geoscience 4 October 2024 doi: 10.1038/s41561-024-01564-5
Editorial Comment: The comments about “non-native species” growing in Antarctica exposes the hypocrisy of environmentalists who believe in evolution, but don’t want the process that supposedly drives it, i .e. natural selection, to happen. If plants are now able to grow in a place that used to be too cold and barren that is natural selection at work, i.e. the new plants show survival of the fittest in the struggle for life.
Why would the transformation of a barren wilderness where nothing can live into fertile ground covered with vegetation be “shocking”? The emergence of plant life in Antarctica is not shocking when you realise there is plenty of evidence that Antarctica has been previously covered in plant and animal life. The greening of Antarctica is part of a global trend of greening that is occurring as a result of warmth and increased carbon dioxide.
Yes, the climate is changing – it has been ever since Noah’s Flood when God told Noah that there would be times of heat and cold. Despite claims of “anthropogenic” (man made) climate change, climate is dependent on forces that humans cannot control, including the sun, clouds and ocean currents. Only the Creator, who is Jesus Christ, can control these, so we should be looking to Him for guidance on how to live on this planet, and how to be saved from sin so we are ready to live in the New Heavens and Earth that He has promised to create.
Creation Research News 16 October 2024
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