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Parts of icy Antarctica are turning green with plant life at an alarming rate as the region is gripped by extreme heat events, according to new research, sparking concerns about the changing landscape on this vast continent.
Scientists used satellite imagery and data to analyze vegetation levels on the Antarctic Peninsula, a long mountain chain that points north to the tip of South America, and which has been warming much faster than the global average.
They found plant life — mostly mosses — had increased in this harsh environment more than 10-fold over the past four decades, according to the study by scientists at the universities of Exeter and Hertfordshire in England, and the British Antarctic Survey, published Friday in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Vegetation covered less than 0.4 square miles of the Antarctic Peninsula in 1986 but had reached almost 5 square miles by 2021, the study found. The rate at which the region has been greening over nearly four decades has also been speeding up, accelerating by more than 30% between 2016 and 2021.
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📸 Tom Roland; Matt Amesbury; Dan Charman
