Grass flourishes in warmer Antarctic

The Sunday Times - Britain ^ | December 26, 2004 | Jonathan Leake, Science Editor

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Grass flourishes in warmer Antarctic

Jonathan Leake, Science Editor

GRASS has become established in Antarctica for the first time, showing the continent is warming to temperatures unseen for 10,000 years.

Scientists have reported that broad areas of grass are now forming turf where there were once ice-sheets and glaciers.

Tufts have previously grown on patches of Antarctica in summer, but the scientists have now observed bigger areas surviving winter and spreading in the summer months. Some fear the change portends a much wider melting of the ice-cap that formed at least 20m years ago.

Pete Convey, an ecologist conducting research with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), said: “Grass has taken a grip. There are very rapid changes going on in the Antarctic’s climate, allowing grass to colonise areas that would once have been far too cold.”

Convey said many species of wildlife were at serious risk from such rapid change including penguins, seals, cold-water fish and giant sea spiders.

The findings come at a politically sensitive time with Europe and America clashing over the latter’s refusal to sign up to the Kyoto treaty to limit greenhouse gas emissions. The confrontation may worsen with Tony Blair saying he is determined to push the issue up the international agenda when Britain assumes the presidencies of the European Union and the G8 countries next year.

The latest research was carried out on the Antarctic peninsula, which juts northwards towards Cape Horn, and the islands around it. More strongly influenced by changes in sea and air temperatures than the rest of Antarctica, these areas are an excellent place to measure effects of climate change.

Measurements over the past three decades show these are among the fastest-warming places on earth, with winter temperatures already 5C higher than in 1974. Many glaciers and ice-sheets are melting.

Convey said Antarctic hair grass and another species called pearlwort were the only complex plants capable of surviving on the Antarctic mainland. He said: “In the past they were at the limit of their range. They used to appear sporadically with one or a few plants growing in sheltered north-facing areas where birds or the wind dropped the seeds but they never did very well.

“What we are seeing now is dense swards or lawns forming and both plants growing much further south than ever before. It is quite remarkable.”

Research by Convey and his colleagues suggests one of the main reasons for the change is that the rising temperatures have brought forward the start of the Antarctic spring and delayed the onset of autumn, enabling the grass to produce mature seed which germinates and becomes established.

Antarctica has not always been ice-bound. It once had a temperate climate and was covered in dense vegetation. The Antarctic Peninsula was then joined to South America, creating a continuous land barrier along which warm water flowed southwards from the tropics. This water warmed Antarctica in the same way that the Gulf Stream now warms parts of Britain and northern Europe.

About 30m years ago, however, movements of the Earth’s crust carried South America northwards, cutting off the warm water. It was replaced by the circumpolar current in which extremely cold water flows in a constant circle around Antarctica, keeping it frozen and isolated.

John King, principal investigator for the BAS climate change programme, said: “We have also seen a sharp increase in the Roaring Forties, the powerful westerly winds that prevail around the Antarctic. One theory is that global warming is strengthening these winds.”

King and his colleagues believe such trends could continue, possibly even raising winter temperatures on the peninsula from their past average of -10C to near freezing. Eventually this could give the peninsula a climate comparable to that of Scandinavia.

A further climate alert is to be raised by Professor Lloyd Peck, Convey’s colleague at BAS. He will deliver a stark warning in the Royal Institution’s annual Christmas lectures on Channel 4 this week. Peck said this weekend: “Climate change in Antarctica is a warning of the globally catastrophic changes that will follow unless we act now.”

[johnwayne]

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

So what is that.?....a naked sea spider?

[farmfriend]

That looks more like the discription.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

From the article:

GRASS has become established in Antarctica for the first time,

From your link:

The island has a relatively diverse flora and luxuriant development of plant communities, representative of the southern maritime Antarctic region. >The rich terrestrial biology of Lagotellerie Island was first noted by Herwil Bryant, biologist at East Base (US, on Stonington Island; now Historic Monument No. 55), during a visit in 1940-41 when he observed growths of moss, the Antarctic hair grass Deschampsia antarctica, and "a small flowering plant" (almost certainly the Antarctic pearlwort Colobanthus quitensis), in a small gully – believed to be that found at the north-eastern end of the island – which he considered of such unusual richness for the region that he unofficially referred to it as "Shangri-la Valley". He did not describe the less luxuriant but more extensive communities of Deschampsia antarctica and Colobanthus quitensis found on the higher north-facing slopes of the island. These slopes and terraces also provide favourable microclimatic conditions for growth, with a relatively long snow-free growing season, and support an abundance of Deschampsia antarctica and Colobanthus quitensis, the grass forming closed swards of up to 10 m2 on some of the terraces. These are among the largest stands of these plants known south of the South Shetland Islands. Both species flower abundantly and the seeds have a greater viability than those produced in the South Orkney or South Shetland Islands, yet they are close to the southern limit of their range. Lagotellerie Island, however, is notable for the growth of Deschampsia antarctica at the highest altitude recorded south of 56° S, with scattered small plants observed at heights of up to 275 m. Colobanthus quitensis has been observed growing up to 120 m on the island.

Damn liars!!!!

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!

[editor-surveyor]

Wow, more B.S. - I can hardly contain myself.

It's hard to believe that at a time when ice flows are growing so fast that island-sized icebergs are breaking off, and the bergs are threatening New Zealand's shipping lanes. Warming? couldn't we use some?

[farmfriend]

couldn't we use some?

My friend in Michigan thinks so.

[editor-surveyor]

"Fear? When did grass become scary?
When did fear become part of the scientific method?"

When Ronald Reagan defeated the Soviet Union in the cold war, and the hopes of the world socialists overcoming the west were dashed.

[E.G.C.]

BTT!!!!!!

[editor-surveyor]

When God speakes in parables, he specifically tells us so.

Did you really mean allegory? - A study of Hebrew will alleviate such nonsense; the days of Genesis were normal days, not some other period. ("the evening and the morning were the ___ day")

[editor-surveyor]

"Damn liars!!!!"

What's new Ernest?

[snopercod]

Cool. Golfing in Antarctica next.

[SandRat]

Bloody wateRMElons

[Finny]

You are reading waaaaaay too much into my post. Please leave me out of the Evo/Creation debate raging on this forum.

Then why your comment about how "fascinating" it is to see that "the same people who push natural selection" also seem to think there can be a status quo in nature? It sounds an awful lot to me an Evo/Creation debate statement. I'm hard pressed to identify anything else that can be read into such a statment.

[metacognative]

Wonderful news, let's have trees and much more warmth!

[txhurl]

That's more like it. You say 'sea spider' to me, I start thinking melted lemon garlic butter. Mmm..

[Finny]

When God speakes in parables, he specifically tells us so. Did you really mean allegory? - A study of Hebrew will alleviate such nonsense; the days of Genesis were normal days, not some other period. ("the evening and the morning were the ___ day")

My big fat Webster's dictionary uses the word "parable" in its definition of the word "allegory," which I had to look up! So I guess yes, I really meant "allegory" ... according to my dictionary, that's what a "parable" is.

Perhaps a study of Hebrew confirms what you say. Therefore, the earth is 5,000 years old? All I can say, is then, that the Hebrew code is being misread by men, because I no more believe, or think God would be impressed if I did, that the world is 5,000 years old than I believe that the sun revolves around the earth. God gave us brains, He made us in His image, and brainy guys like Darwin (who was a Christian, not an atheist) use and have used that gift from God to observe the world around them. Sometimes what they observe doesn't square-up with man's literal interpretation of the bible's representation of the physical world.

Apparently you think it's more Christ-like or God-like to ignore what God-given intelligence and reason reveals is truth regarding the physical world, and accept instead the word of theolgians and academics who believe they know the secrets of how God performs His miracles? The value of the bible is its moral guidance. It is a handbook that tells us how we can thrive. It is no more a physical textbook than a cookbook is a review of restaurants.

If evolution negated the moral teachings of Christ and the Bible, I'd be troubled in my heart. But indeed, evolution rather confirms them in an abstract sense: adapt and survive; fail to adapt and perish. Human societies that adapt to God's laws -- although they may seem at odds with the "natural" world and its own rules of kill-or-be-killed -- thrive, and will always survive. Those that don't, are doomed to experience strife and ultimately, destruction. Look at our own American culture. The farther we stray from God's moral laws, the more unstable we become.

Certainly Godless governments such as Communism are inevitably doomed to cave in on themselves -- it doesn't take a rocket scientist, or Hebrew scholars, to figure that one out.

What really puzzles me is ... why is the prospect that God formed us slowly through time via other of His creations, so horrifying to so many Christians? It is not taking another god before God; it is not worshipping a graven image. It is a challenge to men who presume to interpret God's word for everyone else. Evolution doesn't challenge God, it challenges men.

[editor-surveyor]

" Therefore, the earth is 5,000 years old?"

The earth is approx. 6000 years old. That is what the Bible geneologies indicate, and that is what the physical evidence says.

If you use the preferred rock dating methods on newly cooled volcanic rocks in Hawaii, or Washington, it will tell you that those rocks are 300 million years old, so where is the credibility of the method? If you ask the psuedo-scientists why, they will simply assert that the test doesn't work on new rock; are you buying? Where is the common sense?

BTW, Darwin was a practicing occultist, until he became terminally ill, at which time he admitted that his theory had huge holes in it.

My God was and is powerful enough to do things exactly as he said in his word.

[farmfriend]

It sounds an awful lot to me an Evo/Creation debate statement. I'm hard pressed to identify anything else that can be read into such a statment.

That is because you don't know me or how much time I spend fighting the enviros that are killing our property rights. This was a statement about them, no more, no less.

[Lazamataz]

I hereby claim the entire Antarctic continent.

So when it blooms all warm and lovely, we can try the concept of freedom THERE.