A landmark 13-year study published today (25 September AEST) in Nature Climate Change has provided the first evidence that climate change is affecting terrestrial ecosystems in East Antarctica. While West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula are among the most rapidly warming places on the planet, East Antarctica has not warmed in the same way and appeared to have so far escaped the strongest impacts of climate change.
The study, by researchers from the University of Wollongong (UOW), the Australian Antarctic Division and the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, found that vegetation in East Antarctica is changing rapidly in response to a drying climate.
East Antarctica, the researchers argue, has become colder, windier and drier due to the combined effects of climate change and ozone depletion. Starting in 2000, the researchers monitored old-growth moss beds near Australia’s Casey Station. The lush green moss bed at Casey, known as the “Daintree of the Antarctic”, are the largest plant ecosystem in East Antarctica.
Lead researcher Senior Professor Sharon Robinson from UOW’s Centre for Sustainable Ecosystem Solutions in the School of Biological Sciences said that when the researchers began monitoring the moss bed in 2000 they thought any changes they saw would be very gradual.
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