OF THE
TIMES
A fast-warming region of Antarctica is getting greener with shocking speed. Satellite imagery of the region reveals that the area covered by plants increased by almost 14 times over 35 years — a trend that will spur rapid change of Antarctic ecosystems.All this shock and drama arise from an area of "less than a square kilometer" expanding all the way up to "nearly 12 square kilometers". These numbers "shocked us" say the PR team, I mean, the scientists, who continue on in their best Agony-Aunt impression: "It's simply that rate of change in an extremely isolated, extremely vulnerable area that causes the alarm." Sob sob, and Boo hoo too. It's a lonely peninsula. Can we find it a friend?
"It's the beginning of dramatic transformation," says Olly Bartlett, a remote-sensing specialist at the University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield, UK, and an author of the study1, published today in Nature Geoscience, that reports these results.
Comment: An earlier report from the area: Woman killed by leopard in Pune, India - 5th such incident for district in 5 months