| After 40 years of being away I returned to the | | | | Antarctic flora and fauna habitats. |
| Antarctic in 2005. Even with over 98 percent of | | | | The increase in temperature means less sea ice. Less |
| Antarctica being ice, global warming has started to | | | | sea ice has meant less krill larvae, (krill are the |
| change the fifth largest contient. In the 1960s I had | | | | shrimp-like creatures that most Antarctic marine life |
| worked on the Antarctic Peninsula as a | | | | depend on for food). This affects the more southerly |
| meteorologist, and I drove huskies. (Environmental | | | | Adelie penguins' feeding habits. The more northerly |
| concerns that the Antarctic-born huskies were an | | | | gentoo penguins are surviving the increased |
| alien species meant that by 1994 all the huskies were | | | | temperatures, though some recent warm summers |
| removed from the Antarctic). A major change has | | | | with temperatures over 8 degrees C has resulted in |
| been the increase from a few hundred tourists in the | | | | penguin heat exhaustion. |
| 1960s to the present number of over 30,000 | | | | The only two flowering Antarctic plants, the hair |
| Anatractic visitors annually. But the greatest change | | | | grass and the pearlwort, have increased their range |
| has been the effects of global warming. Comparing | | | | and area. There are more plants growing, and they |
| my meteorological records from forty years ago to | | | | are now found as far south as 68 degrees latitude. |
| those of the present has added to the evidence that | | | | 87% of the glaciers in the Antarctic Peninsula region |
| changes have occurred in Antarctica. | | | | have retreated in the last fifty years. This rapid |
| The effects are not immediately obvious to Antarctic | | | | change has not been evident for thousands of years. |
| visitors even though the temperature has increased | | | | Ice shelves have lost much of their ice; some have |
| by 2.5 degrees C over the last few decades. There | | | | now disappeared. Antarctic ice drill cores have shown |
| are still masses of ice, glaciers, and frigid waters along | | | | the fastest and highest jumps in temperature over |
| the Antarctic Peninsula. I had spent a year at | | | | the last 900,000 years has been in the last 200 |
| Adelaide Island in Marguerite Bay forty years ago | | | | years. Human activity has affected not only the |
| with no fur seals, now they lazed around on the | | | | temperate and tropical parts of the world, but also |
| rocks of the closed down base. In the 1960s the | | | | the polar areas. The edges of the north and south |
| seals lived 700 kilometers to the north. Now they are | | | | polar-regions are more vulnerable to change that the |
| spread all along the Antarctic Peninsula. In some | | | | zones in between. Global warming is changing our |
| breeding areas there is concern that the huge | | | | world. |
| numbers, now in the millions, will destroy other | | | | |