Wiki tells there are no permanent residents in Antarctica, although there may be few thousand researchers and support personnel on the continent at any specific time. 98% of the land area is covered by an ice sheet averaging 1 mile thick. Despite the presence of all that water, Antarctica is considered a desert - less than 8 inches of precipitation a year. The Antarctic Treaty of 1959 declares the continent a scientific refuge.
Even though it may be a scientific refuge, Life on Antarctica moved by warming tells that sea changes are affecting the web of life. The bottom of the pyramid - phytoplankton are relocating. The Antarctica seas have been locally warming five times greater than the rest of the globe and the tiny plankton have disappearing from the northern shores and relocating to the southern coastlines.
Because large animals feed upon the plankton and larger animals feed upon them, the biological chain is moving south. Phytoplankton changing along the Antarctic peninsula as climate warms, Rutgers scientists find adds that paradoxically there is less plankton with 4.5 degrees F warmer temperatures on the northern coast. The reason is that the winds are much stronger, mixing blown snow with evaporating water, resulting in less sunlight available for photosynthesis. Fortunately the southern coastline does not have the same sunlight blockage, resulting in increased plankton.
Also - remember the story about ocean fertilization in Antarctica? Iron-dumping experiment is a bust: it feeds crustaceans, doesn't trap carbon explains that when researchers dumped 20 tons of iron sulfate off the Antarctica coastline, they did not achieve their desired results. They had hoped to stimulate a bloom of phytoplankton and then it would sink to the ocean floor, trapping the carbon, just as when the original fossil fuels were created. There was a bloom, but it did not sink and instead it was eaten by copepods which were then eaten by a larger crustacean.
Yes I know - not all of my ideas have bloomed, either.
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