Antartica


Chapter 27 of Ecology of Eden talks about places that we have not touched on this Earth. We discussed this in class, and someone brought up the point that even in places that we have not developed on, they still face the destruction from human activity. For example, Antarctica is hardly inhabited by humans, but is facing extreme threats to its environment because of climate change and global warming. Antarctica is covered by ice that stretches about seven million cubic miles. Within the past fifty years, the west coast of the Antarctica Peninsula has been one of the most rapidly warming places on the entire planet. It has warmed by three degrees Celsius. The temperature of the Southern Ocean that surrounds the continent has increased by more than one degree Celsius in fifty years. This warming causes the wildlife that live there to suffer. Some ice caps have completely collapsed. Penguins have had a decline in their populations, or they have had to relocate their colonies to more stable environments. Krill in the Southern Ocean have seen a large decline in population. Scientist study Antarctica to see the effects of climate change and can predict how the rest of the world will be impacted based off of the changes to Antarctica’s environment. Even though Antarctica isn’t inhabited by humans, it has largely seen effects from humans that hurt the ecology.

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