Antarctica - Environmental Challenges

This brief summary is based on my own research mostly from Wikipedia. Antarctica is nearly twice the size of Australia but is only inhabited by a few people (mostly scientists) due to its extreme cold. Antarctica is covered by ice which is, on average, 2.1 km thick across the whole continent. This is enough water to raise sea levels by 70 metres if it were to melt. This has built up over millions of years under different climatic conditions and now most of Antarctica is technically a polar desert, with some parts having very little precipitation.

Whilst ice on the eastern half of Antarctica is situated on high ground and is stable, on the western side ice sits on land that is mostly below sea level because of the weight of the ice sitting above it. This ice – called the West Antarctic Ice Sheet - has the potential to melt fastest as the climate and the waters around Antarctica warm up. The result of this warming is higher melting of ice as it reaches the sea and more calving of large icebergs causing sea levels to rise faster than before. As ice is lost from the edges of the ice sheet more ice is also drawn to the sea from the interior of the western part of the continent further increasing the loss of ice. These processes are happening now, and are a result of sea and air that is warming. They have been observed by scientists over the past few decades and also in recent international research programmes in 2019 and 2020 and are reported in world news. The melting of the Thwaites Glacier, West Antarctica, in itself is currently responsible for 4% of global sea level rise, a staggering amount from a single source, but not surprising when you realise that nearly all of the world’s freshwater is held frozen in Antarctica.

Luckily for Antarctica it is protected by a treaty system where military activities, mineral mining, nuclear explosions and waste are prohibited, and scientific research by over 4000 scientists on 70 research stations is promoted. Exploitation of all mineral resources is banned until 2048, and hopefully that will continue. The Antarctic Treaty was originally signed 1959 by 12 nations and now has 52 country Signatories and 28 Consultative Parties and is recognised as one of the most successful international agreements with political differences set aside to protect this vast wilderness.

In 1998 an Environmental Protocol came into force to conserve and manage Antarctica’s ecosystems and to prevent mineral exploitation. This continues with the designation of Marine Protection Areas around Antarctica to prevent fishing of krill and other fish to protect the marine ecosystem in the Southern Ocean. These have been set up in 2009 and 2016 around the South Orkney Islands and Ross Sea covering 1.55million km2, with hopefully more to follow.

Major concerns are the introduction of alien species to the continent, the over fishing of Chilean Sea Bass (or to give it its US name Patagonian Toothfish) and Krill, by illegal fishing in general, and the impact on marine life from plastic and microplastics pollution.

Much work to understand the region is done by the prestigious British Antarctic Survey. This is one of the world’s most eminent group of scientists who are leading the effort to track climate change and animal life on this unique continent.