(Photo/CGTN )
Australian researchers say Antarctica's climate is changing at an alarming rate, from melting ice to warming temperatures. But as there isn't a lot of historical data available, it's difficult to simply blame global warming, or understand precisely why. They say questions that need to be answered are: why and how these changes might impact the rest of the planet.
Christopher Fogwill, a research fellow from the University of New South Wales, said that Antarctica is so remote from most continents that "finding out the kind of knowledge levels about biology or climate systems we know about other parts of the world, is almost impossible," but he also said the remoteness and lack of human development makes Antarctica the perfect place to study the impact of a warming planet.
CGTN correspondent Greg Navarro reports that "greening" is happening in parts of Antarctica, and is having an impact on some of the animals and ecosystems unique to that part of the world, such as dark-adapted invertebrates, which rely on the ice being there year-round.
Fogwill and other scientists are trying to learn more about Antarctica's past, mentioning it is one of the difficult things to do as the observational window of Antarctica is short. "If we can go back 100, 200 years, perhaps even a millennia, then we can get a really good detailed picture of what climate has been doing," said Fogwill.
