By Riley Yager
Back in the Fall of 2018, I was taking an environmental disasters course and we had the privilege of getting to attend a lecture by Dr. James McClintock. This presentation completely blew my mind. At the time, I knew I wanted to have a career focused on environmental engineering, but I was just dipping my toes in waters of environmentalism. The data and results of Dr. McClintock’s research were the clearest evidence of climate change that I had ever encountered. For the first time, I was presented indisputable graphed data of our effects as humans on this planet. And the results were breathtaking. Dr. McClintock’s discoveries in the Antarctic are equally as astonishing as they are shocking. This new knowledge led me down a rabbit hole that is now a committed passion towards sustainability and environmental activism. I want to try my best to summarize Dr. McClintock’s research because I believe this is information that everyone should be aware of.
Before I get started, I would like to mention that Dr. James McClintock is a part of UAB’s faculty in the biology department and has been since 1987! His research has been founded for over 25 years by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and he has a book publication titled Lost Antarctica: Adventures in a Disappearing Land. You can read more about his work at UAB on the UAB in Antarctica website.
Dr. McClintock’s research involves the study of the effects of global warming and climate change in Antarctica and how these issues are affecting natural ecosystems. The main area of his studies is located south of Argentina, South America at the Antarctic Peninsula. Due to climate change, the Antarctic Peninsula is heating up more rapidly than any other region in the world. The Antarctic has heated up about 10 degrees in the last 60 years (Figure 1). This is causing glaciers to shrink as well as the ice sheets to melt and retreat closer and closer to land (Figure 2).
Fig. 1 Data from Vernadsky Base in 1940 to 2000
Fig. 2 Ice receding over the years due to climate change
These events are putting stress on the existing ecosystem. Adelie penguins are disappearing at alarming rates. The horrifying discovery of the disappearing penguins came from the fact that, at one point, 15,000 Adelie penguins were tagged and now, not too long after, only 1500 are being accounted for. Nearly ¾ of the tagged penguins have vanished! One reason for this is theorized as being that the Adelie penguins rely on ice sheets for habitat and hunting. The retreatment of ice sheets is making the Adelie’s swim a lot further to hunt which puts them at risk of becoming prey and depletes their energy. Krill also depend on the ice sheets for habitat and food. Both of these key species are disappearing at an alarming rate and warmer weather species that live further up the Peninsula are migrating down and taking their place. For example, the Gentoo penguin is now being spotted all over the Peninsula when nearly none was around in the 1990s (Figure 3).
Fig. 3 Penguin population in Peninsula over time
The effect on the environment of these new species is still uncertain. Dr. McClintock pointed out that changes like this occur all the time on earth and it's not the changes that are so alarming; The fact that changes that usually take 100(s) years to occur are happening in a human’s life time is the part that is drawing so much attention. He also mentions the appearance of king crabs close to the Antarctic which has never been seen before. These crabs are a threat to the vulnerable, soft shell life that exist in the cold depths of the Antarctic. Dr. McClintock stated that he and his team have discovered that some of these species that are under threat by the king crabs are harboring potential cures to human disease. Not only are the species in the Antarctic changes, but also the sea forests are retreating, which also affects the surrounding species.
Dr. McClintock’s compelling evidence on the effects of climate change in the Antarctic was followed by an even more convincing study on the changes of carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere. Drilling in three-mile-thick glaciers has revealed pockets of air that have been trapped for thousands of years. These air pockets have been measured for the compounds present and have been compared to the content of the air today (Figure 4). A shocking discovery showed that even though the carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere has increased and decreased every 100,000 years or so, the increase in carbon dioxide we are experiencing today is about 100 ppm more than earth has had in over 400,000 years!! This is serious evidence of our impact here on earth.
Fig. 4 Carbon content of air pockets over time in Antarctic glaciers.
The most dramatic impact of the warming of the Antarctic is the rising global sea levels which could potentially drown major metropolitan areas like New Year and Miami. Industries in the coastal regions will be heavily impacted as well. The changing ecosystems in the Peninsula are sure to impact the ecosystems near human civilization soon enough and this could potentially change animal migrations which would affect our hunting cycles.
This research in its entirety completely opened my eyes to the reality of climate change and I hope that this blog post can shed more needed light on this issue. It’s discoveries like this that create die-hard environmentalists and the world can never have enough of those. I encourage everyone to research this further.
References
[1] “James McClintock 2/17/16 from Penguins to Plankton - Impacts of Climate Change on Antarctica” (YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDZUJYqz0Lo&feature=youtu.be
[2] Penguin Population Plummeting in Changing Antarctic Climate (CBS Evening News) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=How4bzVTRI
[3] Antarctica is a Barometer of Global Change | Jim McClintock TEDxBirmingham. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meHunVXB3c
[4] Svein Tveitdal. Changing Climate in Antarctica. Hurtigruten. https://www.hurtigruten.com/destinations/antarctica/inspiration/changing-climate-in-antarctica/
[5] UAB in Antarctica. https://www.uab.edu/antarctica/