Fast-Growing Moss Is Turning Antarctica Green
Rising temperatures have boosted the growth rates of seasonal moss on the southern continent over the last 50 years.
The icy landscape of Antarctica is getting decidedly greener.
By drilling down into layers of moss that have accumulated on the southern continent over the last 150 years, researchers discovered that those diminutive plants have done more growing than usual in the last five decades.
The driving force, they say, is warmer global temperatures—as Antarctica’s ice melts, more water is available to moisten the mosses, and the rising heat provides longer growing seasons for the plants. (Also see “Antarctica Is Covered With More Meltwater Than Thought.”)
"Temperature increases over roughly the past half century on the Antarctic Peninsula have had a dramatic effect on moss banks growing in the region," Matthew Amesbury, a paleoclimate researcher at the University of Exeter in
