Why Protect Antarctica?

The future of Antarctica and the surrounding Southern Ocean is intimately intertwined with our future and that of our planet.

Not only does Antarctica shape our global climate and hence everything that is contained within it, including human life; but it also supports the all-important ocean food chain.

Let us break this down.

To begin with, Antarctica plays a very important role in preventing our planet from overheating.

Acting like a giant mirror, the white (ice) surface of Antarctica reflects a large portion of the incoming solar radiation back into space. In doing so, it drastically reduces the amount of heat absorbed by our planet’s system – helping it to sustain cooler temperatures that support life.

Further, the large absorption of atmospheric heat by Antarctica’s cold waters, along with the annual growing and retreating of its ice sheet every year - play an equally crucial role in regulating our climate systems.

And that's not all.

Antarctica also supports the global ocean food chain.

The unique nutrient-rich cold waters of Antarctica provide a quintessential environment for tiny plankton populations – both the self-feeding and the Antarctica krill varieties - to grow and flourish, in its waters.

These planktons are not only the building block of the oceanic food chain but form a major diet for many marine animals.

Besides, the self-feeding plankton varieties (just like plants on our land) absorb a large amount of atmospheric CO₂ to prepare their food.

It sucks out as much as a remarkable 23 million tonnes of CO₂ from our atmosphere, annually!

However today, all is not well, down south!

As human activities in the past few centuries have led to an explosion in the quantity of atmospheric greenhouse gases, more heat has been trapped within our atmosphere.

As a result, our planet is warming up – not only to new high levels every year but at a speed, unknown in human history – ultimately threatening to completely destabilize our climate system on which our lives, so dearly depend and that of other living beings, we share this planet with.

Antarctica has been no exception to this growing impact of human-induced climate change on our planet.

The continent has warmed up synchronously with the rest of the planet. In February this year, parts of Antarctica recorded 18.3°C, the highest temperature ever in the region.

In fact, the Antarctica Peninsula is emerging as among the fastest-warming regions on our planet. In just the last 50 years, it has warmed up 3 times more than the average warming of 1°C recorded around the world.

At the very south pole, this rate of warming becomes even more alarming. It's 7 times higher than that across the continent's average!

The oceans around Antarctica follow the same pattern, with some areas warming up by as much as 3°C!

This rapid warming up of Antarctica and its surrounding Ocean has kicked off a domino effect of environmental impacts, whose influence can be felt significantly far beyond the continent.

In fact, some of these impacts, ironically, further exaggerate the ongoing global warming.

To begin with, the warming has led to a tremendous loss of the continent's ice cover to the ocean. While 4 (of the 12) ice shelves in the Antarctica peninsula region have collapsed, 3 others have retreated significantly. Making things worse, the rate of this ice loss has tripled since 2012, compared to the previous two decades.

This loss of ice cover, in turn, is not only reducing Antarctica’s solar radiation reflecting ability but also causing irreversible sea-level rise.

While the former is resulting in greater absorption of solar radiation within our atmosphere, further amplifying global warming; the latter is leaving more than 150 million people in island nations and coastal cities worldwide vulnerable.

In fact, sea levels globally are now rising faster than at any time in the past 3,000 years.

For perspective, the melting of all ice sheets in Antarctica can raise global sea levels by around 58 meters.

Moving on, there have several other concerning environmental impacts that have emerged too.

The warming atmosphere has led to excessive algae growth on the Antarctic white (ice) surface –further reducing our planet's important solar-radiation reflecting surface.

Additionally, as our oceans continuously attempt to reach a state of carbon equilibrium with the atmosphere, it is absorbing more and more CO2 that is being pumped into the atmosphere by human activities.

The has led to an increase in ocean acidity, including in the waters around Antarctica – challenging the survival of Antarctic krill, and the whole ocean food chain that depends on it.

Antarctica’s ecosystem is also threatened by the invasion of non-native sea life in the continent’s surrounding warming water.

As it stands out, protecting Antarctica is important – to avoid exaggerated global warming and irreversible sea-level rise that will impact us directly, while at the same time protecting the ocean food chain.

On the contrary, letting Antarctica deteriorate under the current climate crisis, will only make the crisis and its impact on our planet worse!

With climate emergency making the future for Antarctica exceptionally fragile, protecting Antarctica and its ecosystem is aligned with the ongoing global effort to reduce emissions and limit global warming.

Protecting Antarctica also involves minimizing the human influence on the continent. While this has been achieved by the Antarctic Treaty, (signed in 1959) that holds until now; the Treaty must continue on its current mandate to protect this largely unspoiled ecosystem!

Take a moment here

The explosion in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, arising from human activities over the past few centuries has resulted in unprecedented warming up of our planet! Reaching new high temperatures with each passing year and at a speed unknown to human history. As this phenomenon continues, it threatens to completely destabilize our climate system, and further threaten life on our planet, as we have known it.

The Antarctic region has been no exception to this warming up of our planet. Here, take a look at the domino effect of Antarctica‘s rapid warming up and notice how its influences are being felt well beyond its boundaries.