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Moss Growing In Antarctica - An ominous sign

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B19
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20 May 2017, 3:37 am

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... ica-green/
Only fish-eating creatures can live there - seals, whales and penguins, as there is no food for ground-feeding creatures. The moss acceleration is a very concerning discovery.



jrjones9933
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23 May 2017, 10:21 pm

I sort of take for granted that big changes loom on the horizon. I really should visit New Orleans soon.

Edit: autocorrect turned loom into look.


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Last edited by jrjones9933 on 23 May 2017, 11:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Feyokien
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23 May 2017, 10:46 pm

The moss was already on the northern peninsula, it's just growing at a faster rate. Less than a mm per year to now 3 mm per year.



cyberdad
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24 May 2017, 7:23 pm

What the article suggests is that the increase in moss growth (however slow) is similar to seasonal thaw of ice following a northern hemisphere winter. What would be more interesting is the growth of micro-algae as there is a much bigger biomass of algae in ice than moss. I've seen pictures of green biofilm forming in Antarctica



naturalplastic
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24 May 2017, 7:48 pm

cyberdad wrote:
What the article suggests is that the increase in moss growth (however slow) is similar to seasonal thaw of ice following a northern hemisphere winter. What would be more interesting is the growth of micro-algae as there is a much bigger biomass of algae in ice than moss.


I think that that's the point. Algae grows in sea ice. Moss can only grow on land that is perpetually ice free. So if we are getting more moss in Antarctica that means there is more dry land that is ice cover free. Which means that the ice is retreating.



cyberdad
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25 May 2017, 3:04 am

naturalplastic wrote:
cyberdad wrote:
What the article suggests is that the increase in moss growth (however slow) is similar to seasonal thaw of ice following a northern hemisphere winter. What would be more interesting is the growth of micro-algae as there is a much bigger biomass of algae in ice than moss.


I think that that's the point. Algae grows in sea ice. Moss can only grow on land that is perpetually ice free. So if we are getting more moss in Antarctica that means there is more dry land that is ice cover free. Which means that the ice is retreating.


Biofilms form on thawing ice whereby algal filaments have access to nutrients released from topsoil previously locked because of the ice sheets