Green space now covers nearly 5 square miles of Antarctica

[thomdunn]

Originally published at: Green space now covers nearly 5 square miles of Antarctica - Boing Boing

…

[Otherbrother]

@thomdunn

The earliest images, from 1986, show about 8,000 square feet of green on the continent—less than a single football field. Thanks to man-made global warming, that area has expanded to cover nearly 5 square miles.

@thomdunn

The tenfold increase in vegetation cover since 1986 “is not huge in the global scheme of things,” Roland added

Something isn’t adding up with the math here. 8000 ft^2 is only about 0.000286 mile^2, so 5 square miles is about a 17,000X increase in area, not a 10X increase.

Also, an American football field is about 57,600 square feet so yes, 8000 square feet is a lot less than that but there are probably other objects closer in size that would be a more useful point of comparison.

[FSogol]

Lee and Kirby were ahead of their time!

[Scientist]

The useful units from the paper abstract:
“The area of likely vegetation cover increased from 0.863 km² in 1986 to 11.947 km² in 2021”

The 1986 figure is about 9 million ft², not 8,000. A lot bigger than a football field

[thomdunn]

Yeah, I don’t know why I didn’t catch that, but it is odd. Here’s the original source for that: Greening of Antarctica shows how climate change affects the frozen continent - Ars Technica

[Scientist]

Apparently the writer at ars thinks 0.8 km² is the same as 800 m² (which would be about 8000 ft²)

[thomdunn]

Ahhh that’s where I fucked up (taking that reading at their word)

[thomdunn]

I, for one, welcome our benevolent Lord Ka-Zar

[FSogol]

I’m voting for Shanna the She-Devil this time.

[chenille]

Antarctica froze over back in the Oligocene, some 30 million years ago. We haven’t hit temperatures not seen since before then yet, but hey, life may as well get a start on them.

Sucks for species adapted to current conditions, i.e all of them now…but sure, eventually some survivors will enjoy. I wonder if Antarctica could somehow end up with any mammals or (non-avian) reptiles, or if it would all just be birds. Since we’re trashing things anyway, maybe we could seed it with some Arctic fauna that need new homes.

[szielins]

I wonder if Antarctica could somehow end up with any mammals or (non-avian) reptiles, or if it would all just be birds.

Rats. It’s always rats.

[Otherbrother]

I’d always heard about rats spreading to islands and new continents as pests hidden aboard big ships, which is absolutely true, but I only recently learned that historically Polynesians intentionally brought rats with them to new islands, in part for use as a food source:

Māori Perspectives On Animals In Aotearoa - Faunalytics

(This was a smaller non-European rat species known as kiore)

Given that history there are some groups of Māori who are still resistant to the idea of eradicating all rats from New Zealand islands. Thorny subject.

But yeah, let’s keep them off of Antarctica, please! The penguins deserve to live in (relative) peace given all the other hardships they have to put up with.

[euansmith]

I wonder if there is anything thawing out there that we should be worried about?

The Thing (2/10) Movie CLIP - It's Weird and Pissed Off (1982) HD

Or maybe this will reveal some new tourist destinations?

[smulder]

When Antarctica Was Green

[MildBill]

There is officially nothing to see here. Move along.

[Amstrad]

cough

The Land That Time Forgot (novel)

[FSogol]

That was an uncharted island with dinosaurs, not a tropical dinosaur-inhabited Antarctica. And not to be confused with hollow earth stories filled with dinosaurs.