Warmer temperatures in the Antarctic could threaten penguins, whales, seals and a host of smaller creatures, a marine biologist warns in a lecture to be given at Christmas. Lloyd Peck, of the British Antarctic Survey, argues that even a small rise in sea temperatures could have dramatic consequences.
"Antarctic animals -- in the sea especially -- are very sensitive to climate change and they are the early warning system for the loss of species on the planet. We should be watching for those because climate change is probably going to get rid of them before it gets rid of other species," he says.
"We know things are changing; it is going to be really unpleasant; we are going to lose things -- we just don't know how much," he said.
Peck, 47, a scuba diving expert on the strange fauna of the south polar seabed, will deliver this year's UK Royal Institution Christmas lecture, backed by film from Antarctica. The Christmas lectures for young people were founded by the physicist Michael Faraday in the mid-1820s and have been televised since 1966.
His message is that important species in the freezing southern seas are so sensitive to temperature shifts that they could perish in a world only a couple of degrees warmer.
"We take clams out of the sediment and let them bury themselves again. We take limpets off the seashore, turn them over and let them turn back again. If you warm them up by about two degrees or so from their normal summer temperatures, they lose the ability to do those functions," he says.
Antarctic krill, the tiny shrimp-like creatures that flourish in their billions, are also at risk. In winter, krill depend on thick mats of green algae that flourish on the underside of ice shelves which extend out of the polar darkness into the sub-Antarctic light.
As the oceans warm, the winter ice will retreat, and the algae will vanish.
"If one of the key species in the system goes, then very quickly you'd lose a lot of the system. And that would affect penguins, seals and whales. The fishery areas around the Antarctic would be affected," he said.
"So the animals that everybody is interested in -- the furry ones with big eyes, the penguins, the whales -- there is potential for them to be affected very quickly by the loss of a few species in the Antarctic food chain," Peck said.
The Antarctic continent is still cold. But the Antarctic peninsula, home to the British research bases, has warmed by up to 3?C in the last 50 years.
"We have seen big losses of ice shelves and glaciers, recession of ice, and have seen new habitable areas for animals on the Antarctic peninsula," Peck said.
"On this trip I saw grass growing in areas that I have not seen grass before. I am seeing mosses and animals on land that was covered in ice just five or 10 years ago," he said.
Seals and penguins are adapted to dramatic seasonal changes in temperature and travel huge distances for food. But polar life is unforgiving, and small cyclical shifts in temperatures in the equatorial Pacific already cause huge losses to penguin colonies further south.
"When you have low krill stocks the penguins die, and they die when the chicks get to fledgling age. The time when the chicks need food most is just when they are about to go to sea. If the food supply is not enough, you can have 95 percent or 99 percent mortalities in a couple of weeks," Peck said. "The whole place goes from a mass of penguin chicks to a big mass of dead bodies all over the place."
Peck was born in 1957, the son of a steel foundry worker, and he still isn't quite sure how he became a marine biologist in the world's emptiest continent.
"My mother and father were desperate that I wouldn't work in a heavy industry. My father would say to me, `If you work down the pit or in a steel foundry when you are grown up I am going to cut your hands off,'" he said.
He became fascinated by how animals use energy. The Antarctic proved to be the perfect laboratory, because its denizens have to cope with extremes. So, of course, do its scientists.
"The whole world is just flat and white for as far as you can see in all directions and the air is so clear that you could see a mountaintop 50 or 60 miles away, and it is so quiet that you can have a conversation with somebody a quarter of a mile away because there is no background noise," he said.
"On a still day, it is a really surreal world. And then the wind blows, and the snow starts to whip off the ice, and you can't see anything," he said.
"Visibility is about two meters, so you just stay inside," he said.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to bully Taiwan by conducting military drills extremely close to Taiwan in late May 2024 and announcing a legal opinion in June on how they would treat “Taiwan Independence diehards” according to the PRC’s Criminal Code. This article will describe how China’s Anaconda Strategy of psychological and legal asphyxiation is employed. The CCP’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) conducted a “punishment military exercise” against Taiwan called “Joint Sword 2024A” from 23-24 May 2024, just three days after President William Lai (賴清德) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was sworn in and
Former US president Donald Trump’s comments that Taiwan hollowed out the US semiconductor industry are incorrect. That misunderstanding could impact the future of one of the world’s most important relationships and end up aiding China at a time it is working hard to push its own tech sector to catch up. “Taiwan took our chip business from us,” the returnee US presidential contender told Bloomberg Businessweek in an interview published this week. The remarks came after the Republican nominee was asked whether he would defend Taiwan against China. It is not the first time he has said this about the nation’s
In a recent interview with the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily, former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) called President William Lai (賴清德) “naive.” As always with Ma, one must first deconstruct what he is saying to fully understand the parallel universe he insists on defending. Who is being “naive,” Lai or Ma? The quickest way is to confront Ma with a series of pointed questions that force him to take clear stands on the complex issues involved and prevent him from his usual ramblings. Regarding China and Taiwan, the media should first begin with questions like these: “Did the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)
The Yomiuri Shimbun, the newspaper with the largest daily circulation in Japan, on Thursday last week published an article saying that an unidentified high-ranking Japanese official openly spoke of an analysis that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) needs less than a week, not a month, to invade Taiwan with its amphibious forces. Reportedly, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has already been advised of the analysis, which was based on the PLA’s military exercises last summer. A Yomiuri analysis of unclassified satellite photographs confirmed that the PLA has already begun necessary base repairs and maintenance, and is conducting amphibious operation exercises