Climate Change

One of the greatest risks that the Antarctic ecosystem is facing is global climate change. As the Earth’s temperature rises, ice caps melt, changing the Antarctic tundra biome and negatively impacting the plants and animals that live there. The Earth relies on greenhouse gasses to keep the planet a suitable temperature. However, as population has increased, so have harmful emissions, causing more greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. With more of these greenhouse gasses, more heat gets trapped in our atmosphere.

In the Arctic tundra, polar bears stand on sheets of ice, eagerly awaiting seals who surface for air. If these ice sheets melt, polar bears would not get food. Musk ox are also impacted by the warming Earth. As the warm season lengthens, so do the number of slugs found on plants. Slugs are known to be prime carriers of parasites that can kill musk ox when eaten. A small change in temperature in the atmosphere of the active soil layer causes the deep permafrost to begin melting. That, in turn, causes the ground to collapse, forming deep gullies in the active layer.

Humans must monitor the effects of global climate change in order to sustain our delicate ecosystems. The tundra habitat destruction may lead to the extinction of one or more animal or plant species, and that loss has the potential to disrupt the fragile tundra ecosystem as a whole.