Antarctica 'greens' at dramatic rate as heating brings profound change to icy continent

Plant cover across the Antarctic Peninsula has soared more than tenfold over the last few decades, as the climate crisis heats up the icy continent.

- Damian Carrington

Analysis of satellite data found there was less than one square kilometre of vegetation in 1986 but there was almost 12 sq km of green cover by 2021. The spread of the plants, mostly mosses, has accelerated since 2016, the researchers found.

The growth of vegetation on a continent dominated by ice and bare rock is a sign of the reach of global heating into the Antarctic, which is warming faster than the global average. The scientists warned that this spread could provide a foothold for alien invasive species into the pristine Antarctic ecosystem.

Greening has also been reported in the Arctic and in 2021 rain, not snow, fell on the summit of Greenland's huge ice cap for the first time on record.

"The Antarctic landscape is still almost entirely dominated by snow, ice and rock, with only a tiny fraction colonised by plant life," said Dr Thomas Roland, at the University of Exeter who co-led the study.