Tourism in Antarctica – An Introduction

Today’s post will be a light one, introducing tourism and the different ways that it impacts Antarctica.

It is correct to say that there are no continents on Earth that humans have not touched. Human visits to Antarctica were initially for research only. However humans are visiting the continent in vast numbers for no reason other than for entertainment and pleasure (see Figure 2). Seeing wildlife is perhaps the only reason why tourists venture out to Antarctica, but ironically, their activities are harming the very environment which they claim to idolise. The visits have been identified as causing disturbance to wildlife, having negative impacts on vegetation and soil and leaving litter ashore (Bauer, 1994). Furthermore, Aronson et al. (2011) identify further disruptions to the environment such as pollution and the introduction of invasive species. These impacts are no doubt harmful to the Antarctic ecosystem. This raises some important questions such as: to what extent is the industry being regulated, what does the future of Antarctic tourism look like given the issues concerning ice instability and global warming and how severe is the wildlife impact of tourism?

Figure 1: Tourists observing penguins

Figure 2 shows the pace of tourism growth in recent years. This graph is an indication of what the future for Antarctica holds and the severity of the impact of humans through tourism. The figure shows that total tourism increased to more than 45,000 visits per year from 2007 to 2008. After 2008, there has been an overall decline in tourism, falling to about 37,000 per year in 2009. This is presumable attributed to the global financial crisis and reduction in consumer spending as incomes fell. Nevertheless, tourist numbers are still higher than they have been for the past 20 years.

Figure 2: Estimated numbers of passengers travelling annually to Antarctica on expeditions and cruise-only tour ships between 1992-2010. Source: Aronson et al. (2011)

Keep a look out for the answers to the above questions and insightful discussions on this topic!

Natural Climate Variability and The Arctic Oscillation

Last week, I posted about the Larsen B ice shelf, proposing that its break up may have been human induced. There is a lot of uncertainty about climate change at the moment. In my very first post, I highlighted this issue explaining that it can leave you feeling confused about what is actually happening! Some researchers believe that the Larsen B ice shelf collapsed because of greenhouse gases, while other researchers, primarily climate change sceptics, believe that natural climate variability is actually contributing to the climate in Antarctica. This post is going to present their arguments. 

The Arctic Oscillation

Antarctica experiences changes in climate due to natural climate variability. One example of this is the Arctic Oscillation. The Arctic Oscillation fluctuates between a positive and a negative state, as shown in Figure 1. When in a positive state, the Arctic experiences unusually low atmospheric pressure and a warmer climate (Bjornaes and Pal, 2012, 'The State of the Poles', p.19). Furthermore, the jet stream blows strongly from west to east. When in a negative state, the Arctic experiences high pressure and the jet stream is weaker. 

Figure 1. Arctic Oscillation. Adapted from Bjornaes and Pal (2012, 'The State Of The Poles': p.19). 

The Arctic Oscillation affects the climate in Antarctica. A study by Chylek et al. (2010) investigated the effect of the Arctic Oscillation on the Antarctic climate and found that when the Arctic warms, Antarctica cools and vice versa. Additionally, Brunier and Brook (2001) observed this “bipolar see-saw pattern” from ice core records dating back to the last glacial period, demonstrating that this phenomenon is independent of human impacts. Figure 2 is a graph that illustrates the bipolar see-saw pattern, plotting temperatures against time. It is evident that as temperatures in the Arctic fall, in Antarctica they rise, despite emissions and other anthropogenic interferences with climate change.

Figure 2. Bipolar Seasaw Pattern. Source: Chylek et al. (2010).

Arctic (blue) and Antarctic (red) temperature time series smoothed by a 11 year running average (thin lines) or 17 year running average (thick lines)

Larsen B 

The bottom right of figure 1 shows a time series of the patterns of negative and positive oscillation indexes. The circled year represents the year 2002, the same year that the Larsen B ice shelf collapsed. The figure shows that the Arctic Oscillation Index (a measure of the magnitude of the Arctic Oscillation phenomenon) was negative that year, demonstrating that when the Arctic cooled, Antarctica warmed. It can be argued that this warming accelerated the melting of ice during the summer months which led to the break-down of the Larsen B ice shelf. In fact, Domack et al. (2005) conducted a study to determine the stability of the Larsen B ice shelf during the Holocene and found that the ice shelf had been thinning throughout the Holocene, i.e. throughout the past 11,500 years! This is evidence against human induced warming affecting the Antarctic right? 

How does the Arctic Oscillation work? 

In this description, I will explain how the oscillation leads to a warmer Arctic. A similar mechanism operates in the opposite direction to explain Antarctic warming as well. Described by Chylek et al.(2010), winds over the Southern Ocean are drawn to the surface by wind stress. This water is heated by the sun and the Atlantic surface current transports it away from Antarctica. As the water warms more, it travels towards the Arctic leaving Antarctica deficient in heat. The more efficient this transport, the greater the warming. This demonstrates the importance of the role of ocean currents in natural climate variability.

Conclusions

Arctic Oscillation and the work done by the researchers mentioned above are just one of many scientific models and explanations for the Larsen B ice shelf collapse and for climate in Antarctica. If studying Economics and geography at UCL has taught me anything, its that the world is full of uncertainties. Researchers aiming to devise what is human induced and what isn't in our planet will always end up with different explanations because Earth is complex. 

My personal view regarding this matter is that natural causes are not strong enough to determine what caused the Larsen B ice shelf to disintegrate. Although evidence presented suggests that Arctic Oscillation impacts the climate in Antarctica, uncertainty lies in the magnitude of the positive feedback systems between Antarctic waters and heating from the sun. There is also uncertainty in the strength of the transportation of these waters. To me, it seems unlikely that early humans at the start of the Holocene caused enough warming to contribute to the thinning of the Larsen B ice shelf, as illustrated by figure 3 in my post last week. 

That's all today! The score so far is 1-1. Next time, I will explore how tourism has affected Antarctica, thank you for reading!

Melting Ice - Larsen B

In my last post, I introduced melting sea ice as one of the major changes occurring to our planet, and one that is certainly affecting Antarctica at the moment. Today I’m going to discuss the melting ice in more depth.

Over the past 200 years or so, the human footprint on the world has become so apparent and so profound that we humans now ‘rival the great forces of Nature and are pushing Earth to a new planetary terra incognita’ (Steffan et al. 2007: 614). This has created to need for a new epoch away from the Holocene to one that is more reflective of human actions. “The Anthropocene” was termed to capture this. Although there is much debate about the precise time that this epoch started, e.g. at the start of the Industrial Revolution, or a few hundred years earlier (Zalasiewics, et al. 2011; Crutzen and Stoermer, 2000; Gale and Hoare, 2012), this epoch signifies that because of humans, Earth is becoming warmer, less biologically diverse, less forested, wetter and stormier (Steffan et al. 2007). The emission of greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide and methane, into the atmosphere is creating a warming effect, i.e. the greenhouse effect, whereby the Earth will warm by 1.4 to 5.8^oC by the end of the century (Crutzen, 2002). I came across a very insightful TEDx talk in which Steffan Will goes into more depth explaining the origins of the Anthropocene which can be view here if my readers wish to learn more. 

Unsurprisingly, a warmer planet is troublesome for ice. Below is a graphic representation of Antarctica, displaying the continent's ice shelves and glaciers.

Figure 1. Source: Adapted from Rignot and Stanley (2002)

According to Pritchard et al. (2009), some glaciers are thinning at alarming rates. For example, Pine Island glacier is thinning by up to 18 feet per year, while the Smith glacier is thinning by 27 feet per year. This highlights the severity of warming occurring today. Glaciers in Antarctica are at risk of becoming less stable as the planet warms.

The circled ice shelf in Figure 1 is the Larsen B ice shelf. In 2002, it collapsed and fell apart. Cited by Schmidt (2011), this was predicted by Mercer (1968), who wrote that global warming caused by industrial pollution would lead to a collapse West Antarctica’s ice shelves. Figure 1 shows the levels of carbon dioxide emissions from 1850 onwards. The figure agrees with Mercer, showing that emissions have risen due to industrialisation. I have also included a diagrammatic representation of the change in global temperatures, shown in figure 3. Figures 2 and 3 are complementary in that they demonstrate the correlation between carbon dioxide emissions and global temperature rises

Figure 2: Total global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion initiated by industrialisation.
Source: Hardy (2003) 'Climate Change: Causes, Effects and Solutions', p. 13.

Figure 3: Variations in Earth's temperature for (a) the past 1,000 years and (b) the past 140 years, gathered from proxy measurements based on tree rings, corals, ice cores and historical records. Source: Hardy (2003) 'Climate Change: Causes, Effects and Solutions', p. 41.

A recent study by Rebesco et al. (2014) showed that the Larsen B ice shelf collapsed because of warmer air, partly by human activities and our effects on warming the planet. Their results show that the Larsen B ice shelf shattered in the following way:

• Warmer temperatures warmed up the air
• Warmer air melted ice during the summer months
• This water flowed into cracks inside the ice shelf
• As winter approached, all the water froze again and expanded in the cracks
• This caused the ice shelf to shatter from the increased pressure in the cracks

Below is a very short video capturing the Larsen B ice shelf collapse from satellite images in 2002, illustrating what happened visually. Unfortunately I can't post the actual video on the blog. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N61EP5zB8uU#t=28

To summarise this post, I’ve presented the view that the Larsen B ice shelf collapse was partly caused by humans because of human induced warmer air in Antarctica. The score for negative human impacts verses positive/ natural impacts is 1-0. In my next post, I will present some of the criticisms of the views presented in this post. 

Is it Really SOS Antarctica?

Welcome to my blog about how humans have affected Antarctica. In my first post, I will explain why I’ve chosen to write about this topic and go through some of the areas I will blog about in the coming months. 

So why have I chosen to blog about Antarctica?

Yesterday, The Guardian had a report about record levels of Antarctic sea ice. Meanwhile three weeks ago, the BBC reported on ‘unprecedented’ melting of the Antarctic Peninsula. Five months ago in May 2014, The Times reported that the amount of melting ice has doubled compared to ten years ago. Are you confused? Well I don't blame you! Antarctic sea ice has appeared in the news at least once a year for the last ten years. The topic pops up so frequently, all reporting different things, that it is hard to comprehend what is actually happening. The fact that Antarctic sea ice is in the news so often makes it apparent that climate change is one of the biggest issues the world is facing today. The impacts of climate change, as seen above, are confusing, but in particular the impact of anthropogenic climate change is more controversial which is why I have chosen to blog about it. I want readers to understand more about Antarctica because it is such a unique and fragile continent (see figure 1).

Figure 1. Antarctica from space shows how unique and fragile the continent really is. Source: The Guardian, 2014

What to expect?

By reading my blog, you will understand the complexity of climate change as throughout the next three months, I will present you with case studies, theories and research, citing from academic journals, books and news articles, that help explain the human impacts on Antarctica. One of the main impacts that humans have on Antarctica is our contribution to melting ice. I will present arguments for and against this view and various others using academic literature and scientific research, debating around these topics. Other effects that I will blog about include ozone depletion, marine/ terrestrial life and tourism. These effects will help me answer the question of whether it really is SOS Antarctica. Furthermore, throughout this blog I will keeps a score of the natural or positive human impacts versus negative human impacts because it is important to distinguish between the different effects. It will also help keep track of whether humans are actually causing Antarctica to become distressed.

This blog will go beyond climate change. I don’t want my readers to think of this blog as a climate change blog. Instead, the aim of my blog is to provide you all with an idea of the alternative ways that humans are affecting Antarctica. 

In this post I have introduced melting ice as one of the key environmental changes Antarctica currently faces. To end, below is a link to an interactive map showing the effect on all continents if all the ice in the world melted, including Antarctica. I would definitely encourage my readers to explore the effect on other continents, but in particular notice the significant loss in land mass predicted in Antarctica – how ironic that the melting of Antarctic ice will reduce its own land mass! That’s all from me today, I hope you enjoy exploring Antarctica with me over the coming months! 

National Geographic Interactive Map