Cold kills Antarctic invertebrates

2002/02/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Ingurumena

We have heard and repeated hundreds of times that the Earth is warming and American scientists have said that Antarctica has cooled. According to them, in the last 35 years the climate of Antarctica has cooled. In general, climate models predict more marked warming in polar regions, as has happened in peninsular Antarctica, but in continental Antarctica it seems that things are different.

At least the dry valleys of McMurdo, the largest ice-free regions of continental Antarctica, have cooled 0.6 degrees Celsius annually between 1986 and 2000. The biggest declines have occurred in summer and autumn. Summer temperatures are the engine of Antarctic terrestrial ecosystems, so the effects of cooling can be very serious. Researchers estimate that terrestrial invertebrates are 10% less per year. Without them, especially the worm, the trophic system can fall.