What happens to Antarctica has huge ramifications for the climate globally, but especially in Australia and other countries in the southern hemisphere.
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The environmental changes affecting the continent are what three scientists from the University of Wollongong are working to understand through the study of mosses, alongside a multidisciplinary team of researchers with an Australian-led, international scientific initiative called Securing Antarctica's Environmental Future (see below).
SAEF's deputy director for science implementation Distinguished Professor Sharon Robinson, ecologist Georgia Watson and biologist Krystal Randall spent a month in Antarctica in February to study the vegetation.
"We're interested in how the biodiversity is faring in Antarctica," Professor Robinson said.
"The mosses that we work on have been growing there for 500 years, so they actually preserve a record of the climate they've been exposed to for hundreds of years, going back before we had climate records.
"So understanding how they're responding, and have responded over that time, can help us to fill in the gaps in the puzzle of what Antarctica's climate was like in the past."
The researchers were based at the Australian Antarctic Division's Casey research station, 3880 kilometres due south of Perth, and worked at moss sites Professor Robinson has been studying for two decades: Antarctic Specially Protected Area 135 and Robinson Ridge.
Ms Watson said they collected more than 500 tiny moss samples, which she would now analyse back here in Wollongong.
"I'll look under the microscope and figure out which species is which... and if we know which species we find where in these sites, we'll be able to tell what the environment's doing," she said.
From Professor Robinson's body of research, it is known that the moss beds are changing; what they are now trying to find out is why.
Ms Watson explained there was one species, called Schistidium antarctici, that could tolerate being submerged in water and it was once dominating these areas.
"But about 10 years into the study, it was found that two different species, more cosmopolitan species, were moving into Schistidium's turf and these species can't tolerate being submerged, they prefer drier habitats - so we know where these species are found, where we would typically find Schistidium, were becoming drier," she said.
Miss Randall has installed sensors to collect data on the mosses' microclimates, which she will collect when she returns to Antarctica at the end of the year; however, she is also working with UOW's SMART Infrastructure Facility to develop a first-of-its-kind automated system that can send data back to Wollongong in real time, allowing her to monitor the mosses throughout the year.
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She said what was happening in Antarctica was significant for the planet because it acted as a cooling system, absorbing warmth from the air that came down from the equator and recirculating that cooler air back up north.
"We need that to keep happening, to keep global temperatures down... If ice-free areas do expand rapidly or if we're losing a lot of ice mass from glaciers, it's going to reduce that cooling capacity and it's going to exacerbate the rate of warming of our atmosphere," she said.
Not only that, Miss Randall said, but Antarctica's frozen soil held a lot of carbon - if that were to thaw, it would release masses of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, accelerating that warming.
She said the SAEF program was important because it supported research in areas of Antarctica that were ice-free, whereas most focused on glaciated parts of the continent; however, these ice-free areas were going to expand and have a bigger influence on weather patterns in the future.
For Ms Watson, part of her work with SAEF is educating the general public about Antarctica and the issues it is facing, particularly in Australia, being as close as it is.
"I really think we have a responsibility to be guardians for Antarctica," she said.
What is Securing Antarctica's Environmental Future?
A team of researchers from different disciplines and different countries have come together to work out how to care for Antarctica in the face of environmental change.
Securing Antarctica's Environmental Future (SAEF) is a seven-year, $48 million research initiative largely funded by the Australian Research Council.
Its main office is at Monash University in Melbourne but it has hubs at University of Wollongong and the Queensland University of Technology. Partners include other Australian universities, museums and government agencies, as well as institutions in several other countries.
"It's great because what it's allowing us to do is... work together, across multiple institutions, bring people together and try to answer much bigger questions," UOW's Professor Sharon Robinson, the SAEF deputy director of science implementation, said.
Professor Robinson said the initiative was shaped around key themes.
"We have an environmental theme, which is looking at how ice sheets are changing and the climate systems that affect Antarctica and how they affect Australia, because a lot of our weather is influenced by what's going on in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean," she said.
Biodiversity was another theme, she said, while the third was "taking that science and then working out what we can do with that to ensure we have better management options for Antarctica going forward".
Professor Robinson said training the next generation of scientists and researchers, to move the work forward in the future, was also a vital part of the program.
Professor Robinson, biologist Krystal Randall and ecologist Georgia Watson travelled to Antarctica in summer for the first field season under SAEF, but several other scientists and academics from UOW are also involved.
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Natalie Croxon
Reporter at the Illawarra Mercury, mostly covering social affairs. Previously of the Bendigo Advertiser, Northern Daily Leader and Quirindi Advocate. Our Watch award winner.
Reporter at the Illawarra Mercury, mostly covering social affairs. Previously of the Bendigo Advertiser, Northern Daily Leader and Quirindi Advocate. Our Watch award winner.
