Leading Scientists Warn Of Global Impacts As Antarctic Nears Tipping Points

PARIS, June 14, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- As governments convene for the annual Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM), an Expert Working Group of leading Antarctic scientists warns that climate change is pushing this remote polar region, which connects all our ocean basins and keeps our planet habitable, towards numerous tipping points with global ramifications for humanity and biodiversity.

"Climate Change and Southern Ocean Resilience," published today by the Wilson Center's Polar Institute, examines how human-caused climate pressures that are rapidly changing Antarctica will have significant impacts on humanity, given the region's central role in regulating our earth systems. The Polar Perspectives report concludes that these changes may disproportionately exacerbate global climate change in the near-term and disrupt the delicate web of life in the Southern Ocean, with repercussions on costal resilience and livelihoods worldwide.

"Antarctica is reaching critical thresholds and life around the world is in direct line of the cascading effects. Protecting areas that are most at risk due to climate change, like the Antarctic Peninsula, will not only help us revive biodiversity there but will help boost the resilience of far-flung marine ecosystems. It will also enable us to monitor the long-term effects of other human stressors, like fishing. By nurturing its health in this way, we nurture our own. By building its resilience to climate change, we boost our own," said Andrea Capurro, Visiting Research Fellow at Boston University and co-author of the report.

The report, which is the result of a unique collaboration across scientific disciplines, identifies the following natural processes to be at-risk, all of which will lead to regional and global impacts:

• Increases in ocean temperatures leading to ice shelf collapse and multi-metre global sea level rise
• Changes to sea-ice causing loss of critical habitat and biodiversity
• Changes to ocean chemistry, with increased uptake of carbon dioxide causing acidification and possible disruption of food webs
• Changes to regional carbon sequestration through the exchange of carbon between the atmosphere, plants and animals, and the ocean (a process known as the biological carbon pump)
• Shifting ecosystems and species dynamics leading to biodiversity loss, altered biological processes, shifts in species' geographical distributions and changes in food-web dynamics, regionally and globally

"Scientists are telling us that Antarctica plays a critical role in the future of the planet, and they've made a compelling case for the organizations that manage Antarctic diplomacy to incorporate climate considerations into their work" said Evan Bloom, Senior Fellow at the Wilson Center's Polar Institute and former lead for U.S. Antarctic foreign policy at the U.S. State Department.

"It has become clear that as part of dealing with the climate crisis, a circumpolar network of marine protected areas in the Southern Ocean, among other management actions, will contribute greatly to climate science and help develop climate-related policies for the entire planet," he continued. Said Dr. Mike Sfraga, Director of the Wilson Center's Polar Institute: "We look forward to working with the scientific and policy communities in the future to further this important work."

The report underlines that the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), the multilateral organisation responsible for managing and conserving the region's marine life, can better take climate change into account in measures it adopts under the Antarctic Treaty system by: 

• Expanding habitat protections by creating a circumpolar network of marine protected areas around Antarctica;
• Incorporating climate change considerations into existing fisheries management policies;
• Implementing a Climate Change Response Work Programme to build resilience and integrate climate change into all conservation measures;
• Re-emphasising the precautionary approach in its decision making to prevent irreversible changes to species found in its waters.

"Governments have the opportunity to advance climate change mitigation strategies by prioritizing Antarctic conservation efforts. Because of the Antarctic's importance to all life on Earth, we call on CCAMLR member states to protect our future by establishing an internationally agreed upon network of marine protected areas around Antarctica, so that this stressed polar region can build resilience to the full force of climate threats," said Andrea Kavanagh, director of The Pew Charitable Trusts' Antarctic and Southern Ocean conservation efforts.

The report can be found at this link: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/polar-perspectives-no-5-climate-change-and-southern-ocean-resilience.

Media Contact:
Barb Cvrkel
202-510-5670
[email protected]

SOURCE The Wilson Center Polar Institute