(Press-News.org) The continent of Antarctica is at risk from human activities and other forces, and environmental management is needed to protect the planet's last great wilderness area, says an international team of researchers, including a Texas A&M University oceanographer, in a paper published in the current issue of Science magazine.
Mahlon "Chuck" Kennicutt II, professor of oceanography who has conducted research in the area for more than 25 years, says Antarctica faces growing threats from global warming, loss of sea ice and landed ice, increased tourism, over-fishing in the region, pollution and invasive species creeping into the area. One of the longer-term concerns that may present the greatest threat overall is the potential for oil, gas and mineral exploitation on the continent and in the surrounding ocean, the authors note.
Kennicutt says the Antarctic Treaty System that governs the continent has worked well since it was established in 1962 and that 50 countries currently adhere to the treaty, but it is under pressure today from global climate changes and the ever-present interest in the area's natural resources, from fish to krill to oil to gas to minerals.
"Many people may not realize that Antarctica is a like a 'canary in a coal mine' when it comes to global warming, and Antarctica serves as a sort of thermostat for Earth," he points out. "The polar regions are the most sensitive regions on Earth to global warming, responding rapidly, so what happens in Antarctica in response to this warming affects the entire Earth system in many ways that we barely understand," Kennicutt explains. "Antarctica contains over 90 percent of the fresh water in the world, locked up as solid water in its massive ice sheets. Research that develops fundamental knowledge and understanding of these complex systems conducted in and from Antarctica is critical to understanding many of the challenges facing Earth today."
In addition to conducting research in the area, Kennicutt is also president of the Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research (SCAR), formed in 1958 to coordinate international research in the region.
More than twice the size of the United States, Antarctica has no cities, no government and no permanent residents. All who go to Antarctica are short-time visitors, whether they are scientists, personnel that support scientists or tourists. Antarctica is the coldest, driest and windiest location on Earth and is the only continent with no time zones.
"The Antarctic Treaty has worked well for the past 50 years, but we need to rethink how best to protect the continent from a range of growing of threats," Kennicutt adds.
"The treaty forbids oil or gas development, but it's possible that could be challenged in the years to come. Until now, energy companies have shown little interest in exploring the southern reaches of our planet because of the harsh conditions, the distance to market and the lack of technologies make it a very expensive commercial proposition.
"In the 1960s, most believed that drilling on the North Slope of Alaska was not economical, and in less than 30 years, it became one of the world's major sources of oil. Deep-water drilling today is practiced worldwide and subfloor completion technologies are rapidly advancing, so barriers in the past may soon be overcome increasing the threat to Antarctica in the not-so-distant future."
Another problem – melting ice from several areas of Antarctica – is a very real concern today, Kennicutt adds.
"A report in the news last week shows that sea-level rise on the east coast of the U.S. is occurring much faster than predicted," he notes.
"As the planet warms and the massive ice sheets break apart and melt, sea levels could continue to rise dramatically, not only in the U.S. but around the world. The ice sheets of Antarctica are known as the 'sleeping giants' in the ongoing debates about climate change and sea level rise. Scientists have only rudimentary understanding of how and when these 'giants' will contribute to sea level in the future."
He adds that the first explorers to Antarctica more than 100 years ago would be surprised to see how things have changed in the region.
For instance, it has been proven there are more than 300 sub-glacial lakes in Antarctica, some of them as big as the Great Lakes, and the huge ice sheets in the area flow like rivers to the ocean. He adds that growing tourism in the area and numerous scientific expeditions suggest that the prospect of permanent human settlements is not out of the question.
"All of these concerns pose serious challenges to conservation and protection efforts in Antarctica," Kennicutt notes.
"The bottom line is that we need to make sure that existing agreements and practices that address and respond to these threats are robust enough to last for the next 50 years, and that they truly provide the necessary protection of Antarctica that we all wish for and that we owe to future generations."
###
About Research at Texas A&M University: As one of the world's leading research institutions, Texas A&M is in the vanguard in making significant contributions to the storehouse of knowledge, including that of science and technology. Research conducted at Texas A&M represents an annual investment of more than $689 million, which ranks third nationally for universities without a medical school, and underwrites approximately 3,500 sponsored projects. That research creates new knowledge that provides basic, fundamental and applied contributions resulting in many cases in economic benefits to the state, nation and world.
Media contact: Keith Randall, News & Information Services, at (979) 845-4644 or keith-randall@tamu.edu or Chuck Kennicutt at (979) 458-4345 or m-kennicutt@tamu.edu
More news about Texas A&M University, go to http://tamutimes.tamu.edu/
Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tamu/
END
LA JOLLA, CA – July 12, 2012 –Readers of the top-ranked scientific journals Science and Nature might have noticed a recent wave of articles, most recently in the July 13, 2012 issue of Science, with deep importance for biology and medicine. These papers, all published this year by collaborations headed by the Scripps Research Institute laboratory of Professor Raymond Stevens, illuminate a large and medically important family of proteins called G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs).
GPCRs sit in the cell membrane and sense various molecules outside the cell, including odors, ...
New York, NY – For the first time, the den sites of two female snow leopards and their cubs have been located in Mongolia's Tost Mountains, with the first known videos taken of a mother and cubs, located and recorded by scientists from Panthera, a wild cat conservation organization, and the Snow Leopard Trust (SLT).
Watch the videos and view a photo gallery.
Because of the snow leopard's secretive and elusive nature, coupled with the extreme and treacherous landscape which they inhabit, dens have been extremely difficult to locate. This is a tremendous discovery and ...
VIDEO:
Cornstarch and water is a smart material derived from simple components. This video shows a bowling ball bouncing off the surface of the mixture, which also can catch a dropped...
Click here for more information.
Most people buy cornstarch to make custard or gravy, but Scott Waitukaitis and Heinrich Jaeger have used it to solve a longstanding physics problem with a substance known to generations of Dr. Seuss readers as "Oobleck," and to scientists as a non-Newtonian liquid.
This ...
MANHATTAN, Kan. -- They might be called a blessing or a curse -- tannins, which are present in certain sorghums, contain health-promoting antioxidant properties, but also provide a bitter taste and decreased protein digestibility. To better understand tannins, their role in sorghum and how they can be altered to improve sorghum's use as food and feed, a team of scientists led by Kansas State University and U.S. Department of Agriculture researchers, has cloned the tannin gene in sorghum.
Tannins' high antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and UV-protective functions promote ...
Cardiologists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a noninvasive imaging technique that may help determine whether children who have had heart transplants are showing early signs of rejection. The technique could reduce the need for these patients to undergo invasive imaging tests every one to two years.
The new method is described online in the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation.
The invasive imaging test, a coronary angiogram, involves inserting a catheter into a blood vessel and injecting a dye to look for dangerous plaque ...
Boulder, Colo., USA – Geology highlights include understanding new evidence for rock pulverization by catastrophic events near major faults in California and Japan; modern-day examples of active arc-continent collision in Taiwan; discovery and study of the highest-latitude coral reefs presently known on Earth, located in Japan; the puzzling record of the changing isotope ratio of calcium in seawater over the last 500 million years; and a possible refutation of hypotheses concerning shallow-water methane seep fauna.
Highlights are provided below. Geology articles published ...
COLUMBIA, Mo. ¬— Online advertising has become prevalent in the past five years, and social media sites, such as Facebook, have played a major role. Now, a study at the University of Missouri School of Journalism has developed a method that could help advertisers target online audiences easier by knowing their personality types.
Using a new personality scale, researchers determine how people with certain personality types use social media websites. Heather Shoenberger, a doctoral student in the MU School of Journalism, found that those individuals who liked high-risk ...
SEATTLE – Women who want to lose weight should faithfully keep a food journal, and avoid skipping meals and eating in restaurants – especially at lunch – suggests new research from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
The findings by Anne McTiernan, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues – from the first study to look at the impact of a wide range of self-monitoring and diet-related behaviors and meal patterns on weight change among overweight and obese postmenopausal women – are published online in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly the Journal of ...
Osteoarthritis progression is not more likely in patients who have undergone single-bundle ACL reconstruction, says researchers presenting their work today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's Annual Meeting in Baltimore.
"While previous studies have shown the benefits of double bundle ACL reconstruction compared to single bundle, none have focused on the long-term effects of osteoarthritis(OA)," noted Jongkeun Seon, MD, corresponding author from Chonnam National University Hwasun Hospital. "A final follow-up in our study showed 9.6 percent of the ...
BALTIMORE, MD – A sports hernia is a common cause of groin pain in athletes, however until lately little has been known as to why they occur. Researchers presenting their study today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's (AOSSM) Annual Meeting in Baltimore suggest that a type of hip condition (Femoral Acetabular Impingement (FAI) might be a contributing cause.
"Our study illustrated that those patients with FAI tend to have a change in hip biomechanics which in turn leads to increased stress across the groin. With these stresses a sports hernia ...
