According to a new research, black carbon pollution from tourism and research activities is likely to increase snow melt on the continent by 83 tonnes for each visitor.
The black carbon produced by vessels, planes and diesel generators results in 23mm of additional snowmelt each summer in the most frequently visited areas of the ice-covered landmass, according to scientists.
More than 74,000 tourists visited Antarctica in the season that ended in 2020, nearly double the number from a decade ago.
Between 2016 and 2020 a team of researchers took snow samples at 28 sites from the northern tip of the Ellsworth Mountains.
About half of the research facilities on the continent are located on the Antarctic peninsula, where an estimated 85% of tourist trips are made.
Between 2016 and 2020 the team estimated that 53,000 tourists visited the frozen continent.
According to the study co-author, the baseline levels of black carbon in the snow of the South Pole were the cleanest on Earth.
He said that that is 1000 times less than what you would find in the Himalayas and 100 times less than what you can find in the Rockies.
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Black carbon levels were four times higher on the Antarctic peninsula than on other parts of the continent.
The snow is absorbing more solar radiation because of black carbon.
He thinks a limit on the number of tourists may need to be put in place.
The team quantified the likely snowmelt by calculating how black carbon pollution reduced the snow.
The researcher's black carbon footprint was 10 times greater than that of a tourist.
The snow that is melting faster because of the activities carried out by a researcher is closer to 1000 tonnes.
According to the study, the amount of pollution-caused snowmelt is less than the amount of ice and snow lost to global warming.
There are technical alternatives to diesel that could be used in the area.
The head of the school of earth atmosphere and environment at Monash University, who was not involved in the research, said the link between black carbon pollution and increased surface melt was well established in other parts of the world.
The two major processes that affect melting are warming oceans and warming surface air temperatures.
If we have even greater surface warming in the decades to centuries ahead, then the black carbon on the surface will cause more melt than would have happened otherwise.
The burning of fossil fuels causes the polar regions to warm, but it also causes surface melt.
He said that if you can get rid of greenhouse gases, you will reduce the temperature increase.
Antarctica is the last unpolluted continent. We should try to keep it that way.
The study was published in a peer-reviewed journal.
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