By Chen Ly.
There is a research station on the Antarctic Peninsula.
Mike Scharer is from Alamy.
The snow is melting sooner than usual because of pollution in the area near popular tourist sites and research facilities.
Up to 5500 research personnel live there during the summer. 53,000 tourists visited the continent in the summer between 2016 and 2020.
Black carbon, also known as soot, which comes from planes, ships and helicopters, as well as the generators that power research stations, has increased due to rising human activity in the region.
Join us for a mind-blowing festival of ideas and experiences. New Scientist Live is going hybrid, with a live in-person event in Manchester, UK, that you can also enjoy from the comfort of your own home, from 12 to 14 March 2022. Find out more.The impact of black carbon pollution on the snow in Antarctica was measured by Raúl Cordero and his colleagues at the University of Santiago.
The team collected 155 samples of snow from 28 sites over four summers. The sites spanned 2000 kilometres from King George Island to the Union Glacier Camp.
Black carbon was found in the snow at an average rate of 3 grams per gram. This is four times higher than the levels in the more remote regions.
The highest levels of soot were found in the north near the Argentinian Esperanza Base, where there are more research facilities.
The black carbon settles on the snow and causes it to melt.
In the areas with the highest concentrations of black carbon, the snow starts to melt earlier and the thickness of the snow decreases.
Between 2016 and 2020 they estimated that visitors resulted in 83 extra tonnes of snow melting in the summer.
We have to reduce the black carbon footprint, and that means we have to stop burning fossil fuels. The number of visitors to the continent should be capped and research stations should switch to cleaner power sources.
Robert Mulvaney at the British Antarctic Survey said that the authors caught the mood of the majority of us by calling for action by both the tourist industry and the national operators of research stations to mitigate fuel emissions or limit the expansion of activities.
Nature Communications is a journal.
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