How are the earthly lives affected by global warming? Scientists are hunting for the answers by drilling holes in the Antarctic ice! It is perhaps, for 11 million years fish and water-dwelling invertebrates have lived in these under-ice frigid waters at the world’s bottom with very negligible change in their environment, marine biologist Gretchen Hofmann informs.
Hofmann, based at the University of California-Santa Barbara said,
Some organisms have a great deal of physiological plasticity and they can say, ‘Hey, this is OK, I can survive, I can reproduce, this isn’t going to kill me.’
But in some cases, that might not be the case. How will these organisms respond to the changes that are happening right now and to the trajectory of changes of multi-stressors of pH and temperature together? That could be the double whammy for some things.
She has taken up to study these creatures as they are accustomed only to the constant chill of the southern ocean. And this is necessary, as climate changes are likely to happen as global warming is raising water temperatures, greenhouse gas emissions — especially carbon dioxide – is altering the water’s acidity.
To make this study, Hofmann’s mobile laboratory is based on the sea ice near McMurdo Station — the biggest U.S. science base in Antarctica.