Alexandra Bowie Consulting

That picture is moss growing on what we once thought of as a cold, snow-covered continent: Antarctica. I wrote a post earlier this summer about a plants that had come in from the cold and that seemed kind of exciting. Almost sweet, in a way, that plants that had lived under the ice for so long could still bloom. But, as grist.org points out, this patch of moss is yet another signal of long-term climate change. Scientists report in the underlying article, available here, that "growth rates and microbial productivity have risen rapidly since the 1960s, consistent with temperature changes. . . " though growth seems to have tapered off in the most recent years. (They don't say why, but don't assume it means that the global climate has finished changing.)


Image via grist.org