{"id":6652,"date":"2023-07-19T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-19T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/?p=6652"},"modified":"2023-07-14T02:37:42","modified_gmt":"2023-07-14T02:37:42","slug":"the-melting-arctic-is-a-crime-scene-the-microbes-i-study-have-long-warned-us-of-this-catastrophe-but-they-are-also-driving-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/the-melting-arctic-is-a-crime-scene-the-microbes-i-study-have-long-warned-us-of-this-catastrophe-but-they-are-also-driving-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The melting Arctic is a crime scene. The microbes I study have long warned us of this catastrophe \u2013 but they are also driving it"},"content":{"rendered":"\nArwyn Edwards<\/a>, Aberystwyth University<\/a><\/em><\/span>\n\n

The Arctic\u2019s climate is warming at least four times faster than the global average, causing irrevocable changes to this vast landscape<\/a> and precarious ecosystem<\/a> \u2013 from the anticipated extinction of polar bears<\/a> to the appearance of killer whales<\/a> in ever-greater numbers. A new study<\/a> suggests the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free in summer as soon as the 2030s<\/a> \u2013 around a decade earlier than previously predicted.<\/p>\n\n

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\n A new Arctic sea ice map compares the 30-year average with recent ten-year averages.<\/span>\n British Antarctic Survey<\/a><\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n\n

But to properly understand the pace and force of what\u2019s to come, we should instead focus on organisms too small to be seen with the naked eye. These single-celled microbes are both the watchkeepers and arch-agitators of the Arctic\u2019s demise.<\/p>\n\n

Scientists like me who study them have become forensic pathologists, processing crime scenes in our Arctic field sites. We don the same white anti-contamination suits, photograph each sampling site, and bag our samples for DNA analysis. In some areas, red-coloured microbes even create an effect known as \u201cblood snow\u201d.<\/p>\n\n

In this complex criminal investigation, however, the invisible witnesses are also responsible for the damage being done. Microbes testify to the vulnerability of their Arctic habitats to the changes that humans have caused. But they also create powerful climate feedback loops that are doing ever-more damage both to the Arctic, and the planet as a whole.<\/p>\n\n

Zipping headlong into icy oblivion<\/h2>\n\n

My first visit to the Arctic was also nearly my last. As a PhD student in my early 20s in 2006, I had set out with colleagues to sample microbes growing on a glacier in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard<\/a> \u2013 the planet\u2019s northernmost year-round settlement, about 760 miles from the North Pole.<\/p>\n\n

Our treacherous commute took us high above the glacier, traversing an icy scree slope to approach its flank before crossing a river at the ice\u2019s margin. It was a route we had navigated recently \u2013 yet this day I mis-stepped. Time slowed as I slid towards the stream swollen with ice melt, my axe bouncing uselessly off the glassy ice. I was zipping headlong into icy oblivion.<\/p>\n\n

In that near-death calm, two things bothered me. The water would carry me deep into the glacier, so it would be decades before my remains were returned to my family. And the ear-worm of that field season meant I would die to the theme tune to Indiana Jones.<\/p>\n\n

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\n <\/span>\n \n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n\n

This article is part of Conversation Insights<\/em><\/strong>\n
The Insights team generates long-form journalism<\/a> derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.<\/em><\/p>\n\n

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Thankfully, the scree slowed my slide \u2013 I lived and learned, quickly, that dead scientists don\u2019t get to write up their papers. And I\u2019m still learning about the tiny organisms that populate every habitat there: from seawater in the Arctic Ocean to ice crystals buried deep in the Greenland ice sheet<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

These micro-managers of all manner of planetary processes are acutely sensitive to the temperatures of their habitats. The slightest change above freezing can transform an Arctic landscape from a frozen waste devoid of liquid water to one where microbes get busy reproducing in nutrient-rich water, transforming themselves in ways that further amplify<\/a> the effects of climate warming.<\/p>\n\n

The Svalbard region is now warming seven times faster than the global average. While much of the world continues its efforts to limit global warming to 1.5\u00b0C above pre-industrial levels, in the Arctic, that battle was lost long ago.<\/p>\n\n

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