Public lecture by Dr. Jim McClintock.
The 800 mile length of the western Antarctic Peninsula is among the most rapidly warming regions on earth. Ice sheets are breaking up, glaciers are receding, and the sea ice is retreating. Marine communities and their members are being impacted. Adelie penguins are particularly vulnerable as rising humidity triggers unseasonably late snow storms that bury eggs in snowmelt resulting in high mortality. Juvenile krill, the shrimplike animals that form the base of Antarctic food webs are vulnerable to the loss of small nutritious plants associated with sea ice. Ocean acidification is increasingly challenging shelled Antarctic marine invertebrates. Despite these tremendous challenges being driven by human induced climate change, there is a model for hope in the story of the discovery and unprecedented cooperative mitigation of the ozone hole over Antarctica.