TitleAntarctic climate and soilsAbstractClimate change is having a significant impact on the ecosystems of Antarctica and has been the focus of scientific research in the past few decades. Our understanding of how large-scale weather patterns have changed has increased, but there is still way to go before we know how the shift in climate influences temperatures at microscales. Antarctica has one of the most severe climate extremes on the planet; it is the windiest, coldest, and driest. Combined with its geographic isolation, observational studies of climate change have been hampered due to lack of sufficiently dense monitoring systems. The soil exchanges energy with the overlying atmosphere (boundary layer) which influences its temperature through sensible and latent heat fluxes, both are poorly understood in the terrestrial landscapes of Antarctica. It has been shown that at least at the height of biological activity during summer, shifts in weather patterns across the Dry Valleys can have profound impacts on temperature and availability of liquid water, with downstream consequences for the biota. Therefore the terrestrial ecosystem responds rapidly to the larger climate system on a seasonal timescale. Copyright 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. All rights reserved.AcknowledgementsPDF not available.
TypeBookCitationZawar-Reza, P. and Katurji, M. (2014). Antarctic climate and soils. In: Cowan D (ed) Antarctic Terrestrial Microbiology: Physical and Biological Properties of Antarctic Soils, 279-292 IdentifierZawar-Reza2014bRelevancerank3
