Antarctica Ecological Research
From Times staff and wire reports
Researchers from UC Santa Barbara have been chosen by the National Science Foundation to establish a new Long-Term Ecological Research Site in Antarctica, the foundation announced last week. NSF currently has 17 such sites elsewhere to monitor slow changes in the environment, but this will be the first on the southernmost continent.
The $500,000-a-year project is designed to monitor the ice-dominated marine ecosystem at the bottom of the world. In the Austral winter, sea ice in the region grows to cover an area twice the size of the United States, but in the austral spring and summer, more than 80% of it melts. The ice has a major effect on ocean currents, penetration of the water by sunlight, and the growth of microorganisms.
