“We can see, hear, and feel climate change”

On her first trip to the Antarctic in 1995, one of climate researcher Doris Abele’s colleagues showed her a graph of the consistent increase in the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere on a monitor. “Is that caused by the diesel generators at our research station?” Abele wondered. The response: “No, we are measuring much higher up in the atmosphere.”

In those days, carbon dioxide (CO₂) was not much of an issue yet for the general public; people were initially much more concerned about the growing hole in the ozone layer. A few years later, Abele, who works at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, the Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research, understood what far-reaching implications this particular graph has for the ecosystem in the Antarctic. The so-called Keeling Curve, which her colleague had showed her back then, is now regarded as important evidence of global warming caused by human activity.

The Argentine Carlini Research Station is located at the tip of the western Antarctic Peninsula: “If you were to look at a map of the Antarctic, you would see a nose-like promontory pointing in the direction of South America,” Doris Abele says, describing the location of the station, which is run by the Argentine Antarctic Institute and the Argentine Antarctic Authority. Slightly to the west of the tip of this nose-like promontory is King George Island, where the Carlini Station and the Dallmann Laboratory, operated in collaboration with the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), are located. The journey from here to the German Antarctic research station Neumayer III takes almost six days.

Since the 1990s, the biologist, who is now 61 years old, has repeatedly been drawn back to the Antarctic: “It can be very beautiful here in terms of the scenery,” she explains with enthusiasm. “Some days, the bay stretches out in front of you smooth as a mirror, with the shimmering glacier in the background.” Such idyllic impressions mask the challenging living conditions on site: If you approach the Carlini Station from the water, you first see a group of steeply towering rocks – the remains of a volcanic eruption in ancient times. At the foot of this rock formation there are a dozen small red houses on metal stilts, which, on closer inspection, prove to be shipping containers stacked on top of one another.

Each container provides accommodation for four researchers, who sleep in bunk beds like at a youth hostel. German scientists are only allowed to do research at the Carlini Station in the Antarctic summer from November to April; at this time of year, the station is packed to the brim with 40 scientists and 50 military personnel. “I never feel lonely there,” says Doris Abele. “Everyone knows each other, and the atmosphere is very friendly.” The Antarctic winter, with temperatures as low as minus 20 degrees, is reserved for the logistics specialists of the Argentine military and one or two Argentine researchers. Abele has experienced the somewhat milder summer temperatures ranging from minus eight to plus seven degrees. The Argentine military provides the food, stopping at the station once a year with a cargo vessel designed for operating in Antarctic conditions. “Then the military personnel and the scientists alike have to carry the boxes of flour, pasta, tinned food, sugar, and sausage from the beach into the station.” There are no fresh fruit or vegetables at the station. “So I pounce on any shriveled old apple that anyone brings with them,” Doris Abele says with a smile.

In her research, Doris Abele focuses on the question of whether and how organisms and communities in the Antarctic can adapt to changing environmental conditions. “If they are no longer able to cope with the conditions, the range of species will change,” says the researcher. “We are particularly interested in how the underwater areas that have recently become ice free are populated by algae and marine animals such as sea squirts, sea sponges, and snails. The population, growth, and turnover of organic carbon in shallow coastal areas are heavily influenced by the rise in temperature and its consequences.

“If we do nothing, the western Antarctic will one day look like South America does today.”

Doris Abele now wants to carry out research in a region further to the north: The Beagle Channel between Argentina and Chile. As a result of the border dispute of the last decade between Argentina and Chile, this waterway has been the subject of little research in the past. The political situation has now eased to such an extent that researchers from Argentina, Chile, the United States, and Germany are trying to install a monitoring network to record environmental changes in the Beagle Channel for the very first time. The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research is supporting the so-called Dynamo Project with 300,000 euros in funding during the first phase of the project.

For Doris Abele, her research on the South American continent represents a time machine: “If we do nothing, the western Antarctic will one day look like South America does today,” she says with regard to the dramatic consequences of climate change: “Grass and plants will grow, people will settle and rear sheep.” Researchers are already observing the formation of a layer of humus around the Carlini Research Station. What may appear to be an idyllic picture, however, would have drastic consequences for the Antarctic ecosystem: Organic material that is washed from the land into the sea has a different composition to marine “compost”. In the coastal area, this would change the nutrient conditions and the microbial metabolism, and kelp forests would spread. Organisms native to the Antarctic, which are dependent on a low-nutrient environment, would have to find new habitats. “Then there would be no more krill in the sea and ultimately no more penguins,” says Doris Abele.

Antarctic researchers all over the world agree on one point: As long as people continue to emit CO₂ without restraint and the Keeling Curve continues to rise, the glaciers in the Antarctic will continue to melt relentlessly – with far-reaching consequences for the Earth’s ecological balance and for humanity.