Antarctica regulates Earth's climate like a thermostat - Scientist

Scientists have described the southernmost continent, Antarctica as an important regulator of the planet's climate, capable of influencing things as distant as the blooming of cherry trees in Japan or how clear the skies are over Chile's Atacama Desert.

The white continent at the bottom of the world, and site of the South Pole, is a virtually uninhabited, ice-covered landmass. For example, it influences the clarity of the atmosphere in the Atacama Desert, the skies of which are considered to be the best on Earth for astronomical observations.

"What happens in Antarctica will determine the climate in other regions very far from this remote continent," said scientist Edgardo Vega.

According to Vega, one of the factors making that desert the planet's most arid is "the influence of Antarctica on the ocean current that comes up along the Chilean coast."

"This current cools the water and reduces ... evaporation, which reduces rainfall and cloud cover in the region," said the assistant director of the Chilean National Antarctic Institute (INACH).

Among the several factors making the ice continent an important regulator of the world's climate is the melting of the ice covering there.

"Simply put, we could say that when the fresh water of the glaciers melts - being less dense than saltwater - and comes into contact with the ocean currents it alters (the sea's) salinity, which influences the interaction between the ocean surface and the atmosphere," Bolivar Caceres, the head of the glacier program at Ecuador's National Weather Institute, said.

"All the oceans are connected and so anything that happens on this continent can give rise to an intense drought or torrential rains in distant parts of the planet. It's like a butterfly effect," Caceres added.

In March 2015, the temperature of Antarctica rose to a record 17.5 C, and four days later, in the Atacama Desert in 24 hours the same amount of rain fell that had fallen in the previous 14 years. The unusual weather phenomenon sparked a series of huge mudslides in which 31 people died and 49 are missing.

"In weather terms, four days are nothing. Could it be that those phenomena were connected? We still have no answer to this question and so it's absolutely necessary that we keep investing resources to do science in Antarctica," said Vega, one of the participants in the 53rd Chilean Antarctic Expedition.