McMurdo Dry Valleys

Relevance of resaerch question:

1. Very little discussion of Antarctic region
2. Very drastic changes impacted by climate change
3. Accuracy of collected data

What are the McMurdo Dry Valleys like:

• Western coast of McMurdo sound
• Area is about 4800 squared kilometers
• Consists of frozen lakes and exposed soil, which mimic the minimal requirements to survive on Earth
• Region is often compared to Mars, instead of Earth, due to low temperatures, limited precipitation and salt accumulation.

• Precipitation – any liquid or frozen water that forms in the atmosphere and falls back to earth. It can come in snow, rain, sleet forms. Duo to limited precipitation the region is very dry, however, the water that is falling is blown by strong winds, which results into glaciers, snow, lake ice (Expeditions, n.d.).
• Salt accumulation - build-up of soils, such as sodium, magnesium that affect ability to reproduce in soil (Soil Salinization - ESDAC - European Commission, n.d.).

Visualization on how the region looks:

Economic importance of McMurdo Dry valleys

• From my research about the region and what it is like, the economic importance of McMurdo Dry Valleys lays in the fact that tons of funding is given to research in this area. From the description we can see that no other area is like this on the Earth. Because of this reason it is a unique area where natural laboratory is created for studying this type of environment.

Challenges:

• Climate change - the biggest problem, due to warm temperatures, changing weather patterns, disrupting balance of nature, glacier melting. While it takes hundreds, if not thousands of years to see any change where glaciers are, change is very quick and direct in this region.

Due to climate change the temperature has decreased 0.7 degrees Celsius per decade between 1986 and 2006. Since 1999 the mean temperature has increased by 0.3 degrees Celsius, soil temperature by 0.6 degrees Celsius (Obryk et al., 2020). 

Since then no big changes like these have been recorded, which means that the effects have slowed down a bit.

Strategy for climate change:

• The McMurdo's LTER (Long Term Ecological Research) project proposed in 1992 is based on minor changes, since they affect the ability of organisms to adapt and reproduce.
• The study attempts to understand two processes: the influence of physical and biological constraints on dry valley ecosystems (Antarctica: Dry Valley Ecosystems: Monitoring One of Earth’s Most. . ., n.d.).
• Research is focused in four areas: microbial ecosystem dynamics in arid soils, ephemeral streams, and closed basin lakes (McMurdo MO, n.d.).
• In 2022 project was proposed again, this time with goal to continue funding for 6 more years. With the funding  scientist will support key long-term measurements, manipulation experiments, synthesis, and modeling to test current theories on ecosystem structure and function (NSF Award Search: Award # 1637708 - LTER: Ecosystem Response to Amplified Landscape Connectivity in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica, n.d.).

Conclusion:

In conclusion, the McMurdo Dry Valleys' region is a place is to investigate the minimal life requirements there are, as the environment is very simple and any changes in temperatures or solar radiation affect region drastically. Over the past quarter-century, research teams have made progress, and their efforts continue our knowledge of this Antarctica's region. The effects of climate change are almost instant, as everything is very minimal and basic, yet nor Earth like. Research teams and funders are willing to continue investigating the region, as the results are promising.

Sources:

Precipitation. (n.d.).  https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/precipitation/  

Expeditions, O. (n.d.). Oceanwide expeditions.  https://oceanwide-expeditions.com/blog/dry-valleys-unlike-anywhere-else-on-earth  

Obryk, M. K., Doran, P. T., Fountain, A. G., Myers, M., & McKay, C. P. (2020). Climate from the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica, 1986–2017: Surface air temperature trends and Redefined Summer season. Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres, 125(13).  https://doi.org/10.1029/2019jd032180  

NSF Award Search: Award # 1637708 - LTER: Ecosystem Response to Amplified Landscape Connectivity in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica. (n.d.).  https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1637708  

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2023, August 26). McMurdo Sound. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/place/McMurdo-Sound

National Geographic. (2016, November 10). Studying the Dry Valleys of Antarctica | Continent 7: Antarctica [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II7edARSvvk

McMurdo MO. (n.d.). Microbial Observatories. https://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/microbservatories/mcmurdo.html

Antarctica: Dry Valley Ecosystems: Monitoring one of Earth’s most. . . (n.d.). https://www.campbellsci.es/antarctica-ecosystems

Soil salinization - ESDAC - European Commission. (n.d.). https://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/themes/soil-salinization

Expeditions, O. (n.d.). Oceanwide expeditions. https://oceanwide-expeditions.com/blog/dry-valleys-unlike-anywhere-else-on-earth

Map of Antarctica and Battleship Promontory (McMurdo Dry Valleys, Southern Victoria Land). (2020, March). ResearchGate. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Map-of-Antarctica-and-Battleship-Promontory-McMurdo-Dry-Valleys-Southern-Victoria-Land_fig1_345347269

Van Der Watt, L. (2024, November 29). Antarctica | History, Map, climate, & Facts. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/place/Antarctica