Ed Rhodes and team explore the effect of climate change on rates of dune migration in Antarctica
Antarctica, the coldest, driest, and windiest of Earth's continents, is home to sand dunes which are like deserts elsewhere. Ed Rhodes and his group used ground penetrating radar (GPR) to examine the dune stratigraphy and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) to determine when the sands were deposited. The increase in rate of dune migration after the Earth's cooling period 300 years ago and especially the past 200 years may coincide with the modern rise in CO2 and the warmest temperatures in Antarctica in the past 800,000 years.