Monday – 15 Rajab 1444 AH – 06 February 2023 AD Issue Number [16141]
London: «Asharq Al-Awsat»
Scientists have discovered a key clue about the future fate of the Antarctic ice sheet, deep in the DNA of an octopus, raising fears that global warming will soon trigger a runaway melt of ice.
Climate scientists have long struggled to find out whether the ice sheet completely collapsed during events about 125,000 years ago when global temperatures were similar to today.
The ice sheet contains enough water to raise sea levels by 3 to 4 metres, with fears that global warming will soon trigger a runaway melt that could cause sea levels to rise for centuries.
In an innovative approach, a team of 11 scientists, including biologists, geneticists, glaciologists, computer scientists and snowboard designers, studied the DNA of a Turquet octopus that lived around Antarctica around 4 million years ago.
DNA samples were taken from 96 octopuses collected over three decades from all over the continent.
The octopus’s DNA holds the details of its past, including how and when different groups of octopuses moved and mixed together and exchanged genetic material.
Scientists say they have discovered clear signs that, about 125,000 years ago, some groups of this type of octopus mixed on opposite sides of the West Antarctic ice sheet, indicating that the only possible way for this mixing to occur is the presence of a sea passage between the Weddell Sea. South and the Ross Sea.
“This could only have happened if the ice sheet collapsed completely,” says Dr. Sally Lau, a geneticist at James Cook University who led the research.
Lau added that the research is still subject, now, to peer review in a journal, but it has been made public; Because she wanted the scientific community to have early access to it and because of the nature of such research that demands immediate results.
