Experiments in the Anthropocene: Climate Change and History in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica

This essay suggests that the McMurdo Dry Valleys in East Antarctica offer a useful place for thinking about the relationships between climate change and environmental history. The Dry Valleys have become an important site for climate change research over the past fifty years, and they are now an imp...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental history 2014-04, Vol.19 (2), p.294-302
Main Author: Howkins, Adrian
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Antarctic regions
Arid zones
Climate change
Climate science
Climatology
Ecoregions
Environmental history
Environmental impact
Environmental science
Experiments
Forum: Climate Change and Climate History
Global warming
Humans
Landscapes
Valleys
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Summary:This essay suggests that the McMurdo Dry Valleys in East Antarctica offer a useful place for thinking about the relationships between climate change and environmental history. The Dry Valleys have become an important site for climate change research over the past fifty years, and they are now an important case study for the ecological consequences of a warming planet. The atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen has suggested the term Anthropocene to describe how humans have created a distinctive geological epoch through anthropogenic climate change and other large-scale environmental impacts. The history of the McMurdo Dry Valleys offers a useful place to "experiment" with this idea and think about its implications. In particular, the short and relatively simple history of this unique region both encourages and facilitates a focus on the historical interactions between human activities, human perceptions, and the material environment, which are key to understanding the relationships between climate change and environmental history.
ISSN:1084-5453
1930-8892