Excerpt from ittn.ie
Macquarie Island sits in the remote Southern Ocean roughly halfway between Tasmania and Antarctica. Visitors arriving on this narrow and windswept island quickly notice the abundant wildlife. Elephant seals lie across dark coastal beaches, king penguins move in groups up green slopes, and albatrosses glide over the open, treeless highlands.
A closer look, however, reveals that the landscape is shifting. Parts of the island’s slopes are becoming increasingly waterlogged, and distinctive megaherbs such as Pleurophyllum and Stilbocarpa are gradually disappearing from areas where they once thrived.
For years, researchers suspected that rising rainfall was responsible for these ecological changes. New research published in Weather and Climate Dynamics now confirms that increasing precipitation is a major factor. The findings also suggest that the changes seen on this isolated UNESCO World Heritage site reflect a much larger climate story unfolding across the Southern Ocean.