Parts of icy Antarctica are turning green with plant life as the region is gripped by extreme heat events, new research shows, sparking concerns about the changing landscape on this vast continent.

Antarctica's icy landscapes are turning green due to extreme heat, with vegetation increasing over tenfold in 40 years. Researchers warn this change, particularly in the Antarctic Peninsula, may harm local wildlife and alter the region's climate dynamics.

Satellite images show the area covered by vegetation has grown dramatically and is now 10 times larger than it was four decades ago and the rate of change is speeding up.

Satellite imagery shows that vegetation on the peninsula grew from less than one square kilometres in 1986 to almost 12sqkm by 2021

The Antarctic is rapidly greening due to climate change global warming, according to a new study Friday from the British Antarctic Survey and the universities of Exeter and Hertfordshire.

Researchers used satellite data to assess how much the Antarctic Peninsula has been “greening” in response to climate change.

In the last four decades, there has been a dramatic tenfold rise in vegetation cover on the Antarctic Peninsula. This new revelation comes from the universities of Exeter and Hertfordshire, and the British Antarctic Survey.

The findings, published Friday in Nature Geoscience, based on a meticulous analysis of Landsat images from 1986 to 2021, show that the greening trend is distinct from natural variability and that it has accelerated by 30 percent since 2016,