What is black carbon? The latest way humans are causing changes in Antarctica
here are few places on Earth that humans haven't mucked up with the that comes from our , the we power our homes with and the dust and soot that falls we've made worse.
Now even — the only continent with no permanent human inhabitants — is being altered by the grit that follows us wherever we go.
A study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications found that the increasing human presence in Antarctica is causing more snow melt — bad news for a frozen world already battling the effects of human-caused global warming.
"(Antarctica) is currently one of the most rapidly warming regions on the planet," said Alia Khan, a snow and ice scientist at Western Washington University. "Snow is already melting due to impacts of climate change, but this is an exacerbating factor on snow melt."