> 40 years ago, they saw only a few tiny patches of vegetation covering a total of about 8,000 square feet—less than a football field. That's ≈ 740 m². > But

> 40 years ago, they saw only a few tiny patches of vegetation covering a total of about 8,000 square feet—less than a football field. That's ≈ 740 m². > But since then, the Antarctic Peninsula has warmed rapidly, and a new study shows that mosses, along with some lichen, liverworts and associated algae, have colonized more than 4.6 square miles, an area nearly four times the size of New York’s Central Park. ≈ 12,000,000 m² ≈ 16,000 × 740 m².