Reply to: Antarctic greening is constrained by biology and requires field validation

Bokhorst et al.’s Matters Arising paper continues an important conversation around how vegetation change is detected and interpreted in data-sparse and logistically challenging regions such as Antarctica.
In our study of vegetation dynamics across the Antarctic Peninsula (1986–2021), we sought to provide an initial assessment of how the terrestrial biosphere of this climate-sensitive region is responding to documented environmental change. Using remote sensing, we identified a significant long-term increase in satellite-derived greenness indices, interpreted as likely vegetation cover, while concluding that future work must ‘be informed by further ground-based validation’. Bokhorst et al. discuss several challenges associated with interpreting these trends, including the comparison of satellite-derived estimates with ground-based surveys, and the biological plausibility of the inferred
changes. We consider these points below.