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Truths frome the Antarctic
Table of Contents
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7
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Britain in the Antarctic
Antarctic Riddle: How Much Will the South Pole Melt? 3mm
Amundsen becomes the first to reach South Pole Jan 17th, 1912
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13
15
ÂŁ15 million
AdĂŠlie Penguins in a changing climate 65%
Antarctic Krill 800,000,000,000,000
Climate of Antarctica 9.9 F
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Antarctic Sea Ice Reaches New Record Maximum 1979-2015
South Pole Telescope 33feet, 75feet
First base in Antarctic 6m 6m for 6 people
BRITAIN IN THE ARCTIC
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Britain in the Antarctic The UK Antarctic science community is active and growing. Britain’s role in Antarctic research is managed by the Antarctic Office at British Antarctic Survey, which supports the Antarctic science community in the UK. Funding by the Natural Environment Research Council for UK Antarctic environmental research has steadily risen over the past decade including £15m provided in 2011 to the five-year Antarctic Research Programme. Managed by a team at British Antarctic Survey, the programme was designed to enhance the UK’s research effort in the north, and to improve predictions of Antarctic change and its potential global impact.
ÂŁ15 Million
ARCTIC RIDDLE
6
3
mm
ARCTIC RIDDLE
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ANTARCTIC RIDDLE:
How Much Will the South Pole Melt? By John Upton
One of the biggest question marks surrounding the fate of the planet’s coastlines is dangling from its underbelly. The melting of the Antarctic ice sheet has long been a relatively minor factor in thesteady ascent of high-water marks, responsible for about an eighth of the 3 millimeters of annual sea-level rise. But when it comes to climate change, Antarctica is the elephantine ice sculpture in the boiler room. The ice sheet is so massive that its decline is, according to the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment, “the largest potential source” of future sea level rise. Accurately forecasting how much of it will be unleashed as seawater, and when that will happen, could help coastal communities plan for surging flood risks. A study published Aug. 14 in Earth System Dynamics — one that took more than 2 years and 50,000 computer simulations to complete, combining information from 26 atmospheric, oceanic, and ice sheet models from four polar regions — has helped scientists hone their forecasts for this century’s Antarctic thaw. And the results of the global research effort were more sobering than the findings of most of the more limited studies that came before it. The world’s seas could rise anywhere from less than half an inch up to more than a foot by the end of this century solely because of the effects of balmier waters fanning Antarctica’s underside, causing ice to melt, icebergs to calve, and ice and snow pack to slough into the sea, the scientists calculated. The upper limit of that projection is more than double earlier estimates, with scientists attributing the change to advances in models. “The largest uncertainty that we have with regards to Antarctica is, how much of the warming reaches the continent through the ocean, and how much melting does it cause?” said Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research’s Anders Levermann, who led the study. Levermann was also a lead author of the sea level rise chapter in the most recent IPCC assessment.
Amundsen
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Amundsen becomes first to reach South Pole By Daniel C. Schlenoff One hundred years ago today the South Pole was reached by a party of Norwegian explorers under the command of Roald Amundsen. The existence of the pole had been known, but the inhospitable landscape presented a barrier until Amundsen’s party made the dangerous trek across ice and snow to stand at the geographical South Pole on this day a century ago. One of Amundsen’s competitors, Robert Falcon Scott and his party, achieved a different kind of fame: they arrived on January 17, 1912 to find they were second in the race to fame, and they perished on their way back north.
News of Amundsen’s achievement was telegraphed to the world on March 7, 1912, on his return to Hobart, Australia. It is much too early to give any critical account of Capt. Roald Amundsen's achievement. Many weeks must elapse before we are in complete possession of all his data. Yet even the laconic account, which he has cabled to the press, throws a flood of light on the mystery of Antarctic geography.
Amundsen
Jan 17th 1912
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Adélie penguin
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Adélie penguin numbers have declined
Adélie Penguins in a Changing Climate At the Palmer Research Station on the peninsula, Adélie penguin numbers have declined 65 percent over the past 25 years and are being replaced by Chinstrap and Gentoo penguins. The whole of this decline cannot be attributed to any one factor but is instead the result of a complex mix of impacts. The findings of a 2013 study, for example, “suggest that models of population change based on food web processes alone may be insufficient to account for the observed
variability” in penguin populations in the Palmer Long Term Ecological Research region along the western Antarctic Peninsula. The five Adélie penguin colonies in this area have seen an 83 percent decline in breeding pairs since 1974 and one colony, which had existed for 500 years, went extinct in 2007. The researchers found breeding habitat quality, which can be strongly influenced by weather and climate, to be an important factor in the population decline.
AdĂŠlie penguin
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ARCTIC RIDDLE
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Antarctic Krill
800,000,00
ARCTIC RIDDLE
Krill is a Norwegian word for "whale food", more than anything else, krill are the engine that powers the Antarctic ecosystem. It is a species of krill found in the Antarctic waters of the Southern Ocean. It is a small, swimming crustacean that lives in large schools, called swarms, sometimes reaching densities of 10,000–30,000 individual animals per cubic metre. It feeds directly on minute phytoplankton, thereby using the primary production energy that the phytoplankton originally derived from the sun in order to sustain their pelagic (open ocean) life cycle. It grows to a length of 6 centimetres (2.4 in), weighs up to 2 grams (0.071 oz), and can live for up to six years. It is a key species in the Antarctic ecosystem and is, in terms of biomass, probably the most abundant animal species on the planet (approximately 500 million tonnes). Current best estimates over the period of 1926-2004 give the following statistics: Summer distribution range of around 19 million square kilometres. Total number of krill in the 14 region of 8 x 10 individuals, that's an 8 followed by 14 zeros, 800,000,000,000,000 or 114,000 each for every one of the 7 billion people on earth. Krill standing biomass of 379 million tonnes. The production of krill is in the range of 342 to 536 million tonnes per year, this is the amount that is available to predators and is the result of growth and reproduction and explains the apparent anomaly whereby more krill are consumed per year than the standing biomass.
00,000,000
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9.9 9.9
ARCTIC RIDDLE
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The Highest Summer Temperature
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ARCTIC RIDDLE |
F
F
ARCTIC RIDDLE
The temperature of Antarctica The highest temperature ever recorded in Antarctica was 17.5 °C (63.5 °F) at Hope Bay on 24 March 2015. There are reservations about this value. The mean annual temperature of the interior is −57 °C (−70.6 °F). The coast is warmer. Monthly means at McMurdo Station range from −26 °C (−14.8 °F) in August to −3 °C (26.6 °F) in January. At the South Pole, the highest temperature ever recorded was −12.3 °C (9.9 °F) on 25 December 2011. Along the Antarctic Peninsula, temperatures as high as 15 °C (59 °F) have been recorded, though the summer temperature is below 0 °C (32 °F) most of the time. Severe low temperatures vary with latitude, elevation, and distance from the ocean. East Antarctica is colder than West Antarctica because of its higher
elevation. The Antarctic Peninsula has the most moderate climate. Higher temperatures occur in January along the coast and average below freezing. The lowest recorded temperature of any location on Earth's surface was −93.2 °C (−135.8 °F) at 81.8°S 63.5°E, which is on an unnamed Antarctic plateau between Dome A and Dome F, on August 10, 2010. The temperature was deduced from radiance measured by the Landsat 8 satellite, and discovered during a National Snow and Ice Data Center review of stored data in December, 2013.
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ARCTIC RIDDLE
Antarctic Sea Ice Reaches New Record Maximum On Sept. 19 2015, for the first time ever since 1979, Antarctic sea ice extent exceeded 7.72 million square miles (20 million square kilometers). According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
Since the late 1970s, the Arctic has lost an average of 20,800 square miles (53,900 square kilometers) of ice a year; the Antarctic has gained an average of 7,300 square miles (18,900 sq km). On Sept. 19 2015, for the first time ever since 1979, Antarctic sea ice extent exceeded 7.72 million square miles, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. The ice extent stayed above this benchmark extent for several days. The average maximum extent between 1981 and 2010 was 7.23 million square miles. Sea ice surrounding Antarctica reached a new record high extent this year, covering more of the southern oceans than it has since scientists began a long term satellite record to map sea ice extent in the late 1970s. The upward trend in the Antarctic, however, is only about a third of the magnitude of the rapid loss of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean.
The new Antarctic sea ice record reflects the diversity and complexity of Earth’s environments, said NASA researchers. Claire Parkinson, a senior scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, has referred to changes in sea ice coverage as a microcosm of global climate change. Just as the temperatures in some regions of the planet are colder than average, even in our warming world, Antarctic sea ice has been increasing and bucking the overall trend of ice loss. The single-day maximum extent this year was reached on Sept. 20, according to NSIDC data, when the sea ice covered 7.78 million square miles (20.14 million square kilometers). This year’s five-day average maximum Was reached on Sept. 22, when sea ice covered 7.76 million square miles (20.11 million square kilometers), according to NSIDC.
19792015 to
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SOUTH POLE TELESCOPE
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“
The telescope, camera and optics are all working as designed” said John Carlstrom.
South Pole Telescope Scientists aimed the South Pole Telescope at Jupiter on the evening of Feb. 16 and successfully collected the instrument’s first test observations. Soon, far more distant quarry will fall under the SPT’s sights as a team from nine institutions tackles one of the biggest mysteries of modern cosmological research. That mystery: What is dark energy, the force that dominates the universe? The $19.2 million SPT is funded primarily by the National Science Foundation, with additional support from the Kavli Foundation of Oxnard, Calif., and the Gordon and Betty
More Foundation of San Francisco. The telescope stands 75 feet tall, measures 33 feet across and weighs 280 tons. It was test-built in Kilgore, Texas, then taken apart, shipped by boat to New Zealand, and flown to the South Pole. Since November, the SPT team under the guidance of project manager Steve Padin, Senior Scientist in Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Chicago, has worked furiously to reassemble and deploy the telescope.
SOUTH POLE TELESCOPE
33
feet
75
feet
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FIRST BASE IN ANTARCTIC |
Omond House was
6m 6m for 6 people
FIRST BASE IN ANTARCTIC |
The major task completed during this time was
the construction of a stone building, christened "Omond House". This was to act as living accommodation for the parties that would remain on Laurie Island to operate the proposed meteorological laboratory. The building was constructed from local materials using the dry stone method, with a roof improvised from wood and canvas sheeting. The completed house was 20 feet by 20 feet square (6m Ă— 6m), with two windows, fitted as quarters for six people. Rudmose Brown wrote: "Considering that we had no mortar and no masons' tools it is
a wonderfully fine house and very lasting. I should think it will be standing a century hence ..."Bruce later offered to Argentina the transfer of the station and instruments on the condition that the government committed itself to the continuation of the scientific mission. Bruce informed the British officer William Haggard of his intentions in December 1903, and Haggard ratified the terms of Bruce proposition.
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Index A accommodation 21 accoun 8 achievement 8 Adélie penguin 10 Amundsen 8 Anders Levermann 7 Antarctica 2,4, 8, 7, 10,11, 15 Antarctic ecosystem13 Antarctic Office 4 Antarctic Sea Ice 17 Arctic 17 assessment 7 Astronomy 18 Astrophysics 18 atmospheric 7 author 7
B balmier 7 balmier waters 7 barrier 8 Betty Moore Foundation 18 biomass 13 boat 18 Britain 4
C camera 18 canvas sheeting 21 century 7, 8, 21 chapter 7 Chicago 18
Chinstrap 10 Claire Parkinson 17 climate 7, 10, 15 Climate 10 coastlines 7 community 4, 7 continent 7 continuation 21 Council 4 crustacean 13
D dangling 7 dark energy 18 data 8 decline 7, 10 densities 13 distribution 13 Dynamics 7
E earth 13 Earth 7 Earth’s environments 4, 17 Earth’s surface 15 East Antarcticais 15 ecosystem 13 effort 7 elevation 15 engine 13
F factor 7, 10 feet 18 food web 10
force 18 forecasts 7 Funding 4
G Gentoo penguin 10 geography 8 Goddard Space Flight Center 17 Gordon 18 government 4,21 guidance 18
H habitat 10 house 21
I ice 7, 17 icebergs 7 impacts 4, 10 institutions 18 instrument 18 intentions 21 interior 15
J Jupiter 18
K Kavli Foundation 18 Kilgore 18 Krill 12, 13
L
U
laboratory 21 landscape 8 latitude 15 Laurie Island 21 life cycle 13
ers 8 NSIDC data 17 number 10, 13
M
ocean 7 officer William Hag gard 21 Omond House 20, 21
magnitude 17 major 21 manager 18 marks 7 masons 21 materials 21 Maximum 17 McMurdo Station 15 Melt 7 melting 7 method 21 microcosm 17 millimeters 7 mission 21 models 7, 10 mortar 21 mystery 18
N NASA researchers 17 National Science Foundation 18 New Zealand 18 north 4 Norwegian explor
O
P Palmer Long Term 10 Panel 7 party 8,13 Peninsula 10, 15 people 20, 21 phytoplankton 13 planet 7, 13, 17 plateau 15 Potsdam Institute 7 Programme 4 project 4, 18
Q quality 10 quarry 18 question 7
R race 8 region 7,10, 13 reproduction 13 research 4,10, 18 reservations 15 result 7, 10
rise 7 Roald Amundsen 8 Robert Falcon 8 roof 21 Rudmose Brown 21
uncertainty 7 underbelly 7 underside 7 University 18 upward 17
S
V
San Francisco 18 schools 13 science 4 Scientist 7, 8, 17,18 Scientists 18 Snow and Ice Data Center 17 source 7 Southern Ocean 13,17 South Pole 8, 15, 18 South Pole Telescope 18 species 13 station 21 statistics 13 Steve Padin 18 study 7, 10
value 15 variability 10
T team 4, 18 telescope 18 temperature 15 Texas 18 thaw 7 tonnes 13
W waters 7, 13 way 8 weather 10 weeks 8 West Antarctica 15 western Antarctic Peninsula 10 whale food 13 whole 10 world 7, 8, 17