9Truthsfrome the Antarctic

Table of Contents

Britain in the Antarctic £15 million

Antarctic Riddle: How Much Will the South Pole Melt? 3mm

South Pole Telescope 33feet, 75feet

First base in Antarctic 6m 6m for 6 people

Amundsen becomes the first to reach South Pole Jan 17th, 1912

4 7 8

Antarctic Krill 800,000,000,000,000

Adélie Penguins ina changing climate 65%

10 13Climate of Antarctica 9.9 F

15

Antarctic Sea Ice Reaches New Record Maximum 1979-2015

17 18 21

Britain in the AntarcticThe UK Antarctic science community is active and grow-

ing. 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 envi-

ronmental 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 pre-

dictions of Antarctic change and its potential global impact.

BRITAIN IN THE ARCTIC 4

£15Million

3mm

ARCTIC RIDDLE 6

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 fan-ning 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 projec-tion 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.

ARCTIC RIDDLE 7

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 becomes first to reach South PoleBy Daniel C. Schlenoff

Amundsen 8

Amundsen 9

Jan17th

1912

Adélie Penguinsin a Changing Climate

Adélie penguin 10

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 popu-lation 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 research-ers found breeding habitat quality, which can be strongly influenced by weather and climate, to be an important factor in the population decline.

Adélie penguin numbers have declined

Adélie penguin 11

800,000,000,000,000Antarctic Krill

ARCTIC RIDDLE 12

800,000,000,000,000

Krill is a Norwegian word for "whale food", more than anything else, krill are the engine that powers the Antarctic ecosys-tem. 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 densi-ties 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 region of 8 x 1014 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 repro-duction and explains the apparent anomaly whereby more krill are consumed per year than the standing biomass.

ARCTIC RIDDLE 13

F9.9ARCTIC RIDDLE |16

ARCTIC RIDDLE 14

F9.9The Highest

Summer Temperature

The temperature of AntarcticaThe 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, eleva-tion, and distance from the ocean. East Antarctica is colder than West Antarctica because of its higher

ARCTIC RIDDLE 15

elevation. The Antarctic Peninsula has the most mod-erate 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.

19792015

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 mil-lion square miles, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. The ice extent stayed above this benchmark extent for several days. The aver-age 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, how-ever, 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.

On Sept. 19 2015, for the first time ever since 1979, Antarctic sea ice extent exceeded 7.72 million square miles (20 million square kilome-

ters). According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Antarctic Sea Ice Reaches New Record Maximum

ARCTIC RIDDLE 17

to

Scientists aimed the South Pole Telescope at Jupiter on the evening of Feb. 16 and suc-cessfully 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

SOUTH POLE TELESCOPE 18

“The telescope, camera and optics are all working as designed” said John Carlstrom.

75feet

33feet

SOUTH POLE TELESCOPE 19

FIRST BASE IN ANTARCTIC |20

6m 6m for 6 peopleOmond House was

6m 6m for 6 people

The major task completed during this time was the construction of a stone building, christened "Omond House". This was to act as living accommo-dation for the parties that would remain on Laurie Island to operate the proposed meteorological lab-oratory. 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 × 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 govern-ment 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.

FIRST BASE IN ANTARCTIC |21

Index

A

accommodation 21accoun 8achievement 8Adélie penguin 10Amundsen 8Anders Levermann 7Antarctica 2,4, 8, 7, 10,11, 15

Antarctic ecosystem13Antarctic Office 4Antarctic Sea Ice 17 Arctic 17assessment 7Astronomy 18Astrophysics 18atmospheric 7author 7

B

balmier 7balmier waters 7barrier 8Betty Moore Foundation 18biomass 13boat 18Britain 4

C

camera 18canvas sheeting 21century 7, 8, 21chapter 7Chicago 18

Chinstrap 10Claire Parkinson 17climate 7, 10, 15Climate 10coastlines 7community 4, 7continent 7continuation 21Council 4crustacean 13

D

dangling 7dark energy 18data 8decline 7, 10densities 13distribution 13Dynamics 7

E

earth 13Earth 7Earth’s environments 4, 17Earth’s surface 15East Antarcticais 15ecosystem 13effort 7elevation 15engine 13

F

factor 7, 10feet 18food web 10

force 18forecasts 7Funding 4

G

Gentoo penguin 10geography 8Goddard Space Flight Center 17Gordon 18government 4,21guidance 18

H

habitat 10house 21

I

ice 7, 17icebergs 7impacts 4, 10institutions 18instrument 18intentions 21interior 15

J

Jupiter 18

K

Kavli Foundation 18Kilgore 18Krill 12, 13

L

laboratory 21landscape 8latitude 15Laurie Island 21life cycle 13

M

magnitude 17major 21manager 18marks 7masons 21materials 21Maximum 17McMurdo Station 15Melt 7melting 7method 21microcosm 17millimeters 7mission 21models 7, 10mortar 21mystery 18

N

NASA researchers 17National Science Foundation 18New Zealand 18north 4Norwegian explor

ers 8NSIDC data 17number 10, 13

O

ocean 7officer William Hag gard 21Omond House 20, 21

P

Palmer Long Term 10Panel 7party 8,13Peninsula 10, 15people 20, 21phytoplankton 13planet 7, 13, 17plateau 15Potsdam Institute 7Programme 4project 4, 18

Q

quality 10quarry 18question 7

R

race 8region 7,10, 13reproduction 13research 4,10, 18reservations 15result 7, 10

rise 7Roald Amundsen 8Robert Falcon 8roof 21Rudmose Brown 21

S

San Francisco 18schools 13science 4Scientist 7, 8, 17,18Scientists 18Snow and Ice Data Center 17source 7Southern Ocean 13,17South Pole 8, 15, 18South Pole Telescope 18species 13station 21statistics 13Steve Padin 18study 7, 10

T

team 4, 18telescope 18temperature 15Texas 18thaw 7tonnes 13

U

uncertainty 7underbelly 7underside 7University 18upward 17

V

value 15variability 10

W

waters 7, 13way 8weather 10weeks 8West Antarctica 15western Antarctic Peninsula 10whale food 13whole 10world 7, 8, 17