Well today I have arrived in Scott Base, ANTARCTICA!! We had a good flight, security in the morning and then a smooth 5 hour flight in the C17. This was really cool, we sat on the side with cargo in the middle which included to large Ford utility vans sitting side by side with enough room to walk around and between them.
After arrival we had a tour and safety briefing followed by dinner and then a team meeting. It is now 10:15pm here and so time for bed, especially after only sleeping 5hrs last night. I hope to have more time to write tomorrow, but have prewritten a little segment on Antarctica for you. Also hope to have some more pictures of Scott Base and area soon, plus pictures and video from Antarctic Field Training and other things. The internet connection here is not fast though so pictures will be lower resolution and movies may not be possible until I return.
Antarctica covers some 14 million square kilometers, the average elevation are between 2,000 and 4,000m with the tallest mountain the Vinson Massif towering at almost 4900m. Some regions are ice free, and of these places is the McMurdo Dry Valleys. In contrast to the Arctic which is essentially an ocean that is mostly surrounded by land, the Antarctic is a continent surrounded by an ocean. The atmosphere also has a large ring around Antarctica and some of you may remember the Ozone Hole over Antarctica. Antarctica is often described as two large regions, the East and West Antarctic Ice Sheets. This is because the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has large regions underneath it that are below sea level, it has the Antarctic Peninsula which extends to the north and generally contains thinner ice. However this region is also where a lot of the dramatic changes you may hear about are occurring (on glaciers such as the Pine Island Glacier or the Larsen Ice Shelf). The East Antarctic Ice Sheet is thicker, generally colder and has been thought to be less responsive to change (a paradigm which has changed). Besides the ice sheets there are also the glaciers, the ice shelves (freshwater ice that is floating in the ocean), ice streams (rapidly moving glaciers), and of course sea ice. Scientists have discovered large lakes under nearly four kilometers of ice, the most famous being Lake Vostok, and have observed many more lakes in the past decade.
In terms of wild life, well first thing are NO POLAR BEARS, but you get whales, orcas, seals, many bird species, many fish and other marine species, and of course the always well dressed penguins. There is simply to much to discuss, it is like describing what Canada or North America is like, where do you begin, what do you leave out, so I will move on.
Antarctica is governed by a treaty, and while seven countries lay claim to parts of the continent (UK,France,Norway,NZ, Australia, Chile, Argentina) they have all agreed to withhold the claims process/decisions for a very long time. The USA has been VERY active in Antarctica since near the beginning and while not an original claimant maintains the right to claim (along with Russia). In 1961 the Antarctic Treaty came into force, and outlined rules for the governance of Antarctica, including no military activity (except to support science), freedom for scientific collaboration and research(very important during this Cold War period), froze the claims, prohibits use of nuclear power/energy including weapons, waste, etc. All in all it is a pretty incredible thing to see so many nations (7 claims members, 28 consultative status members and 20 non-consultative status members) working together, and much of it came out as a result of the International Geophysical Year (s) in the 1950s. Since the Treaty, other acts have come up to protect the land and marine environment as a result of the increased activity in the Antarctic.
Well there is today’s attempt to include some valuable information to you. Again if you have questions please do not hesitate to ask. Also if I have made any mistakes, I apologize to all my readers, just please let me know so I can rectify the information.
Did you have toilet on the plane ;)
ReplyDelete