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This week , dozens of dauntless reveler — the prime pastor of Norway among them — are converging on the South Pole to celebrate the historical trek of Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen , the first human to set human foot there on Dec. 14 , 1911 .
Yet in an ironic gimmick , some might argue that it is the runner - up in the hard competition whose bequest has raise more lasting .
A NASA aircraft, part of the agency’s IceBridge mission, banks over an ice shelf jutting out from western Antarctica during an October 2011 data-gathering flight.
British explorer Robert Falcon Scott , whoreached the polea month after Amundsen , died on his return march , unable to bunk the tightening snare of the Antarctic winter . And although his oft - maligned maneuver try out , in part , to be his undoing , Scott ’s insistence on impart scientists on his jaunt — at great monetary value to himself — helped set off a tradition of scientific inquiry in Antarctica that endures to this twenty-four hour period , according to Ross MacPhee , conservator at the American Museum of Natural History in New York , and writer of the book , " Race to The End : Amundsen , Scott , and the Attainment of the South Pole " ( Sterling Innovation , 2010 ) .
" Every scientist working in Antarctica today owes Scott something , " MacPhee order OurAmazingPlanet in September . [ Images : Scott ’s Lost Photos ]
Science is now one of the elemental drivers of human bodily function on the continent .
A NASA aircraft, part of the agency’s IceBridge mission, banks over an ice shelf jutting out from western Antarctica during an October 2011 data-gathering flight.
Each yr , when the eternal daylight of austral summer lead off , drove chisel of scientist settle on Antarctica to study its biology , drill deeply into its ice , and send airplanes soaring overhead to prototype what lie underneath its glaciers .
most 30 countries operate more than 80 research station around the continent , according to 2009 numbers from the Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs .
A flurry of oeuvre is now under room on and around the continent .
Robert Falcon Scott in the expedition’s well-stocked hut.
Charismatic zoology
Some scientists arrive to consider theunique gang of marine lifethat gather near the nutrient - rich body of water off the Antarctic coast in the comparatively balmy summer . penguin may be the most beloved of the local animal pantheon , but studying these birds is nothing like a Disney picture show .
" Penguins are not cuddly at all . They ’re really very substantial and very touchy , and they do n’t care to be piece up , which we try not to do , " allege David Ainley , a nautical ecologist who has been studyingAdélie penguinsin Antarctica since the previous sixties .
Don’t ask these guys to tap dance. Adelie penguins in Antarctica.
For decades , Ainley , now with the California - based ecologic consulting firm H.T. Harvey & Associates , has researched why penguin population are changing ; some colonies have grow , others have cringe . He said he ’s interested in do a very canonic question about life on our satellite — how do animals make out with their environment ? — and that penguin are the ideal research subject .
" They ’re passably big so you may put instruments on them and register their behavior , " Ainley told OurAmazingPlanet just hours before he boarded a plane headed south .
In addition , he said , they ’re passably well-heeled to find . " Penguins are very visible , " Ainley said . " In the Antarctic they do n’t have any place to hide . They do n’t know in burrow , and it ’s daylight all the time . "
This is an aerial, close-up view of the floating section and ice front of Pine Island glacier, November 2002.
Biological time trip
While Ainley and his team pass their days on the rocky incline of Antarctic islands , other scientist spend the austral summer on ships . David Barnes , with the British Antarctic Survey , spoke with OurAmazingPlanet from the RRS James Ross , a research watercraft parked near the Antarctic Peninsula , the tenacious fingerbreadth of estate that points toward South America .
Barnes said that his research pore on seek to unlock the secret ofAntarctica ’s glacial past , specifically how the range of the massive West Antarctic Ice Sheet has changed from age to age . Scientists know it has been great than it is now , and some suspect it has been little than it is now , but anything more exact is difficult to pin down .
Flags fly outside McMurdo Station, one of three United States research station in Antarctica and the largest.
" The problem is that every time there ’s an shabu age it ’s wipe out everything — so we do n’t really know where the last water ice sheet arrive to , " Barnes said . But there is another means to peek into the Antarctic ’s past : " Where we ca n’t get good signals from glaciology or geology , biology has a cunning way of stepping in , " he tell .
Barnes attend at the genetic make-up ofsea creature around western Antarcticato determine how long population have been isolated from one another by the ice .
" Genetics keep a link between mintage and population , so by looking around Antarctica at various depths we can get an estimate of whether that country used to be underneath an ice rink flat solid , " Barnes said .
That information can , in turn , aid scientists figure out how the West Antarctic Ice Sheet comport in climates past , and how it might behave in our warming creation .
internal-combustion engine liveliness
Still other scientist will expend the austral summertime live on the Methedrine itself . Robert Bindschadler , a glaciologist and scientist emeritus withNASA , along with a small squad of researcher , will spend six calendar week sleeping in small collapsible shelter on a floating plain stitch of Methedrine — thePine Island Glacier frosting ledge — the outlet of one of the expectant and quickest move glaciers in Antarctica .
Ice shelves , which ring the continent , appear to be a key player in the increasing and alarming rate at which glaciers in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet are melting and raising sea level in recent eld , Bindschadler articulate . But produce direct observation of how this is happening is a challenge . planet mental imagery and data provide some inside information , but the continent is remote , and its retentive , roughshod wintertime allow scientist to work there for only about three months a year , [ sensational Photos of Antarctic Ice ]
watching argue that comparativelywarm ocean water is lap awayat the ice shelves , which , as they de-escalate , allow glacier to slide into the ocean at a faster and faster cartridge holder — yet the direct mechanism remain hidden from opinion .
" Satellites have taken us really far , but they ca n’t give us the answers to what ’s going on underneath , " Bindschadler tell . To that end , his team will drop its sidereal day drilling several holes through most a third of a mile ( 500 meters ) of methamphetamine to drop sensors into the ocean below to measure variations in temperature and stream .
Some scientist impart their research from the air , working aboard planes outfit with imaging applied science that can peer beneath the frappe . NASA ’s IceBridge projectfocuses on the westerly half of the continent , while other international coaction focus on the far larger yet more stable easterly half .
water ice employment if you’re able to get it
Other research must be done on the ground . scientist are drill late into the chicken feed to compile signatures of past climate entrap inside , or looking for germ that dwell in it . The race todrill down to the more than 200 freshwater lakesthat pelt the continent is another tantalizing pursuit ..
Some researchers work in Antarctica because the frigid continent , destitute of a native human population or tamper flora and beast , provides a kind of lifelike laboratory .
" In most ecosystems you have plant all over the place , and they do a lot of things to complicate the organisation , " state Byron Adams , a prof at Brigham Young University who studies the nematodes and other tiny creatures that are found in the few patches of ice - free soil in the Antarctic .
Still other researchers take advantage of the high-pitched altitude and cleared air topeer through telescopesinto distant space and the other macrocosm .
At about 1.5 times the size of the United States , Antarctica has plenty of scientific tangible the three estates to go around .
At the heart of much of the research is the question of how thecontinent ’s ice is responding to climate modification . Antarctica is household to some of the most dramatic effects of climate change seen anywhere on Earth , from melting glacier to increasing wind to warm temperature . The Antarctic Peninsula has warmed several times faster than the global average charge per unit .
" We ’re asking really underlying questions about how ecosystems respond to a changing climate , and in the end the destination is to be able to make foretelling about this , " Adams told OurAmazingPlanet .
Despite the challenge — os - chilling winds , constant sunlight , uttermost isolation and ever - changing weather — many scientist say work in Antarctica is deserving the hardship and the foresightful hours spend packing as much work into an outing as potential . Although it ’s not for everyone , they admonish , the work can be deeply satisfying , multiply a gumption of chumminess that can last a life .
" When you ’re out in the deep field , and you ’re only living with what you brought , and the sheet reverse and leaves , that ’s the Antarctica I favor , " Bindschadler state . " You really are in a different world . "
