RedParka: Antartica, Let's Go!

“Glittering white, shining blue, raven black,

in the light of the sun

the land looks like a fairly tale.”

- Roald Amundsen, 1911

Norwegian Explorer

Led first expedition to reach the South Pole

The Facts:

Antarctica is 5,100,000 square miles in size, larger than the U.S.A and Mexico combined! This huge continent is surrounded by water and in the winter it triples its size because the sea turns to ice. Antarctica is the highest, driest, windiest and, as you might have guessed, coldest continent on our planet. The coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth was taken at the Russian Antarctic station called Vostok. The Russian scientists recorded a temperature of -129ºF! (or -89.5 on the Celsius scale). The average annual temperature in Antarctica is -58°F (-50°C). Antarctica is largely covered with ice; 90% of all the ice on Earth is locked in the sea ice and glaciers of Antarctica. Only 2% of this large continent is not covered in ice. (This intriguing ice free region is where we work, by the way, but we’ll get back to that a little later).

Some Ancient History: 200 million years ago Antarctica was once part of a super-continent called Gondwanaland that included Australia, Africa, South America, India and New Zealand. This party of continents was not meant to last and it slowly began breaking up and moving towards the positions on the Earth that we are familiar with today. Can you look at the globe in your classroom and imagine where these continents may have been joined? The history of Antarctic exploration is recent when compared to the other continents on our planet, but the stories are no less fascinating.

More Recent History: Two well-known explorers that left their mark on the McMurdo Sound area were the British explorer Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912) and Irishman Ernest Shackelton (1874-1922). Both of these men are perhaps best known for the “failed” expeditions that they led. Scott’s Terra Nova expedition (1910) to the South Pole reached its goal shortly after it was claimed by the Norwegian, Roald Amundsen. Scott and his party perished on the return to their base camp at McMurdo. Shackelton’s legendary Endurance expedition was in 1915 where their sailing vessel become trapped in the Weddell Sea pack ice. The ship was eventually crushed by the freezing sea ice leaving the men to fend for their survival through two unforgiving Antarctic winters. Miraculously, all crew members survived!

Statistics from 1996 winter: 44 research stations were operated by 18 countries. In the Antarctic summer these numbers increase dramatically. McMurdo Station, where we will be heading, has ~1200 people alone!

There are no permanent residents of Antarctica. Although some tourists do visit, their numbers are few, it is the scientists and support staff that populate the continent. The winter population is around 1200 people, about one-third of this number is scientists and the remainder is support staff.

Plants and Animals: You may instantly associate penguins with Antarctica, but the truth is these amazing creatures do not inhabit the continent of Antarctic proper. They are marine organisms that spend most of their time at sea, using the sea ice and the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula as a rookery to lay their eggs. Adelie and Emperor Penguins are often seen near McMurdo Station where our Antarctic adventure begins. Other popular creatures near McMurdo are the Weddell Seal and the Skua. The continental life that we will investigate is very different from this exotic wildlife. For starters, you need a microscope to see most of it!

Geography: The Transantarctic Mountains cross the entire continent of Antarctica. Some of its peaks rise more than 14,000 feet. This massive mountain chain prevents the flow of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet into the coastal region of Victorialand, creating an ice-free rocky area known as the dry valleys. The valleys were carved by the alpine glaciers that grow and shrink in this area over long geologic time scales. The dry valleys are an extreme polar desert; in fact, it is the driest desert on our planet. The only precipitation this desert receives is in the form of snow. The dry snow that falls on the valleys is typically swept away by the strong winds that fall down the ice sheet from the South Pole. We will learn more about the dry valleys as we move through the Poles Apart resource unit!

Seasons: Antarctic has opposite seasons to Vermont, and the pattern of sunlight throughout the day is also very different. In Vermont, the winter days are short while in summer the days are much longer. As the Earth revolves around the sun, it is tilted on its axis. This tilt is fixed in space which causes the seasons, for example when the North Pole points away from the sun, the northern hemisphere experiences winter and the South Pole experiences summer. This also affects the amount of sunlight that reaches the poles. When the South Pole is tilted towards the sun (the austral summer), Antarctica has sunlight all day long. So Christmas in Vermont happens during winter with snow, and the days are also short, its dark by dinner time. We’ll be working in Antarctica through Christmas where it will be the Antarctic summer (but trust me, it will still be cold!) but the sun will be up for 24 hours a day!!