MY interest in Antarctica stemmed from newspaper articles and BBC TV news programmes on the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1955 to 1958 to coincide with the International Geophysical Year of 1957. This joint expedition was led by Sir Vivian Fuchs of the British Polar Research Institute and Sir Edmund Hillary, who, with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay conquered Mount Everest in 1953. Twelve years later, in my first teaching post, I worked with a senior meteorologist on that Antarctic Expedition.
In 150 AD, Ptolemy, in his famous work ‘Geographica’, suggested that the Antarctic continent existed. He called it Terra Australis incognita (the unknown or unnamed southern land). Captain James Cook in three sailings across the Arctic Circle, between 1773 and 1774, never reached land there, for 120km offshore his ships faced an impenetrable ice-field. Very recently we have seen satellite images and news clips of the breakup of the Ross Ice Shelf, which is blamed on climate change, with gigantic ice floes floating around the southern Atlantic Ocean.
What is Antarctica like?
It was actually not reached until a Russian Imperial Naval expedition visited it 198 years ago. Twice the size of Australia, it covers 14 million square km and is the fifth largest continent on Earth. Containing 90 per cent of the world’s ice to an average depth of 1.6km and 70 per cent of all freshwater, it is a critical region of our planet.
A plane flies over the snow and ice of Antarctica.
It was only 34 million years ago that ice began to colonise this continent. Officially its lowest air temperature of minus 89.2 Celsius was recorded in the southern hemisphere’s winter in July 1983. As a frozen desert, this continent receives very little annual rainfall with an average of less than 10cm a year. In the summer months, the maximum temperatures in coastal research bases varies from 5 to 15 degrees Celsius, when 24 hours of sunlight prevails.
In the winter months, when nearly zero hours of sunlight exists, very heavy snow falls. Its highest peak, Vinson Massif at 4,892 metres is about 700 metres higher than Mount Kinabalu and stands aloof of the surrounding ice sheets. Mount Erebus on Ross Island is still an active volcano spewing its smoke and ash high into the atmosphere and occasionally causes aircraft disruptions to the flights into scientific research bases.
Natural resources
Low grade coal deposits have been found, for Antarctica was once part of an even larger landmass before it broke up and drifted from subtropical and tropical climes to its southerly resting position between 160 and 23 million years ago. Iron ore has been discovered in the Prince Charles Mountains and valuable oil and natural gas fields found offshore in the Ross Sea.
Copper, chromium, gold, nickel and platinum ores have also been located but in too small a quantity to be economically mined at present. Fortunately for this wilderness all exploitation of mineral resources is banned until 2048 by the Protocol on Environment Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (the Madrid treaty) of 1998. This treaty designated Antarctica as “a natural reserve devoted to peace and science”.
Greatest resource
A conference this October will see proposals for the creation of a 1.8-million square km reserve banning all fishing in a huge area of the Weddell Sea and around the Antarctic Peninsula.
This will guarantee protection and provide a sanctuary for emperor penguins, blue whales and leopard seals on their home grounds so to speak.
One third of all emperor penguins are both in Antarctica and the sea ice.
The Weddell Sea is one of the last pristine regions in Antarctica with its 14,000 animal species, and to date international fishing fleets have avoided it mainly due to impassable ice.
One third of all emperor penguins are both here and on the sea ice and over 300,000 pairs of Antarctic petrels breed close to the coast. Six seal species and 12 whale species have been observed to include Antarctic minke whales, blue whales, humpback whales, and orcas. Last December, the Ross Sea became a Marine Reserve.
Antarctic Treaty
This treaty bans any military intervention in Antarctica including manoeuvres, weapons testing, and military bases. Since 1908, when Britain first claimed territorial rights to a small area of Antarctica, another eight nations have made claims with Australia claiming nearly the whole of the eastern part. Yet other countries have expressed claims but these have not been ratified.
Gradually the Antarctic is being brought into the wider world with an ever-growing ship based tourist industry. Already conservationists are crying out for stricter regulations for ship sizes and for tourism quotas to be established. Present and future marine sanctuaries and reserves will promote biodiversity and provide relief and resilience for wildlife and allow ecosystems to recover.
Malaysians in Antarctica
Few Malaysian students of at least 16 years of age or their teachers have heard of the Sultan Mizan Antarctic Research Foundation (YPASM), which provides polar research grants and fellowships for young scientists to visit Antarctic Research Stations for a few weeks each year. Its ‘Students on Ice Programme’ sends secondary school students and teachers to the Antarctic in the trust that scientific research there will further stimulate them.
Already, Malaysian university research students have benefitted from their fieldwork research at British Antarctic Survey bases where they have been welcomed and valued by members of the scientific community. For further information on Students On Ice, Arctic Educational Expeditions please refer to www.ypasm.my. What a golden opportunity for budding research scientists. I envy them this chance of a lifetime.
Alarming scenario
Recent research at Leeds University, UK, has revealed that since 2010, Antarctica has lost an area of ice the size of Greater London as warmer ocean waters have melted the Antarctic’s floating edges.
The greatest changes have been in western Antarctica, where 20 per cent of the ice sheet has retreated across the seafloor in the last eight years, faster than the long-term average rate.
This melting has had a massive effect on the inland glaciers as friction has been removed, thus releasing them from the seabed and thus their rate of movement has been increased in the form of glacier-surges only to again melt when they disgorge into the sea.
This could significantly add to long-term rising sea levels with consequently severe implications for thousands of coastal towns and cities and, indeed, their inhabitants worldwide.
Literally speaking, ‘the writing is truly on the wall’ as the ice-walls continue to collapse and fall into the sea.