16-17 October No. 1
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VOLUME 16-17 OCTOBER NO. 1 HONORARY PRESIDENT “BY AND FOR ALL ANTARCTICANS” Dr. Robert H. Rutford Post Office Box 325, Port Clyde, Maine 04855 PRESIDENT www.antarctican.org Dr. Anthony J. Gow 117 Poverty Lane www.facebook.com/antarcticansociety Lebanon, NH 03766 [email protected] July Gathering rich in history ........... 1 Chester M. Pierce, 1927-2016 ..….. 14 VICE PRESIDENT Liesl Schernthanner University of Maine in Antarctica .... 3 Nick Clinch, 1930-2016 …........... 15 P.O. Box 3307 Ketchum, ID 83340 Antarctic and global climate trends .. 4 New Society Website ……………. 16 [email protected] Exploring the Antarctic plateau ....... 5 Antarctic calendars from N.Z. …… 16 TREASURER Dr. Paul C. Dalrymple First South Pole radar profiling ….. 10 Winter-over study ………………... 16 Box 325 The Message …………….……….. 13 Port Clyde, ME 04855 Phone: (207) 372-6523 [email protected] MAINE GATHERING PROVES SOCIETY’S HISTORICAL RICHNESS SECRETARY Joan Boothe The Society’s July 2016 three-day Gathering at Treasurer Paul Dalrymple’s 2435 Divisadero Drive coastal home in Port Clyde, Maine, drew 114 members, relatives, and friends from San Francisco, CA 94115 across the Nation. A day of presentations in Paul’s Garage Theater dramatically [email protected] showed how today’s understanding of Antarctica grew out of the slow and painstaking WEBMASTER – and cold – investigations done more than half a century ago. During that transitional Thomas Henderson time, among many advances, we heard from our speakers – they had been there back 520 Normanskill Place then! – how glaciology was transformed from a descriptive branch of geology to an Slingerlands, NY 12159 [email protected] analytical branch of physics. We were informed about some of the ways that glacial geology – investigation of landforms to infer glacial history – made big strides. ARCHIVIST Papers that follow, contributed by the Garage Theater speakers, are based on Charles Lagerbom their talks and describe some of this early work done by them in Antarctica. For me, 16 Peacedale Drive Northport, ME 04849 and I’m sure others who were there, being in the presence of not just one but a half [email protected] dozen of these pioneers was electric. Audience participation revealed that several people in attendance had early experiences in some of the same regions the speakers BOARD OF DIRECTORS had explored. What a wealth. Dale Anderson; Dr. John Behrendt; J. Stephen Four of the eleven invited Garage Theater speakers are represented in this Dibbern; Valmar Kurol; Dr. issue. Of the other seven, Bob Rutford’s commemoration of John Splettstoesser is Louis Lanzerotti; Mark summarized in an obituary in the July 2016 issue. Bob Breyer’s talk about his Leinmiller; Jerry Marty; grandfather, Admiral Richard E. Byrd, and a planned recovery of an airplane that Ronald Thoreson; Leslie Urasky crashed in March 1929 during Byrd Antarctic Expedition I, is addressed in Bob’s web site, http://www.admiralbyrd.com. Other papers based on talks given at the Gathering NEWSLETTER EDITOR will appear in future issues. As with all issues, the online version of the newsletter Guy Guthridge [email protected] includes images and pictures provided by authors or others; the print version does not. The Society is considering another Antarctic Gathering in the northern MEMBERSHIP summer of 2018, time and place to be determined. Check future newsletters for Send check to Treasurer, or updates. See you there! click “About Us” on web site. Guy Guthridge $20/yr newsletter mailed. $13/yr newsletter online. Foreign $25 mailed. The Antarctican Society October 2016 July 2016 Gathering at Port Clyde, Maine Dr. Paul Dalrymple in Garage Theater Antarctican Society Board Meeting Paul and Gracie at Lunch Bob and Margie Rutford Dr. George Jiracek in Garage Theater Dr. Paul Mayewski in Garage Theater Photos courtesy of Lou Lanzerotti 2 The Antarctican Society October 2016 The University of Maine in Antarctica these scientists represent nearly 60 years of research by the University of Maine in by Harold W. Borns Antarctica. In joining The University of Maine Maine, as a state, has long been CCI in 2000, Professor Paul Mayewski related to Antarctica, first through the fur brought ice core science into the seal fishery along the Antarctic Peninsula University’s established glacial geological and the associated China tea trade of the focus, which has been providing proxy 1800s, and later through Admiral Richard E. records of climate changes from locations Byrd, who in the 1920s and 1930s around the globe, including extensive work summered on Tunk Lake, Maine, where he in Antarctica, Chile, and New Zealand by dictated his Antarctic expedition volumes George Denton and his team of scholars and his famous book Alone, sitting on a raft from several institutions, Brenda Hall, and with his secretary and his dog Igloo, others. according to his daughter, Bolling. Paul Mayewski was appointed During the 1957-1958 International Director of CCI in 2002 and continued to Geophysical Year, University of Maine’s expand both the geography and the Assistant Professor Harold W. Borns, a analytical capabilities of ice core research. Tufts undergrad, was invited by Professor He promoted and developed campus-wide Robert L. Nichols to join the Tufts 1959- interest and activity in climate change 1961 Antarctic expedition as a field documentation and its applications to assistants working in the McMurdo Dry academic and public fields, including Valleys and the McMurdo Sound area. I programs of Maine state government. was thrilled. Eventually I spent 28 field I will be 89 years old this year, am seasons “on the Ice” as a glacial geologist “retired,” and remain in good health. My last and from 1988 to 1990 was program Antarctic research was a cooperative venture manager for polar glaciology at the National with Parker Calkin, SUNY (Buffalo), and Science Foundation in Washington, on loan Robert Ackert, Harvard University, to from the University of Maine. determine the height of the West Antarctic In 2002 Maine’s Climate Change Ice Sheet at the Last Glacial Maximum, Institute, formerly the Institute for measured on nunataks of the Executive Quaternary Studies (of which I was the Committee Range, which is on the ice divide founding director), was established as a of the ice sheet. multidisciplinary research and teaching unit Paul Mayewski, George Denton, focused on Ice Age research in the Brenda Hall and others continue the disciplines glacial geology, prehistoric presence of the University of Maine in archaeology, paleoecology, and glaciology. Antarctica as well as in other glaciated CCI has had a presence in Antarctica regions, while I, in my “failed retirement,” through Professors Harold Borns, George am doing field research in the northeastern Denton, James Fastook, Terence Hughes, United States and in Ireland. Paul Mayewski, and others. The work in Ireland is documenting The institute now has about 15 a low latitude marine-based glacier off the tenured faculty and 60 students. The western coast. This investigation is an university’s marine biological sciences have extension of retired University of Maine been involved through Professors John Professor Terry Hughes' revolutionary Dearborn and Hugh DeWitt, since IGY at concept of marine-based ice sheets, which McMurdo and Palmer and more recently evolved largely from his study of the largest Bruce Sidell at Palmer Station. Together, of them all, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. 3 The Antarctican Society October 2016 Antarctic and global climate climate in concert with climate models. The interpreted through analogs for past project has recovered and analyzed scores of and present atmospheric circulation ice cores and completed thousands of kilometers of oversnow traverses that have by Paul Andrew Mayewski provided a base for understanding glacier dynamics and atmospheric chemistry. During our second expedition into ITASE and associated SCAR programs have the Ladakh Himalayas in 1980 we were contributed to understanding not just fortunate enough to notice clouds Antarctic climate change, but also the converging from the north (Tibetan Plateau) interaction of Antarctic climate with and from the south (India). Where the two Southern Hemisphere and global climate. conveying air masses met, over our 20,450- Today, climate change in the polar ft-high ice core drill site, snow fell. It was regions is having remarkable consequences. the ideal situation to test an intuitive concept Recent Arctic warming, induced by that ice/snow cores carry chemical greenhouse gases, has been abrupt, as much fingerprints (signatures) of their source as 5oC in the eastern Arctic over recent region (temperature, dustiness, biotic years. It has led to poleward migration and productivity, and more). While the snow weakening of the boreal westerlies and was still fresh we raced downhill to just massive embayments of the jetstream – with below 10,000 ft and then back up to our extreme weather event consequences. In the camp to complete drilling for a history of the Antarctic, stratospheric ozone depletion and Indian Monsoon. The concept worked. We greenhouse gas warming have caused the have since been able to track the source, austral westerlies to migrate poleward and emission strength, and transport pathway of strengthen, leading to changes in sea ice many air masses feeding air to the ice cores extent, drought in Australia, cooling of some we have recovered from Antarctica, the Southern Ocean currents due to enhanced Arctic, Asia,