Antarctica (50 page)

11. A. Shepherd, D. Wingham and E. Rignot, ‘Warm ocean is eroding West Antarctic Ice Sheet',
Geophysical Research Letters,
31, 2004, p. L23402.

12. Since the shelves are floating, lower doesn't necessarily mean thinner. The sea level could have dropped locally for some reason, taking the ice down with it, or less snow could have fallen on the surface. But the researchers checked and rechecked and none of these explanations fitted. Any variations in sea level or snowfall were far too small to explain the drop they were seeing. The shelves had to be melting away from their undersides.

13. Stephen D. McPhail et al., ‘Exploring beneath the PIG Ice Shelf with the Autosub3 AUV', in
Oceans 09 IEEE Bremen—Balancing Technology with Future Needs,
IEEE, Piscataway, New Jersey, 2009.

14. Stanley S. Jacobs, Adrian Jenkins, Claudia F. Giulivi and Pierre Dutrieux, ‘Stronger ocean circulation and increased melting under Pine Island Glacier ice shelf',
Nature Geoscience,
vol. 4, 2011, pp. 519–23; Adrian Jenkins et al.,‘Observations beneath Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica and implications for its retreat',
Nature Geoscience,
vol. 3, 2010, pp. 468–71.

15. Nathan P Gillett, Vivek K. Arora, Kirsten Zickfeld, Shawn J. Marshall and William J. Merryfield, ‘Ongoing climate change following a complete cessation of carbon dioxide emissions',
Nature Geoscience,
vol. 4, 9 January 2011, pp. 83–7.

16. D. G. Vaughan et al., ‘New boundary conditions for the West Antarctic ice sheet: Subglacial topography beneath Pine Island Glacier',
Geophysical Research Letters,
vol. 33, 2006, p. L09501.

17. J. W Holt et al., ‘New boundary conditions for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet: Subglacial topography of the Thwaites and Smith glacier catchments',
Geophysical Research Letters,
vol. 33, 2006, p. L09502.

18. Because of ocean currents and the way the Earth spins, dumping ice into the ocean in Antarctica doesn't raise sea levels everywhere by the same amount. Researchers calculate that water from melting ice in West Antarctica would be particularly focused in the Indian Ocean, and on both east and west coasts of the United States.

19. Byrd,
Alone,
p. 7.

20. Ibid., p. 214.

21. Ibid., p. 262.

22. Ibid., p. 293.

23. Gabrielle Walker, ‘Hidden Antarctica: Terra Incognita',
New Scientist,
29 November 2006, pp. 30–35.

24. L. Gray et al., ‘Evidence for subglacial water transport in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet through three-dimensional satellite radar interferometry',
Geophysical Research Letters,
vol. 32, 2005, p. L03501.

25. At the latest count there were 397. See A.Wright and M. J. Siegert, ‘The identification and physiographical setting of Antarctic subglacial lakes: An update based on recent discoveries', in
Antarctic Subglacial Aquatic Environments, Geophysics Monograph Series,
vol. 192, 2011, edited by M. J. Siegert, M. C. Kennicutt II and R. A. Bindschadler, pp. 9–26, AGU, Washington, DC.

26. A. P. Kapitsa, J. K. Ridley, G. de Q. Robin, M. J. Siegert and I. A. Zotikov, ‘Large deep freshwater lake beneath the ice of central East Antarctica',
Nature,
vol. 381, 1996, pp. 684–6; M. J. Siegert, S. Carter, I. Tabacco, S. Popov and D. Blankenship, ‘A revised inventory of Antarctic subglacial lakes',
Antarctic Science,
vol. 17, 2005, pp. 453–60.

27. D. J.Wingham, M. J. Siegert, A. Shepherd and A. S. Muir, ‘Rapid discharge connects Antarctic subglacial lakes',
Nature,
vol. 440, 2006, pp. 1033–6.

28. H.A. Fricker, T. Scambos, R. Bindschadler and L. Padman, ‘An active subglacial water system in West Antarctica mapped from space',
Science,
vol. 315, 2007, pp. 1544–8.

29. S. P. Carter et al., ‘Radar-based subglacial lake classification in Antarctica',
Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems,
vol. 8, 2007, p. Q03016.

30. J. C. Priscu et al., ‘Antarctic subglacial water: Origin, evolution and ecology', in
Polar Lakes and Rivers,
p. 119, W. Vincent and J. Laybourn-Parry, eds, Oxford University Press, 2008.

31. L. A. Stearns, B. E. Smith and G. S. Hamilton, ‘Increased flow speed on a large East Antarctic outlet glacier caused by subglacial floods',
Nature Geoscience,
vol. i, 2008, pp. 827–3; Helen Amanda Fricker, ‘Water Slide',
Nature Geoscience,
vol. i, 2008, pp. 809–16. DOI: 10.1038/ngeo367.

32. Robin Bell et al., ‘Large subglacial lakes in East Antarctica at the onset of fast-flowing ice streams',
Nature,
vol. 445, 22 February 2007, pp. 904–7.

33. I found out later that this contains a feature called ‘Liebert Cirque', which is not far as the helicopter flies from ‘Denton Glacier'.

34. Adam R. Lewis, David R. Marchant, Douglas E. Kowalewski, Suzanne L. Baldwin and Laura E. Webb, ‘The age and origin of the Labyrinth, western dry valleys, Antarctica; evidence for extensive middle Miocene subglacial floods and freshwater discharge to the Southern Ocean',
Geology,
vol. 34, July 2006, pp. 513–16; D. R. Marchant, S. S. R. Jamieson and D. E. Sugden, ‘The geomorphic signature of massive subglacial floods in Victoria Land, Antarctica', in
Antarctic Subglacial Aquatic Environments
, Martin J. Siegert, Mahlon C. Kennicutt II and Robert A. Bindschadler, eds,
Geophysical Monograph Series,
vol. 192, 2011.

35. Dominic Hodgson et al., ‘Antarctic climate and environment history in the pre-instrumental period', in
Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment,
Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, p. 123, Victoire Press, Cambridge, 2009.

36. N. P. Gillett et al., 'Attribution of polar warming to human influence',
Nature Geoscience,
vol. i, 2008, pp. 750–4; Eric J. Steig et al., ‘Warming of the Antarctic ice-sheet surface since the 1957 International Geophysical Year',
Nature,
vol. 457, 2009, pp. 459–62.

37. Byrd,
Alone,
p. 181.

38. Jake's friends at the South Pole set up a page dedicated to him, which you can see here:
http://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/00s/jake/
jakespeed.html. There is also an interview with him on New Zealand TV, shortly after the accident, in which he is exactly the same thoughtful, funny and irrepressible person I met at the South Pole, proudly demonstrating the use of his new claw hand, and talking about his plans to go surfing—which he then did:
http://tvnz.co.nz/close-up/stranded-in-middle-ice-2901536/video
.

Alexander, Caroline,
The Endurance,
Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1999

Amundsen, Roald,
The South Pole,
Hurst &Co, London, 2001

Bainbridge, Beryl,
The Birthday Boys,
Carroll and Graf, New York, 1991

Byrd, Admiral Richard E,
Alone,
Kodansha International, New York, 1995

Cassidy, William,
Meteorites, Ice and Antarctica,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003

Cherry-Garrard, Apsley,
The Worst Journey in the World
, Picador, London, 1994

Crawford, Janet,
That First Antarctic Winter,
Caxton Press, Christchurch, 1998

Gosnell, Mariana,
Ice,
Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2005

Griffiths, Tom,
Slicing the Silence,
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2007

Huntford, Roland,
Race for the South Pole—The Expedition Diaries of Scott and Amundsen,
Continuum, London, 2010

Huntford, Roland,
Scott and Shackleton,
Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1979

Huntford, Roland,
Shackleton,
Abacus, London, 1985

Johnson, Nicholas,
Big Dead Place—Inside the Strange and Menacing World of Antarctica,
Feral House, Los Angeles, 2005

Riffenburgh, Beau,
Nimrod,
Bloomsbury, London, 2004

Riffenburgh, Beau,
Racing with Death,
Bloomsbury, London, 2008

Robinson, Kim Stanley,
Antarctica,
Bantam Books, New York, 1999

Rubin, Jeff,
Lonely Planet: Antarctica,
Lonely Planet, 2008

Mawson, Douglas,
The Home of the Blizzard,
St Martin's Press, New York, 1998

Pyne, Stephen J,
The Ice—A Journey to Antarctica,
University of Washington Press, Seattle and London, 1998

Scott, Robert F.,
Scott's Last Expedition,
Smith, Elder & Co, London, 1913

Shackleton, Ernest,
South
, Robinson, London, 1998

Solomon, Susan,
The Coldest March
, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2001

Spufford, Francis,
I May Be Some Time: Ice and the English Imagination,
Faber and Faber, 2003

Spufford, Francis, ed.,‘The Antarctic' in
The Ends of the Earth,
Granta Books, London, 2007

Tyler-Lewis, Kelly,
The Lost Men
, Bloomsbury, London, 2006

Wheeler, Sara,
Terra Incognita—Travels in Antarctica,
Vintage, London, 1997

This book has been more than ten years in the making, and many people have helped both in the gathering of information and the process of writing.

My visits to Antarctica were only possible because of generous grants and programme awards from the British Antarctic Survey, the US National Science Foundation's Office of Polar Programs, the French Institut Paul-Emile Victor, the Italian Programma Nazionale di Ricerche in Antartide, and Peregrine Voyages. Thanks in particular to Nino Cucinotta, Karl Erb, Gerard Jugie, David McGonigal, Nick Owens and Chris Rapley, and for logistical help to Dave Bresnahan, Linda Capper, Athena Dinar, Patrice Godon, Guy Guthridge and Elaine Hood. Thanks also to Jeremy Webb, for commissioning me to make my first, fateful trip to the continent.

As well as the people mentioned in the book who I spent time with on the ice, thanks in the US programme to ‘computer whisperer' Holly Troy, my McMurdo roommate Elizabeth ‘E. T.' Traver, and my fellow ‘Artists and Writers' Elena Glasberg, Susan Fox Rogers and Connie Samaras. At Concordia thanks to Gilles Balada, Guillaume Dargaud, Michel Munot and Hubert Sinardet, and to Laurent Augustin for permission to quote from his personal diary. On board the
Nathaniel B. Palmer,
thanks to my cabin mate Mary Roach, and on the HMS
Endurance,
thanks also to Athena Dinar and Martin Redfern.

As well as the scientists mentioned in the book, who generously shared their research and in many case also their field sites and camps, thanks are due to Richard Alley, Sridhar Anandakrishnan, Michael Bender, Bob Bindschadler, Mike Castellini, Jérôme Chappellaz, Pete Convey, Henry Kaiser, Karl Kreutz, Berry Lyons, Doug MacAyeal, Phil Leat, Robert Mulvaney, Dean Peterson, Dominique Raynaud, Julian Scott, Andy Smith and Eric Wolff.

Thanks to Simon Marr for support during my longest trip, and to Eileen Cywinski and her class at St Clare's whose enthusiasm, engagement and brilliant questions sustained us through six weeks of slog aboard the HMS
Endurance.
Thanks are also due to Captain Bob Tarrant and the
Endurance
's crew, to the crew and expedition staff of the
Akademik Sergey Vavilov,
and to the crew and scientists aboard the
Nathaniel B. Palmer
.

The following people read all or part of the manuscript: David Ainley, Anita Anand, Kent Anderson, Fred Barron, Don Blankenship, David Bodanis, Sam Bowser, Richard Brandt, Olivier Chastel, Gene Domack, Peter Doran, Julian Dowdeswell, Michael Evans, Bob Garrot, Caroline Gilbert, Ralph Harvey, Elaine Hood, Karen Howell, Rosa Malloy, Damian Malloy, Dave Marchant, Darran Messem, Rob Mulvaney, Thierry Raclot, Martin Redfern, Larry Rickard, Sara Russell, Leslie Sage, Leon Tayler, John Vandecar and David Vaughan. Their comments and suggestions improved the manuscript considerably; any remaining errors are, of course, my own.

Thanks to all my colleagues at Xyntéo for their unfailing support, especially Osvald Bjelland and Phil Harrison. Thanks also to my friends who have supported me with tolerance and cheer throughout this long process, especially Anita Anand, Jeanne Barron, Dave Barrows, Stephen Battersby, Romy Brandeis, Natalie deWitt, Alex Eccleston, Karen and Wayne Howell, Lucy Legg, Donna Lieberman, Dominick McIntyre, Darran Messem, Adrienne Schure, Simon Singh, Billy Stampur, John Vandecar and Jeff and Jeany Wolf. Thanks also to my friends at Paragon, especially Hazel Gale, Lisa Kent, Stuart Lawson, Keith Morris, Jonathan Smith and Mark Walker, for helping me to clear my head when I most needed it.

Extra special thanks are due to five people: Jill Ashley, Fred Barron, David Bodanis, Martin Redfern and Leon Tayler. Without their encouragement and timely interventions, this book could not have been written.

Thanks to the splendid efforts of my agent, Michael Carlisle, I have been blessed all along with two of the best editors in the business. Andrea Schulz from Harcourt believed in this book before there was even a proposal to show for it and has never wavered in her support. Bill Swainson from Bloomsbury has gone far beyond the call of duty in helping me find my way through the blizzard. I certainly could not have done this without him.

Thanks to my wonderful family: Rosa, Helen, Ed, Christian, Sarah, Damian, Jayne, Niall and Shannon, Felix and Ella. And finally thanks to all the foolishly brave men and women who have been drawn to the white continent over the scant few centuries that we have known of its existence. They have paved the way to a new understanding not just of Antarctica, but ultimately, of course, of ourselves.

 

 

The author and publisher would like to acknowledge and thank the following for permission to reproduce quoted material on the following pages: pp. 50, 51, 52, 54, 55 and 143, from
The Worst
Journey in the World
by Apsley Cherry-Garrard (Picador, 1994), by permission of the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge; pp. 74–5, from
Racing with Death: Douglas Mawson—Antarctic Explorer
by Beau Riffenburgh (Bloomsbury, 2008). Reproduced with permission of the author and the Mawson Centre at the South Australian Museum; pp.116–17, from
Meteorites, Ice and Antarctica
by William Cassidy (Cambridge University Press, 2003); p.264 from
Lonely Planet: Antarctica
by Jeff Rubin (Lonely Planet, 2008). Reproduced with permission; pp. 156 and 174, from
Big Dead Place—Inside the Strange and Menacing World of Antarctica
by Nicholas Johnson (Feral House, 2005). Reproduced with permission; p. 298, from
Shackleton
by Roland Huntford (Abacus, 198s); pp.300–01 and 302, from
The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition
by Caroline Alexander (Alfred A. Knopf, 1999). Reproduced with permission; pp. 332, 333, 335 and 336, from
Alone: The Classic Polar Adventure
by Admiral Richard E. Byrd. Copyright © 1938 by Richard E. Byrd, renewed 1966 Marie A. Byrd, Afterword Copyright ©2003 by Kieran Mulvaney,
Alone
was originally published G.P. Putnam's Sons. Original text design by Paul Johnson. Reproduced by permission of Island Press, Washington, D.C.