MESSAGE 12 - FINAL ANTARCTIC EMAIL,  #12
 

       from Tim Page
       in my bedroom
       Brisbane, Queensland
       Australia
       14 January 1999, 6pm
 
 

Welcome back everybody at Winthrop School!!
 

Present Position:    27 degrees South, 153 degrees East
Air Temperature:   32 degrees Centigrade (90 degrees Fahrenheit)
Wind:                    not much
 

Howdy everybody!  I sure hope that you all enjoyed your vacation.  We finally made it back to Australia after a long trip across the Southern Ocean.  We ended up having Christmas on board the ship.  Santa Claus even came to visit us on the
ship, though I am surprised that the reindeer were able to land on our helicopter deck, still I suppose they are used to it.

We ended up mooring our ship in the Swan River in Fremantle, Western Australia, so it could go into drydock to be fixed.  It's pretty amazing, they lifted the entire ship out of the water so they could fix the propeller.  The big orange ship looked very much like a giant fish out of water, up on huge supports on the dockside.  I made an enjoyable trip for a week around the great ancient forests of Western Australia before I flew back to my home in Brisbane in Queensland.

It has been a little difficult getting used to being back in the "real world", where there are so many people rushing around.  It has also been hard to get used to the heat.  Obviously it was cold down in Antarctica eventhough it is summer, but up here in Australia it's been really warm (at least in the 90's Fahrenheit).  My body hasn't really adjusted to the temperatures or the high humidity yet, so I find it hard to motivate myself to do things.

In fact the change in temperature and weather patterns is one of the most  important things they study down in Antarctica.  As I'm sure you already know, the Greenhouse Effect has, most likely, been causing the earth to get warmer.  With the earth heating up (Global Warming and all that), the environment could change greatly in Antarctica.  In fact the earth has heated up
and cooled down many times before.  Millions of years ago, Antarctica had forests and many animals similar to those on the other southern continents.  But since Antarctica split off on its own and moved further south, it got much colder and the huge ice sheets built up over the land.

No-one is really sure what will happen if Antarctica continues to warm up.  Funnily enough it might mean that the glaciers and ice sheets get bigger at first.  This is because if it is warmer, there will be more precipitation (snow) and so more ice.  But if it keeps on getting warmer, then the big ice sheets could start to melt and huge icebergs could start to fall off and melt.  It could also effect my beloved Crabeater seals, because they need the frozen sea-ice floes to give birth on, and if the sea doesn't freeze, then they have a problem!  The increased heat could also kill off their food, the krill.

There is another environmental change that is monitored closely in Antarctica, and that is the breakdown of the ozone layer.  It was first noticed by British scientists in Antarctica that there was a hole (not a hole really, more of a
thinning) in the ozone layer high up in the atmosphere.  The ozone layer is very important because it helps keep out harmful rays that come to earth from outer space.  If it gets thinner, it could increase skin cancer and things like that.

One of the people on our ship, Martin, studies the impact of people on the environment ("human impacts") in the Antarctic.  He also knows about the "ozone hole", and here's what he has to say about it:
 

"The Ozone Layer Over Antarctica

The Ozone layer covers the whole world but it is not really a layer. It is
just the name given to the upper part of the atmosphere which has a
concentration of the gas called Ozone. Ozone is just three Oxygen atoms
joined together, the concentration of ozone gas acts like a filter. The
ozone layer filters out Ultra Violet radiation that comes from the sun.
Ultra Violet, or UV for short, is what gives you a sun tan if you stay in
sunlight long enough.

The hole in the ozone layer refers to a reduction in the concentration of
Ozone in some areas. As the earth's weather systems move about, human air
pollution collects at the south pole, over Antarctica. This pollution,
mainly from United States and Europe, breaks down Ozone gas over
Antarctica. This means that increased amounts of UV radiation reach the
earth's surface. Just as UV can give you sun burn it can damage plants and
animals. In the Antarctic there lives a very important part of the earth's
ecosystem; Phyto-plankton, Zoo-plankton and Krill. These tiny plants and
animals are easily killed by UV radiation. In addition, the surface
temperatures in Antarctica are slowly rising because of the increased UV
radiation. This means that the ice caps are melting, thus increasing the
world sea levels.

The extent of these bad effects is not exactly known but research by the
hard working men and women of ANARE continues……………"
 

Thanks lots, Martin.  By the way, ANARE means the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions.

I have put together a little list of all the animals that we saw while on our Antarctic trip, with the scientific name for each animal next to it.
 

BIRDS

Black-browed Albatross             -  Diomedea melanophris
Grey-headed Albatross               -  Diomedea chrysostoma
Light-mantled Sooty Albatross    -  Phoebetria palpebrata
Wandering Albatross                  -  Diomedea exulans
Southern Fulmar                         -  Fulmarus glacialoides
Adelie Penguin                           -  Pygoscelis adeliae
Emperor Penguin                        -  Aptenodytes forsteri
Antarctic Petrel                          -  Thalassioca antarctica
Blue Petrel                                 -  Halobaena caerulea
Cape Petrel                                -  Daption capense
Southern Giant Petrel                  -  Macronectes giganteus
Snow Petrel                               -  Pagodroma nivea
White-chinned Petrel                 -  Procellaria aequinoctialis
Wilson's Storm Petrel                -  Oceanites oceanicus
Broad-billed Prion                     -  Pachyptila vittata
Sooty Shearwater                      -  Puffinus griseus
South Polar Skua                       -  Catharacta maccormicki

SEALS

Crabeater Seal                -  Lobodon carcinophagus
Leopard Seal                  -  Hydrurga leptonyx
Ross Seal                        -  Ommatophoca rossi
Weddell Seal                  -  Leptonychotes weddelli

WHALES

Fin Whale                            -  Balaenoptera physalis
Minke Whale                       -  Balaenoptera acutorostrata
Orca (Killer Whales)            -  Orcinus orca
Southern Right Whale          -  Eubalaena australis
Sperm Whale                      -  Physter macrocephalus
plus a ??? whale (maybe Arnoux's Beaked or Southern Bottlenose Whale????)
 

Guess what happened?  You know I said our ship, the Aurora Australis, was being fixed in Western Australia?  Well they did fix it, and yesterday it left Fremantle to go back down to the ice.  About 150 kilometres south from there, the engine room caught fire!!!!  Luckily no-one was hurt, but it had to turn around and head back to get fixed again, so those people onboard are very unlucky in that they probably won't get a chance to go this voyage.

I have just finished putting together my website, which has a load of photos from down south, plus a copy of all the emails I sent.  The most important thing on my site is, of course, a special section about your good friend, Charlie Chowder the
clam.  There is a series of photographs of Charlie exploring Antarctica.  This stuff is under "ANTARCTIC STUFF" and my web address is:  http://www.oocities.org/RainForest/Canopy/2681/

I've had great fun writing these emails, I hope you've enjoyed them.  Next time I do something interesting, I'll let you know.  Keep in touch!

Have fun

Sincerely

Tim Page