Give a thought for Howard Fairbank's solo trip to Soth pole

By the time you read this, Howard Fairbank will be on the 30th day of his journey to the South Pole. Alone.
He hopes to reach the pole, on skis, pulling a sledge, by Christmas eve. 

Photo: Antarctica Richard Weber

The Durban-born man who is trekking unassisted across the icy wastes of Antarctica, wrote on his blog that charts his adventure that he had never experienced anything like the total inability to judge distance.

At sea, which is also a vast “nothingness”, he prided himself on his ability to judge long distances. but this was new territory and something had affected his gut feel.

Fairbank said every day was like a new milestone for him and felt quite special as he imagined himself “upside down”, walking to the globe’s southernmost point.

“To reward myself for achieving the milestone, I delved into my spare food stocks and found two pieces of Josee’s delicious lunch fruitcake: one for dessert tonight, and one for breakfast in the morning. It should have been an extra whisky celebration, but stock is ‘very tight’! Not from excessive helpings, but rather, being heavy, it was always going to be a scarce resource,” Fairbank said.

He also documents how his daily food ration is not enough and no crumb is spared.

His problematic right foot was also still affecting him, though it seemed to be getting better.

Fairbank has resorted to wearing five pairs of socks when he treks. “When one really pushes the pace or has a very heavy sled, the toes get quite stressed, and you almost need like a grab rail in your boot to help them claw back. This is the problem I have, where my toes and ball of my foot are now traumatised,” Fairbank said.

Two of his fingers have suffered from cold blisters and most of them are sensitive to the touch as a result of minor frost damage.

Fairbank said he did not miss shopping, going to gym, paying bills, doing laundry and kitchen dishes, supermarkets, traffic and garbage duty.

“I’m eating the same basic food each day, wearing the same clothes each day, not shaving nor brushing my hair, not showering, I have no idea what’s going on in the world, I haven’t seen or spoken to anyone yet, there is nothing I feel I need or want. Not even a hot bath! Why in that ‘other world’, do ‘we’ need so much variety, external stimulation, so much socialising, news, gadgets, material pleasures?” Source: Independent Online.

Related Story: Howard Fairbank's Solo trip to South Pole begins

First Malayali to visit Arctic & Antarctic (North & South Poles)

Dr. Bijoy Nandan, Aquatic Ecologist, Department of Marine Biology, Microbiology & Biochemistry

After returning back from Arctic (North Pole) expedition recently, Dr. Bijoy Nandan is really exited for his next task of expedition to Antarctica (South Pole), although the aouth pole has more challanges than north pole. The 30th Indian Expedition to Antarctica is presently stationed at Antarctica. Dr. Bijoy Nandan will join as team member of next expedition, which is scheduled to be in last quarter of year 2012. He will become the first Malayali scientist to visit both the ice continents, once he sets his foot on the seventh continent near the South Pole. The scientist with the School of Marine Sciences of Cochin University of Science and Technology, he will reach the new Indian station at Anatrctica as part of a team of scientists from India to conduct exciting biological experiments.

National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR), is co-ordinating the expedition activities after making a rigorous selection of scientists and other personnel. “The arctic expedition was for 25 days while the trip to Antarctica will be 4 months long. It’s tougher to survive in Antarctica where there are just vast tracts of frozen ice, unlike the Arctic, which does have stretches of land,” says Dr Bijoy. ...Click Here to read more.

Also read related Stories:
An Indian veteran recalls his Antarctic experiences
India to commission 3rd station in Antarctica

An Indian veteran recalls his Antarctic experiences

A wave of nostalgia swept over me when I read this..since I was fortunate enough to be a part of Indian Scientific Expedition team under the leadership of Dr. Rasik Ravindra in year 1989-90.


After my own experience, I am always fond of knowing more of this frozen planet and to make awareness for saving depleting ozone layer through my own blog.


National Centre for Antarctic & Ocean Research (NCAOR) is doing wonderful work to celebrate centenary year with thirty expeditions so far (including Soth Pole) ..! And many more to come..to keep India ahead of all odds.. :)

Rasik Ravindra Leader of the Indian expedition team posing at the South Pole in Nov 2010. Source: The Hindu 

Please click below link to read experience shared by the leader and my comments:
An Indian veteran recalls his Antarctic experiences




Also read related story: India to commission 3rd station in Antarctica

100 years of Magnetic Measurements in Antarctic

Scientists will leave for Antarctica post Christmas to take measurements of the Earth's magnetic field. And the same were first taken 100 years ago during Scott's Terra Nova Expedition.

There was a long gap between the Scott expedition's first measurements to the start of regular five-yearly measurements when Scott Base was established in 1957.

Tony Hurst and Stewart Bennie of GNS Science will spend two weeks on the ice collecting measurements at two locations to provide an update of the exact location of the South Magnetic Pole. This is where the geomagnetic field lines go vertically into the earth.

The pair will need to travel some distance from Scott Base as it is built on volcanic material ejected from Mount Erebus. The volcanic rocks are high in the iron-rich mineral magnetite, which gives anomalous magnetic readings.

They will travel by helicopter to Lake Vanda, 125km west of Scott Base, where they will spend four days camping in a small hut while taking their measurements. At Vanda, which is in one of the dry valleys, they will take the measurements on a conspicuous rock marked with an aluminium pin over which they will place their tripod.

On their return flight, they will stop off at Cape Evans, 30km from Scott Base, where they will take measurements at a small shelter near Scott's hut. The measurements are taken at an exact mark inside the shelter.

They use two instruments to measure the magnetic field.

The first is a magnetic theodolite that measures both the horizontal angle and the inclination of the magnetic field.

Their other - an Overhouser effect magnetometer - is a suitcase-sized instrument that gives a digital readout of the strength of the magnetic field in units called nanoTeslas or gammas. Both instruments are extremely sensitive and require careful handling.

The data they collect will be provided to an international database, which is used to calculate a world magnetic model. The model is updated every five years and has many civilian and military end uses, particularly in navigation.

Dr Hurst said for the past 100 years the South Magnetic Pole had been moving northwest by about 10km to 15km a year.

"The last field measurements in 2007 put the magnetic pole at 64.5 degrees south and 137.7 degrees east, about 50 kilometres off the Antarctic coast and due south of Australia," Dr Hurst said.

"In all likelihood our measurements will show this trend has continued and the magnetic south pole has moved further north and further out to sea."

With the gradual northward movement of the magnetic pole, the strength of the field at Scott Base had decreased by as much as 10 percent over the past century.

The worldwide coverage of magnetic measurements was patchy, with fewer measurements taken in the Pacific and Antarctica than in the populous continents.

"We see it as important that New Zealand plays its part in a global sense by providing accurate measurements in a region of the world where measurements are sparse."

The pair fly to Antarctica on 28 December and are due to return on 11 January. GNS Science pays for the project with funding received from the Ministry of Science and Innovation. In addition, Antarctica New Zealand provides logistics support. Source: http://www.voxy.co.nz/lifestyle/century-antarctic-magnetic-measurements/5/110441

An Oldest Antarctic Whale Found

The oldest known Antarctic whale is seen in an artist's reconstruction.
Illustration courtesy Marcelo Reguero via AFP/Getty Images

The oldest known whale to ply the Antarctic has been found, scientists say.
A 24-inch-long (60-centimeter-long) jawbone was recently discovered amid a rich deposit of fossils on the Antarctic Peninsula.

The creature, which may have reached lengths of up to 20 feet (6 meters), had a mouthful of teeth and likely feasted on giant penguins, sharks, and big bony fish, whose remains were also discovered with the jawbone.

The early whale swam polar waters during the Eocene period, some 49 million years ago. Its age suggests fully aquatic whales evolved from their mammalian ancestors more rapidly than previously thought, said researcher Thomas Mörs, paleozoologist at the Swedish Museum of Natural History.

Based on 53-million-year-old fossils of whale-like, semi-aquatic mammals, scientists had thought mammals gave rise to whales in a process that took 15 million years. The new find suggests it took just 4 million years.

What's more, "as soon as they became fully marine animals, they dispersed all over the world, showing the great success of the whale construction," Mörs said in an email.

Whale Lived in Warm Antarctic

Not even cold waters were obstacles for early whales, he said—though Antarctica during the Eocene was much warmer than it is today.

The continent was green, carpeted in forests that housed marsupials and mammalian survivors from the dinosaur age, said Mörs, who is preparing a paper on the whale for publication in a journal.

"The shores were inhabited by colonies of penguins, among them giant ones. And the marine waters were still warm enough for leatherback turtles and a diverse shark fauna," he added.

And ancient whales, too. Source: National Geography News

Ozone Layer Depletion is Stopping..? Please check.

As per SCIENTISTS, they have won the battle to stop ozone depletion, with the hole above Antarctica gradually closing.

But they warn this good work is rapidly being doomed by the growing effects of greenhouse gas emissions and the impact of climate change.

Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for Climate system Science Laureate Fellow Prof Matthew England said the Antarctic ozone hole's influence on the climate in Tasmania and the southern hemisphere was dissipating as the hole slowly closed.

But Prof England, also co-director of the University of New South Wales's Climate Change Research Centre, warned the good work in reducing CFCs from the atmosphere would be progressively overridden by human-induced emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Prof Sherwood said the Montreal Protocol that banned CFC use in the mid-1980s was directly responsible for improving ozone conditions above the Antarctic.
"We know it will take a very long time to recover completely because it takes several decades for the natural process to remove the pollutants from the atmosphere," Prof Sherwood said.

"But the Montreal Protocol is one of the few success stories that we can point to of this kind, where scientists figured out there was a problem (and) the nations of the world worked together to phase out the problem."

But Prof Sherwood said growing amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere threatened to unhinge efforts to reverse ozone depletion.

He said greenhouses gases the carbon dioxide emissions responsible for global warming cooled the stratosphere, which served to enhance ozone depletion.

"Therefore adding more greenhouses gases to the atmosphere is helping to promote the ozone hole," he said.

"It's fighting against the good outcomes of the reduction of the CFCs."
Prof Sherwood said there was already evidence of the detrimental impact of carbon dioxide on ozone in the northern hemisphere. Source: http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2011/12/11/283601_tasmania-news.html

Scientist Injured at Prince Charles Mountains in Antarctica

Tessa Williams, a 21 year old New Zealand woman who slipped on a slop of snow in the Prince Charles Mountains (approx. 800 kms. from Davis Station), suffered major cuts and abrasion. Presently, in a stable condition with great spirits. She is flown to Davis Station as she is one of the researchers of South Autralian Museum and studying the origins and dispersal patterns of invertebrates in the Antarctic.

She will be later flown to Casey Station for for greater assessment and to determine by the medical officers if the scientist requires to be evacuated back to Auatralia. She was initially flown about 800 kms. from a remote field camp in the Prince Charles Mountains to Davis station.

The Aurora Australis ship is already en route to Casey for the summer season and will arrive next week. South Australian Museum director Suzanne Miller says it is likely that Ms Williams will be brought back to Australia on the ship.

"At this stage we think the likelihood is that she'll be transferred to one of the other Australian stations and then brought back by one of the Australian Antarctic Division ships which is due there within the next week," she said.

Professor Miller says the remote location of the field study made the rescue more difficult.

"Antarctica's a very harsh place so it adds a whole layer of difficulty onto undertaking field work so we're very pleased and very relieved to know that Tessa's injuries are not as serious as they could have been," she said. Source: abc.net.au

Celebrating Antarctica Day

After its first fifty years, the Antarctic Treaty shines as a rare beacon of international cooperation. To celebrate this milestone of peace in our civilization with hope and inspiration for future generations – ANTARCTICA DAY is hereby recognized to be December 1st.

It deserves to be celebrated as a day of freedom and peace for all mankind, because on that date in 1959 the Antarctic Treaty was signed by 12 nations, setting aside nearly 10% of the Earth forever to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes.  The Antarctic Treaty became planet earth’s first nuclear-arms agreement, and the first institution to govern all human activities in an International Space, a region beyond sovereign jurisdictions. Antarctica Day is a day to recognize this international landmark and the global vision of the twelve original nations as well as all 47 nations who have acceded to the Antarctic Treaty. Even young school children can grasp the concept of peace and sharing on the playgrounds around the world. They can learn about Antarctic though art, science, government, and history with audiovisual material, maps and activities in their classroom and outdoors connecting their school space with International Spaces around the world.

Antarctica Day is a partnership with a number of organizations lead by APECS (Association of Polar Early Career Scientists) and Our Spaces (Foundation for the Good Governance of International Spaces). Please CLICK HERE to read further..