Early explorers in the Antarctic needed to bring as much food as they could to their isolated camps. For Captain Robert Scott, New Zealand companies were a source of perishable foods that he couldn’t bring through the tropics from England. We know that a hundred years later because conservators working to preserve his Cape Evans huts have found, among other food stuffs, two frozen blocks of butter bearing the label of a dairy in Christchurch and the Silver Fern logo, New Zealand’s emblem.  

The butter was a recent, unexpected discovery because it was found in the pony stable rather than the well-stocked kitchen, where canned foods are on the shelves as they were when the last of Scott’s men left in 1913. (Scott and four of his team died on their return to the camp from the South Pole in 1912.) The freezing temperatures in the huts have preserved the contents ever since, but the structures are at risk.

Preserving the early explorers’ huts so they do not deteriorate further in the harsh climate is the mission of the Antarctic Heritage Trust. When members of the Trust saw rotting planks and wood surfaces covered with black speckles, they called on Robert Blanchette of the University of Minnesota, who specializes in fungi growing on archaeological artifacts. He looked for fungi that might have been brought in with wood products, including lumber for the original construction as well as items brought at later times. After all, no trees grew in Antarctica.

According to an article in Smithsonian magazine, Blanchette found three types of fungi that were clearly distinct from any species that the explorers or later visitors might have brought with them. Blanchette speculates that these native species of fungi lived off penguin guano, moss, lichen and material in the soil until the explorers brought the first wood to Antarctica.

To preserve Scott’s huts, he recommended that the Trust remove the 100 tons of ice and snow that accumulates behind the structures every year. Thus, conservators would deny fungi the moisture they need to thrive.

In the National Geographic News photo gallery, you will find shots of the interior of Scott’s huts today, clearly showing bottles of Heinz ketchup and relish, the bunks and reindeer-skin sleeping bags, and the photographer’s darkroom, as well as well as photos taken during the expedition of a cook at work in the kitchen, ponies in the stable, and a birthday party for Scott. A video segment from TV coverage of the butter discovery shows where the bag was found and interviews on site with members of the Trust.

The butter and some 8,000 other items are taken to a conservation lab where they are cleaned and returned to the huts for viewing for decades to come. Scott’s crew included a number of scientists whose scientific instruments remain in the huts. About 300 to 400 tourists visit Scott’s huts every year.

At another conservation site, Ernest Shackleton’s Nimrod Expedition hut, restoration workers found two crates of whiskey embedded in ice under the floorboards. The company that now owns the label has asked the Trust to retrieve a couple of the bottles and return them to Scotland. An expert with the company believes the whiskey would taste exactly as it did 100 years ago.

The early explorers of the Arctic and Antarctica are the subject of the February 2010 issue of Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears. You’ll find background on the controversies surrounding the expeditions to the North Pole and the intriguing story of a 19-year-old who went to the Antarctic with Admiral Richard Byrd. You’ll also find an original story for young readers about modern-day, robotic explorations of a mountain range under the Arctic Ocean. Many suggestions are given for integrating science with social studies and geography in lessons and activities for grades K-5.

Did you know that even after 100 years, debate still surrounds the question of who reached the North Pole first? Or that a 19-year-old Boy Scout accompanied Admiral Richard E. Byrd to the Antarctic in 1928?

In Polar Explorers, the February 2010 issue of Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears, learn about polar explorers, past and present. Incorporating their stories into your curriculum can engage students and meet science, social studies, geography, and literacy standards. From the races to the poles of the past or the robot-assisted expeditions of today, there’s always something exciting to discover!

News from the polar regions during the month of January focused mainly on the Arctic, including a study of polar bears and the effects of thawing permafrost and declining sea ice. Missed these stories the first time? Read on!

As Arctic sea ice changes, so do polar bears’ habitat. That’s the finding from a paper published in the December issue of Arctic, the journal of the Arctic Institute of North America. Drawing from data collected between 1979 and 2005, the authors explain that during fall months, the bears are occurring more frequently on land and in open water and less frequently on sea ice. This habitat shift increases the chances of human-bear interactions – both in Native Alaskan villages and industry sites. The paper highlights the need to develop programs that manage such interactions.

Climate scientists continue to reconstruct past climates in an attempt to refine models and better predict future conditions. Recently, researchers studying the mid-Pliocene (3.3 to 3 million years ago) found that at that time, the Arctic Ocean was too warm to support summer sea ice. Given that the temperature during the mid-Pliocene was three degrees (Celsius) warmer than today – an amount in line with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s projected range for the 21st century – the current decline in Arctic sea ice could be just the beginning of changes in the region.

One of the effects of melting sea ice is a more turbulent Arctic Ocean. Researchers used data from moorings to learn how sea ice decline might affect ocean mixing. They found that increased wave action and turbulence occurred when less sea ice was present and more open water was vulnerable to the effects of wind. Internal waves bring deep water closer to the surface, so increased activity might cause changes in the ocean itself (such as currents) and its ecosystems.

Arctic sea ice isn’t the only thing melting – permafrost is, too. As this happens, groundwater runoff to rivers and streams will increase. This runoff carries with it organic material that will release additional carbon dioxide into the water, and eventually, the atmosphere. Additional carbon dioxide emissions will serve as a positive feedback to the climate system, increasing warming.

In 2007, a Russian expedition planted a flag into the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, raising concerns about the potential for international conflict over areas and resources exposed by melting sea ice. A new study refutes this view, arguing that the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea applies to the ice-covered ocean and thus regulates international actions. According to the study, diplomacy, not confrontation, is likely in the future.

An earth-observing satellite has arrived safely at its launch site in Kazakhstan and is currently being prepared for a Feb 25 launch. The CryoSat-2 Earth Explorer satellite will monitor changes in the thickness of sea ice and of Greenland and Antarctica’s ice sheets.

Know of another significant news story from January that you’d like to share? Have a comment about one of the stories mentioned above? Post a comment – we’d love to hear from you!

The United States and New Zealand have built a three-turbine wind farm in Antarctica to help power their research stations.

The turbines are located between the United States’ McMurdo Station and New Zealand’s Scott Base, which are only about two miles apart on Ross Island. 

An article in the Antarctic Sun reports that each turbine can generate up to 330 kilowatts. The three can supply nearly 1,000 kilowatts of power, or up to 15 percent of McMurdo Station’s annual electricity demand and nearly all of Scott Base’s. The wind-generated electricity is expected to cut fuel consumption by about 240,000 gallons every year. Now, the two research stations get their electricity and heat from diesel generators and diesel-fired boilers.

Meridian Energy, a state-owned electricity generator, and New Zealand’s research agency maintain a web cam of the turbines and the nearby sea ice. 

The Antarctic Sun is the online magazine of the U.S. Antarctic Program and reports on happenings at the research stations on the continent.

Considering the distance traveled, scientists knew that the Arctic tern had to be a long-distance champion among migrating birds, but until recently no one had recorded an actual number of miles covered. Now an international research team can report that the Arctic tern is not just a champion among birds but among all animal migrants. The Arctic tern makes the longest animal migration in the world.

Migrating from pole to pole, the Arctic tern flies more than 44,000 miles (70,000-plus kilometers) on its annual trip.

The 4-ounce (113-gram) bird spends its winters on the shores of Antarctica and flies to the Arctic to breed. In the far north, terns are found in Greenland, northern Alaska and across northern Canada and south to northern British Columbia, northern Manitoba, Quebec, and even into Massachusetts.

Why the tern and some other migratory shorebirds make this arduous trek to the polar climates has puzzled scientists. They have also wondered about routes taken and behaviors along the way. Some birds, such as the Arctic tern, were too small to be fitted with tracking devices. With the invention by the British Antarctic Survey of a device called a geolocator, which weighs a twentieth of an ounce, researchers have been able to fit terns with a leg band.

The primary author of a paper on the study, Carsten Egevang of the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, says, “This study on seabird migration has given us an incredibly detailed insight into how long-distance migrants behave at times of the year when it’s normally impossible for us to follow them.”

The geolocator records light intensity and generates two geographical positions per day. The data are read when the researchers remove the leg band. The device allows researchers to map the birds’ stops and detours, which add more miles to the distance flown. For example, the terns often stop for a month in the North Atlantic Ocean. On their spring journey back to Greenland they may “hopscotch” from Antarctica to Africa to South America to the Arctic. The researchers credit the birds with good reasons for their detours.

Egevang notes that the birds stopped-over in an area rich in fish and small crustaceans in the middle of the Atlantic to fuel up before flying over less productive areas. In their springtime journey north, the birds took advantage of global winds to reduce energy used in flight.

Arctic terns can live 30 years or more, meaning in a lifetime some birds will have flown the equivalent of three journeys to the moon and back. Said Egevang, “This is a mind-boggling achievement for a bird of just over 100 grams.”

With its new-found status, the Arctic tern has its own web site. The site covers the migration project with basic information about the bird, the study methods, details on tagging the birds and retrieving the geolocators, and maps. A gallery of photos is called “Bird of the Sun.” The bird’s stays in the two polar regions coincide with long periods of sunlight, prompting researchers to say, “…the Arctic tern probably experiences more sunlight during a calendar year than any other creature on earth.

This study on Arctic tern migration was conducted by researchers from the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources and Icelandic Institute of Natural History, in cooperation with the British Antarctic Survey and National Environmental Research Institute, Aarhus University.

Another study focused on why Arctic terns and other migratory birds make the long, dangerous flights to the north to lay their eggs. Laura McKinnon, a researcher with the University of Quebec at Rimouski, wondered if fewer predators if the far north could be the attraction. With colleagues, she fashioned more than 1,599 nests in seven shorebird breeding sites, an area stretching about 2,000 miles in Canada.

Fortunately for the researchers, the fake nests were easy to make; shorebirds lay their eggs on the ground in little more than a depression. As reported in an NPR (National Public Radio) feature, the harder part was flying to the remote locations with the hundreds of quail eggs used in the research. The researchers placed quail eggs, which are similar in color and size to the eggs of the shorebirds, in the man-made nests. Then they waited to see if artic foxes and other predators ate the eggs.

McKinnon and her team found that if birds flew past the northernmost site in the study, on Ellesmere Island, the risk of losing their eggs to predators was reduced by 66 percent. The full report is found in the January 15 issue of the journal Science.

You can find more on the birds of the Arctic and the Antarctic in the February 2009 issue of Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears. Background information for teachers along with lessons and activities for K-5 classrooms covered a number of migratory birds as well as the birds that live in the polar regions year-round. An original story features the sanderling, which breeds in the high Arctic and winters along Atlantic and Pacific coasts from Canada to Argentina.