An expedition trapped in sea ice can tell us about Antarctica’s future
From Cosmos (15/4/24)…
An expedition trapped in sea ice can tell us about Antarctica’s future
In 1897, the former whaling ship RV Belgica left Antwerp in Belgium and set sail due south. It was the first voyage of what would become known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration. It did not go to plan.
After a six-month voyage, they begin encountering sea ice. Several times the ship is caught in the ice for a day or two. A crew member falls overboard and is lost to the icy waters. But the crew presses on, making measurements as they go. Expedition leader Adrien de Gerlache records the process:
At noon we made a deep sea sounding, with a long series of temperatures at various depths. We lowered five hundred and sixty metres of wire, and brought up a cup of blue clay. The temperature at the surface was at the freezing point, and at the bottom slightly warmer.
Their discovery of deep warmer water was important. It’s since been named Circumpolar Deep Water. In our time, this water is getting warmer and warmer, as oceans absorb nearly all the extra heat trapped by burning fossil fuels. Antartica’s seemingly impregnable ice is now melting from beneath.
But in 1898, the ice is strong. On March 4, the crew find themselves unable to move. As the southern winter looms, the ice thickens on the surface of the Bellingshausen Sea, to the west of the Antarctic Peninsula. The RV Belgica is trapped.
The Belgica was trapped in ice for over a year. Adrien de Gerlache, Quinze mois en Antarctique/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY
