Features

Telling the Story

The story of the ice begins with the drama of a polar trek. But understanding the ice, being able to tell the story to others, begins at home. It starts in the freezer, where grad students like Joe Souney prepare the cores to be analyzed.

The samples are then taken to Sallie Whitlow's laboratory, where they are put through one of eight ion chromatographs. Whitlow runs about 10,000 samples a year. Each one emerges from her lab with a set of numbers for each of the eight chemical species UNH scientists analyze: calcium, potassium, magnesium, sodium, chloride, sulfate, nitrate and ammonium.

These chemicals are messengers, their numbers the cryptic code that holds the secrets of the ice. "We've got this record of climate written year by year in the ice," says David Meeker, a UNH math professor who has worked with Mayewski for the past decade. "We don't really know the language. I'm the guy trying to build the dictionary."

Computer screens illustrate the vocabulary Meeker and Mayewski have been building. Wavy colored lines indicate different chemical species in the Greenland ice core, a two-mile core considered the best record of climate change in the world. "See this?" Meeker points to a sharp dip in a red line showing the sulfate record. "That's the Great Depression, 1933, when factories closed and sulfate emissions dropped. Here in 1942 it picks up again with the war production. And in 1970, with the Clean Air act, it drops off again."

Dressed in a "clean suit," a UNH student samples the pristine snow of Antarctica.

Other sulfate peaks are produced by natural causes. "Here's the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius that buried Pompeii in 79 A.D." Meeker flips to one more chart and points to another astonishing peak, this time in ammonium. The year is 1908, when a giant meteorite hit Siberia, sparking a massive forest fire. "And over here"—he flips to another screen—"this is the Dust Bowl, 1920, when dust in the atmosphere peaked."

Dirt from the heartland of America, ancient gas from an Italian volcano, chemicals from a Russian forest fire—they're all here on a computer screen, a visual depiction of the mysteries inside the ice. Meeker flips to one more chart showing the rapid temperature changes that have caught the attention of scientists around the globe. "This is sort of the holy grail of these studies," he says. "Dramatic temperature shifts have happened before and nobody really understands why. It could happen again."

Discoveries by Mayewski and the UNH team have helped confirm the fact that the world climate is much more erratic than was once believed. "Every 1,500 years, we've found a major temperature swing in a very short time--about 10 years," notes Mayewski. "The answer to what triggers these sudden changes may be found in Antarctica."

During this first field season, expedition members work long days—sometimes around the clock, rushing to make up for time lost to storm delays. In clear weather, the perpetual sunlight of the polar summer beats down even at midnight, warping time. In this blindingly bright universe, where temperatures hover at around -20 degrees Fahrenheit, only two things matter: science and survival. Collecting data can be repetitive and exhausting, but it must be done flawlessly or the results will be meaningless.

Here at the bottom of the Earth, where sky meets horizon in a cold blue line, where there are no distractions and few signs of life, it might be easy to become complacent or careless, to be worn down by the unforgiving routine, by the sheer effort to stay warm and well fed. But these polar explorers persist, facing down every challenge, driven by a single unforgettable fact: each chunk of ice in their gloved hands could hold clues about the fate of the Earth and the future of the human race. ~

Virtual Explorers

Like the early Arctic adventurers, Mayewski and his team are exploring largely uncharted territory. But this time, the rest of us can join them via a Web site, thanks to a special arrangement with the Boston Museum of Science. Along with biographies of the explorers and details of the expedition, the site includes archives of the twice weekly phone calls made to the Museum during the expedition and a daily log book of weather and data sampling information. For more information, check the Museum of Science Web site: http://www.mos.org/soti/

Suki Casanave '86G writes for regional and national publications. She earned a graduate degree in literature from UNH.

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