Table Of ContentSergio Rossi
AA JJoouurrnneeyy
in Antarctica
Exploring the Future of the White Continent
Springer Praxis Books
Popular Science
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Sergio Rossi
A Journey in
Antarctica
Exploring the Future of the White
Continent
Sergio Rossi
University of Salento
Lecce, Italy
Universidade Federal do Ceará
Fortaleza, Brazil
ISSN 2626-6113 ISSN 2626-6121 (electronic)
Springer Praxis Books
ISBN 978-3-030-89491-7 ISBN 978-3-030-89492-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89492-4
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A book that explains why we should care about what happens
on the white continent.
To Lidriana, the architect of a renaissance
Foreword
Why are we going to Antarctica? That was the topic of conversation in the
cabin of Wolf Arntz, expedition manager of the Polarstern on its 2000 cruise.
There were about ten of us gathered on the best scientific icebreaker on the
planet, and after an intense day, we had come to that topic because this mon-
ster can burn 1,400,000 € in diesel during the two-month voyage beyond
where anyone goes: the remote confines of Atka Bay, the Larsen area, or
Austasen, the icebergs’ resting place. “At the beginning the campaigns were
designed to make a rigorous study of the natural resources (fishing, mining,
etc.) offered by the white continent,” said Arntz, “but soon the scientists real-
ized that there was something else there, the opportunity to study a pristine
place undisturbed by the hand of man, and fascinating.” We each reflected on
this point while sipping our Rioja or Priorat.
“There are certainly various ‘levels of interest’ in coming here,” said Tom
Brey, Arntz’s then right-hand man and second-in-command for science. Both
men worked at Alfred Wegener Institute, Germany’s polar research center,
generously endowed with monetary and human capital for polar research.
“The first level is political,” Brey continued. “It’s important to be here; that’s
why Germany (which has not openly declared territorial interests like Britain
or Argentina) has a research institute, an unrivalled icebreaker ship and a base
like Neumayer, an engineering prodigy. But then there started to be other
levels of interest, like the fact that this is a unique place where you can study
the evolution of species, ocean–atmosphere interaction, climate change or the
atmospheric chemistry of ozone like nowhere else.”
The conversation became lively, and I was aware that the aim far exceeded
a whim among scientists to travel to the Antipodes and spend a few days
watching penguins. “Antarctica is an open book that has not yet received any
ix
x Foreword
human impact,” stressed my then boss, Josep Maria Gili from the Institute of
Marine Sciences of Spain’s Institute of Marine Sciences (CSIC): “The history
of the planet is written in its waters and we have to take advantage of it.”
When in my thirties I was told that I was going to voyage aboard the
Polarstern, none of these ideas crossed my mind. I was simply to have an
adventure on which only a few privileged people had the honor to be invited,
and I was going to do so on the best polar oceanographic vessel in the world.
However, after three expeditions (in 2000, in 2003/04, and in 2011), I felt
the need to explain many things to those who have not been and will never go
there. I am not an expert on Antarctica (going on three expeditions does not
give you that honor; some have worked for more than thirty years on this
subject alone), but above all I needed to reply to the skeptics who see the
white continent only as a remote place to which privileged people travel to
explore the remote corners of the planet.
“Science is everybody’s heritage,” Gili once told me; “you owe it to those
who pay you.” Not all scientists are clear on this, but I am one of those who
regard the option of a scientific career as something that is offered by society
and, as such, its outcomes should be integrated into it as much as possible. We
are neither Dirac nor Marie Curie, and Darwin’s trajectory can never again be
emulated because a solitary, self-absorbed, brilliant scientist isolated from
society can no longer be supported. We are obliged to explain what we do,
since our work is of little value if we do not transmit it, if we do not external-
ize it at a level of understanding appropriate to a supermarket manager, a busy
cab driver, or a lawyer who is enthusiastic about nature.
There is something more. In these critical times when things are changing
so fast, it is a matter of great urgency to explain concepts in a clear, concise,
entertaining, and rigorous way. We need to convey to people that we are at a
crossroads, also what is happening now and what will happen next. If the
location is as remote as Antarctica, we have to make an even greater effort to
get that message across to as many people as possible.
In view of the role of science communication in these past two decades, I
needed to convey why Antarctica is so crucial, why we go there, and why every-
thing that happens on that immense and seemingly lifeless block of inert ice can
either benefit or harm us. And I found no better way to do so than by compiling
as much information as possible to transmit in a personal way on topics that I
have either mastered or not, along with stories, reflections, and images. This book
is an attempt to provoke opinion on something far away, and readers will be sur-
prised to know to what extent the white continent fascinates and interests us, and
above all how much our future quality of life depends on what happens there.
The first part of the book explains the basics of the continent, how it works
and its geological history, how everything depends on seasonal dynamics, and
Foreword xi
how the ice has been forming and melting cyclically for tens of millions of
years. I then explain how climate change is the key to understanding the
future of both Antarctica in particular and the planet in general. We seldom
speak of Antarctica, yet it acts as the thermostat of the planet. It contains the
planet’s greatest amount of ice in the form of huge glaciers, reaching more
than 3500 meters deep. Both the Arctic (from arktos, bear) and the Antarctic
(from ank-arktos, without bears) are vital places to understand the future and
past climatology of our planet.
I then describe the direct impact from pollution, fishing, mining, and tourism
and invasive species, and their convulsive synergy so very present in the evolution
of this remote place (and the entire planet). Lastly, I give my impressions of life
aboard the vast oceanographic vessel that welcomed me, of the visions that I had
the privilege to commit to memory, and of the thoughts that went through my
head when I found myself in the most isolated place in the world.
I hope that by the end of this book the reader will have a slightly different
view of the white continent, a better concept of what happens there and how
it can affect us all, even though so far from home. Perhaps, this is the place
where globalization is demonstrated in a palpable way—good for some things
and disastrous for others (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1 One of the first icebergs seen on the 2000 Polarstern expedition
Lecce, Italy Sergio Rossi
