Thursday 21 June, 2001
Cold Comfort For Residents Of Antartica
Every year thousands of people from national expeditions visit the Antarctic. Many of them spend months, if not years, living and working at research stations set up by the British Antarctic Survey.
The stations provide small, self contained communities, but they can be no substitute for home and the residents rely on good communications to keep them going.
In a special mid-winter broadcast to the frozen continent of Antarctica, BBC World Service opens the airwaves to the friends and families of those working in this remote environment, hoping to bring a little bit of love to a cold climate.
Those who have been to Antarctica talk repeatedly about its beauty. Using words such as “stark” and “awe inspiring”, they describe the amazing landscape and incredible icebergs.
Invariably they also talk about how cold it can be there. Temperatures have been known to be as low as –70oc in Antarctica in the winter.
A Pristine Wilderness
It is largely due to the cold that Antarctica remains one of the largest and most pristine wildernesses on earth, covering an area of nearly 14 million square miles.
| 'It is made inhospitable by the extreme cold, a massive permanent ice sheet and floating ice shelves. Less than 0.5% of the continent is ice-free.' | |
There are no native peoples in Antarctica and all of the 27 countries that currently work there are covered by the Antarctic treaty which has been in force since 1959 and reserves the continent for peaceful purposes – all military and industrial activities are banned.
Research Central
It is sometimes called the continent for science and at any one time there are people carrying out research in biology, climatology and geology to name but a few fields of research.
Projects are diverse. Scientists have studied the breeding habits of penguins and ways of protecting albatrosses have been developed here.
NASA has even used the desolate climate and close communities to find out about the effects of people being cooped up together for long periods – research needed if manned flights to Mars are ever to become a reality.
The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) has several bases on Antarctica that are regularly monitored, with data flowing between stations around the globe.
Base Life
Each year expeditions bring about 5,000 people to the Antarctic. During the summer months, when there is almost continual daylight, there can be as many as 4,000 people living and working there at one time.
In addition an increasing number of tourists visit the area. In 1999-2000 the BAS recorded a staggering 14,000 visitors to the Antarctic.
Although some researchers visit the region year after year, not everyone who works at the stations is a scientist.
It is the people that make a place and carpenters, electricians and plumbers are valuable members of the self-contained communities. So too are the projects’ cooks, the travelling dentist and the commander who is the law on the base and has the authority to marry, jail or bury people.
All of which are a long way from home and rely heavily on news from the outside world.
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| Antarctic Sounds |
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Earlier this year the world premiere of the Antarctic Symphony by the Philharmonia Orchestra was performed at the Royal Festival Hall in London.
The inspiration came from Sir Peter Maxwell Davies' trip to Antarctica in 1997.
The symphony attempts to capture the sounds of the Antarctic - an avalanche of snow; ice crashing along the bows of a ship; the melting of an iceberg. |
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