Ross Sea sledging

Story 20/21: The Ross Sea Party in the Antarctica, 1915

Sledding on the Ross Sea

Story 20/21: The Ross Sea Party in the Antarctica, 1915

September, 1915

Disclaimer: The story below is a free adaptation, basing to Shackleton’s 1914-1917 Antarctic expedition

Light breeze cooled the faces of three men. Antarctic sun reflected from the snow making them squint. Luckily the Spring of the Southern Hemisphere had blended tones of grey and blue to it. It was not as blindingly white as after a blizzard.

And boy had they seen blizzards. For about ten days they had now been hauling provisions from Cape Evans, where they had been stranded during the peak of the Winter – from May to August. There had been quite a bit of adapting to the circumstances, as their vessel “Aurora” had been ripped to the Ocean early May.

Despite the fact, that the ship was intentionally frozen into the ice close to the shore. But strong winds loosened the whole vast floe, breaking their moorings and keeping part of the crew stuck in the craft, frozen to a large ice raft.

The ten men left ashore to the coldest continent had heard nothing of “Aurora” after that. And they had planned to stay the Winter in it. Also, large part of their gear was aboard, as they had been returning from their previous hauls to take the provisions even further inlands. And naturally they were carrying only the essential equipment.

Luckily, they found enough additional supplies from Cape Evans – the base used couple of years earlier by the “Terra Nova Expedition” of the British captain Robert Falcon Scott. They inventively turned tents to clothing and hunted seals for meat and combustion.

“Man, does it feel good to be actually moving again! I mean, I really needed the rest after getting back from Minna Bluff, but I did not come here to sit in a stinking hut, if you know what I mean.”

“Indeed. Good to get back to work! I just would hope, there would be more of us. It is darn long way to Mount Hope!”

“Yap. Definitely not just a stroll on even ice.”

“Think of those four blokes, who returned early last season and were picked to Aurora. Would you rather been there than here?”

“Well, I like more firm land than being afloat stuck to a giant floe. I mean it was miserable to be stuck for couple of months at Hut Point, but since we got to Cape Evans, I have not had major complaints.”

“Mm-h. How knows – poor jesters might still be stuck to the ice. Not much one can do there. I hope the ship holds!”

“Oh, she is a strong one. But I am getting cold. Let us head back for the next haul!”

“Hey-Ho!”

Epilogue: The members of this “support crew” actually were the only ones really to operate on mainland Antarctica during Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917. 

Due to many reasons the participants of the “Ross Sea Party” were less experienced in the polar circumstances than the ones in the main party at the Weddell Sea. Because of that and some leadership issues the mortality rate was higher within the Ross Sea. Yet, eventually most members made it back to the civilisation – to be thrown in the middle of the 1^st Word war.

Some background data:

Ross Sea party: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Sea_party

Climate change in the Antarctic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_ice_sheet#Warming_over_the_ice_sheet

Questions – see links above, books, Internet or digital media for answers:

1. Climate change in the Antarctic. The southernmost continent of Earth is also the coldest and has higher average elevation, than any other six continents, even though many of them have higher points. There has been lack of continent-wide continuous weather data, so some long-term weather models measuring climate change in Antarctica has been put together intuitively. Read the section in Wikipedia on “Warming over the ice sheet”. 

The text suggests some reasons, that slow down part of the climate warming in the Antarctic. Find at least two reasons.

2. Ice loss. One impact of climate warming is melting of glaciers. See the video of ice loss in the Antarctic. Technical note:change to higher resolution by clicking the cogwheel (bottom right) and selecting “SD 360p”. 

Video by NASA and JPL/Caltech, 25 March, 2021: Ice loss in the Antarctica.

Can you see some changes over time? The timespan of the video is 18 years. What do you think about the video? 

3. Human effect. Climate change is happening mostly because of how we live. That is called consumption. We have learned to consume natural resources to please ourselves, instead of conserving them. It worked, until the population and our “needs” exceeded the capacity of our planet.

It says on the video above, that average ice loss every year is 149 Gigatons, which is 149.000.000.000 tons, which equals to 149.000.000.000.000 kilograms of ice. As one 330 ml soda can weights about 358 grams and is 12 cm tall, that would equal to 416.201.117.318.436 Coke (or Pepsi, if you fancy that more) cans.

If we would pile those cans on top of each other, we would get 11 towers reaching from Earth to Neptune, the furthermost planet of our solar system. There would naturally be some difficulties on the task :o) But maybe that helps scaling the ice loss happening every year only in Antarctica.

It comes to our every-day decisions as individuals, institutions, companies and leaders. How much do we speed up the on-going climate crisis with our choices. Actually, most processing we do does contribute. How often we need our water carbonated (that is done with CO₂, a greenhouse gas), how often and what dairy products do we use, how do we commute and how far, etc.

What decision you could do today to select an option with smaller climate impact?

4. Discuss. Your view: What thoughts did rise in your mind having read the story, browsing through the background material and answering to the three questions above? Can you see links between the three topics handled in questions above? Discuss with your pair.

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