Antarctic Science: Ensuring Vital Contributions to Environmental Policy and Understanding Climate Change

The Wilson Center's Polar Institute convened a panel of preeminent U.S. experts in different fields of Antarctic science who spoke to priority projects underway in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean and the contributions polar scientists make to global policies related to climate change, predicting sea-level rise, marine protection and environmental policies generally.

Selected Quotes

Dr. Theodore Scambos, Senior Research Scientist, Earth Science and Observation Center, University of Colorado

"Sea level rise rates have already been going up over the past few decades, but the potential in the future is for much higher rates by the end of the century. And really, although two meters…of sea level rise is a serious problem by itself…the rate of sea level rise by the end of the century, that’s a bigger issue. Because we are going to adapt to sea level rise for the most part, because we are in for higher oceans around the world. But if the rate is too high, then the ability of us to adjust our infrastructure or to account for rising sea levels is greatly compromised. It is much more expensive to deal with a high rate of sea level rise, than a slow and steadier rate of sea level rise. "

"We’re changing the mass of Antarctica at an extent that actually has an impact on how the shape of the ocean is distributed across the Earth. It is important for the U.S. and the U.K., European countries to focus on what might happen in Antarctica and what the upper limit of its potential for sea-level rise might be because that ice going into the ocean will be disproportionately distributed across the northern hemisphere."

Dr. Heather Lynch, IACS Endowed Chair for Ecology & Evolution, Stony Brook University

"While these older satellite programs like Landsat continue to play a really important role in Antarctic science, more recently we've seen the rise of high-resolution commercial satellite imagery, such as that operated by Maxar, that can provide imagery down to thirty-one-centimeter resolution. For context, that means that each pixel is just a little bit bigger than a standard sheet of paper (as I've indicated here), allowing us the ability to map not just the continents surface but to actually start observing human activities as well, and even individual animals from space. We can now use satellite imagery to find populations of seabirds we didn't even know existed."

"To be clear, the kinds of data provided by satellites and drones in no way replaces what we do in the field, but it does allow us to put the data collected in the field into this larger context of the Antarctic environment and it allows us to plan expeditions to the continent that are efficient and safe. So rather than one methodology replacing another, I foresee a future of close coordination in which these two modes of learning about the Antarctic, and climate change's impact on Antarctica, they work hand in hand."

“Virtually the entire history of the satellite era has occurred within our lifetimes. And it may lack the fanfare of the so-called heroic age of Antarctic exploration, but a hundred years later, we are in the midst of a new era of Antarctic exploration. One that is more collaborative, more diverse, more inclusive than the first. And one that I hope puts us in a strong position to document and halt the progression of global climate change and its impacts on Antarctic wildlife.”

Dr. George Watters, Director, Antarctic Ecosystem Research Division (NOAA); U.S. Representative to the Scientific Committee for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources

"If I could tell President Biden one thing I think that I would tell him that, in my opinion, it's totally feasible to have productive fisheries and marine protected areas in which there are no-take areas or marine parks and so forth…we should be able to invest as a community, an international community, more in marine protected areas because those will provide some resilience to the effects of climate change over time."

"…there’s a lot of ecosystem services provided by Antarctica, but they don’t all satisfy the same stakeholder groups’ desires and needs. Fish catches might be important to one set of stakeholders and abundant wildlife populations might be important to another set of stakeholders…And basically our goal is to help the decision-makers navigate through this complex landscape of issues, and try to help them resolve the trade-offs they’re in."

Dr. Abigail Vieregg, Associate Professor, Departments of Physics and Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Chicago

"In order to do science big- and small-scale in Antarctica, it just requires a lot of planning and logistics as you can probably imagine. That needs to be continued to be robustly supported. I’ll add that I know I hear from my colleagues—both from us in the astrophysics land [and] across disciplines in Antarctica…continuity is extremely important for many of these studies…you need to do your science every single year and make sure the measurements are continuous. And I think continuity is hard to support sometimes, but it’s really important for science at the poles."

"I do think that young people coming up through the system are the people who often have new, great ideas and there's got to be something that we haven't even thought of yet, and so I do think continued investment in the people that are required to do this work and making sure we have the next generation coming up is really important."

“The atmosphere conditions at the south pole are unique on the planet. And it’s the best place in the world to make observations of the [Cosmic Microwave Background].”