Antarctica in the News

December 14th marks the 100 year anniversary of Norwegian, Roald Amundsen's arrival at the South Pole.  In honor of this historic event, hundreds of tourists are descending on South Pole Station - by plane and on skis.  Additionally, the Prime Minister of Norway will make his way there to do a live broadcast back to his country (which the folks in our IT Department are working hard on supporting).  As you can imagine, there is a lot of media coverage. 

Perhaps you've already seen or heard reports on Antarctica on the TV news, on NPR radio or in magazines.  With the anniversary celebrations and the scientific research about to start at Pine Island Glacier, an ice sheet that is dangerously close to cracking (calving) off a giant iceberg - this is a big year for Antarctic public relations.

For a sample of the kinds of activities going on in the adventure travel world, check out the website of Antarctic Logistics Associates (ALE) which is one of the largest adventure tour operators in the Antarctic and a company that one of my British friends from France is working for this season.

CBS News in the US put together a nice piece of video about the South Pole - complete with footage of my current Pilates instructor, Hillary.  The reporter, Josh Landis, was working at McMurdo for the Antarctic Sun newspaper when I first started with the program in 2000.  Check it out here:  http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7390504n&tag=mncol;lst;1

The most current edition of the Antarctic Sun has an article about the anniversary activity.

Rolling Stone magazine did a fabulous lead article last year about disappearing ice sheets which focuses quite a bit of attention on Pine Island Glacier (PIG).  There is a field camp and several helicopters heading out to this remote, windswept and (supposedly) miserable location any day now.  It is hugely high-profile, especially because a giant crack in the glacier appeared this Spring.  http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/on-thin-ice-20100922



NASA satellite image

It's quite an exciting time to be down here!