Prof.BL Kaul
Antarctica is the southernmost continent and site of South Pole.It is virtually uninhabited, ice- covered landmass. Most cruises to the continent visit the Antarctica Peninsula, which stretches toward South America. It is known for the Lemairr Channel and Paradise Harbour, iceberg- flanked passageways and Port Lockroy, a former British research station turned Museum. The peninsula’s isolated terrain also shelters rich wildlife. It covers an area of 14.2 million square kilometres and has a 3000 km. long coast line.
The countries closest to Antarctica are South Africa, Australia, Newzealand, Chile and Argentina. Ushuaia capital of the Argentinean province of Tierra del Fuego with a population of 67,600 is the closest inhabited area near Antarctica and south Atlantic Islands.It is the southernmost city in the world.
Antarctica was not unknown till Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb Van Bellingshausen discovered it on January 27,1820. The expedition discovered it as an ice shelf at Princess Martha coast that later became known as Fimbul Ice Shelf. Although not hospitable Antarctica has abundant resources. There are massive mountains and hidden lakes.The tallest mountain called Mount Vinson has a summit 4892 metres above the sea level. Although Antarctica is more than 1000 km from the nearest neighbouring continent yet it can be visited by a cruise.
Antarctica is a cold desert. It does not rain or snow much there. When it snows, the snow does not melt and builds up over many years to make large, thick sheets of ice, called ice sheets. Most of Antarctica is covered in ice 1.6 km thick. It contains 90% of all the ice and 80% of fresh water on Earth in an area about 1.5 times the size of United States.
Antarctica does not have any native human population but it is home to about 500 scientists and researchers of different nationalities speaking different languages English being one of them. However, Antarctica abounds in wildlife mostly consisting of seals, whales and penguins. Emperor, Adelie, Chinstrap and Gento penguins the most common species and are friendly to humans.
Human interference in nature has not spared even the Antarctica. 200 years of discovery of Antarctica on January 27, 2020 should have been a celebration but it was a sombre occasion amidst the realisation that the continent is fast approaching its climatic precipice, beyond which, nothing- not even an overnight cutting down of greenhouse gas emissions to nil- will prevent its glaciers from shrinking and sea ice from melting.
The melting of ice sheets of Antarctica will account for the biggest share in sea level rise. There has been annual ice loss increase more than six times between 1979 and 2017. While between 1979 and 1990 it’s yearly ice loss averaged 40 gigatonnes, between 2009 and 2017, it was a whopping 252 gigatonnes per year on an average. Antarctica has also seen a thinning of its ice sheets of up to 122 metres in some places. It is feared that the entire ice sheet could become unstable by the end of the 21st century. It is indeed alarming.
Shall we lose Antarctica soon. Not really. It is still a massive sheet and losing it completely may actually take tens of thousands of years if we really accelerate global warming. It may not be possible for us to predict now how much time it will take to reach a point of no return. The effects of climate change takes years, or rather decades and even centuries to play out. For example, the environment witnessed today is the result of climatic changes that occurred 50 or 100 years ago.
Were all the ice in Antarctica to melt, the world’s oceans will rise by 60 metres and drown low lying areas including many metropolises and cities of the world like the legendary Dwarika. We need not be pessimistic about the fate of Antarctica now, but sooner we reduce carbon emissions the better it would be for the mankind and other life forms that took millions of years to evolve on this beautiful planet called the Earth. In the present depressing times though the good news is that Antarctica is the only continent free from Covid 19 and safest to live in!
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