Between 1999 - 2002, scientists from 19 countries have been traversing Antarctica, collecting ice cores and gathering data that will describe climate and environmental change over the past 200 years. They have traveled by Tucker Sno-Cats, snowmobiles and Caterpillar tractors, living in tents and small trailers and dealing first hand with some of the most extreme weather conditions on the planet. More expeditions are planned for the next three years.

The International Trans-Antarctic Scientific Expedition (ITASE) program was created to study ice over the major topographic and climatic regions of Antarctica. The ice core records gathered will provide detailed historical descriptions of climate change which will be extremely valuable for comparison against records collected at weather stations around the world.

The scientists will be looking for clues trapped in ice cores that reflect conditions over the past 200 years which might reveal new information about snowfall, air temperature, and atmospheric circulation over the continent. This information will tell us more about how Antarctic climate has varied during that time. Additional studies will look at changes in sea ice and ocean productivity to determine how Antarctica's environment has changed.

The United States contribution to this effort, US ITASE, will focus its activities in the region of West Antarctica. A team of scientists, engineers, technicians, and students from across the country will follow the US route stopping every 62 miles (100 km) to gather data and conduct experiments.

 

Map of international ITASE traverses for the period 1997-2003 Click to enlarge

West Antarctica showing the US ITASE traverse corridors.

 

At each stop a 3 inch (7.6 cm) ice core will be drilled down to between 160-230 feet (50-70 m) which reflects the 200 year ice depth. These ice cores will be hauled back to base and eventually shipped to the US for laboratory analysis. In the vicinity of each ice core drill site, the team will also dig deep snow pits to study the snow at and near the surface.

By visually looking at the layers of snow and taking additional samples to carry back to the lab, the scientists will gather information about how fast snow accumulates on the ice sheet, what the internal temperature of the ice sheet is, how the snow reflects sunlight and where the melting layers are. Automatic weather stations (AWS) will also be installed to monitor weather conditions at each site and left there to report daily weather conditions across the US ITASE route.

This project is a multidisciplinary research effort. Scientists who specialize in meteorology, remote sensing, ice coring, and glaciology are all working together to help better understand Antarctica's changing climate. We've put together some resources to help you understand the experiments being conducted at each site.