E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
By Kerry Sanders, NBC News Correspondent
We touched soil in Antarctica on Aitcho Island and the biggest surprise was just that: Our first footsteps were on soil.
While I know it's summer in this part of the world, I’d always believed snow and ice perpetually covered the top and bottom of the Earth. While that was once the case, on this day it was a balmy 45 degrees.
Nery Ynclan / NBC News
Seals nap on Aitcho Island.
Here on Aitcho Island it felt like I’d stepped into a National Geographic film. Between the wildlife and the remote nature of Antarctica, I was in a perpetual state of awe. You can see in the accompanying photos and video that the island is home to Elephant seals, Gentoo and Chinstrap penguins. What you can’t see is that the sweeping beauty comes with a rather unpleasant stench.
Yes, those thousands of penguins tending to their newborn chicks are also making a heck of a mess. My boots were caked in guano (otherwise known as dung), and it took the help of a guide -- with both of us working several minutes per boot -- to wash it off before I climbed back into a small inflatable boat known as a Zodiac for transport to our main ship, the Ocean Diamond.
Modern-day expeditions to Antarctica are a more pampered escape than the harrowing ordeals they once were, but a couple men remember the heroes of previous expeditions a little better than most. NBC's Kerry Sanders reports.
One hundred or so years ago, explorers like Sir Ernest Shackleton braved the elements here with nothing more than rubber boots that often led to trench foot, a painful condition that can result in gangrene. They donned wool sweaters that, while warm, became the enemy when they worked hard and perspired -- as their sweat-soaked clothes did not wick away the moisture. Yet here I was, a century later, with my silks and GORE-TEX and not a worry about frostbite (or worse). In fact, it was so warm that at times I would sweat just standing still.
Kerry Sanders / NBC News
A penguin takes shelter from the wind behind a whalebone
The high point on our first day had to be seeing the penguin who stood solo next to what looked like a piece of driftwood. But that's no driftwood -- it's a whale bone. For my little feathered friend, it made for the perfect wind block on this tiny volcanic outpost in the South Shetland Island chain.
/
See photos from NBC's Kerry Sanders' voyage to Antarctica.
Leave a Comment:
That part of Antarctica is closer to the South America than it is to the South Pole. No one should be surprised (except the media) that there isn't a bunch of snow and ice in that location.
Whalebone is baleen a whale bone is what the penguin is sheltering behind.
Regardless of how close it is to South Americas southern tip, even in the summer it used to have snow and was much colder than it is now.
Yet the interior of Antarctica is still GAINING snow and ice and in 2012 a new record was set for the MOST Antarctic sea ice extent.
I was appaled to hear the narrator claim that if all the icebergs floating around the Antarctica were to melt, the sea level would rise by as much as 2 football field lengths. This is simply NOT true. Archimedes famous "Eureka!" occured when he realized that any floating object displaces a volume of water whose weight is equal to the weight of the object. As that object melts (slowly or quickly) it becomes lighter and lighter and, therefore displaces less and less water. The net result is that the level does not change. This is easy to prove by simply placing an ice cube in a glass half full of water and watching it melt. If you make a mark on the side of the glass at the water level right after you put the icecube into the water, you will note that the water level NEVER changes as the ice cube melts.
The phenomena that causes sea level rise occurs when glaciers break loose from the land and start to float. At that time the weight of the piece that breaks off which used to be supported by the solid land beneath it suddenly has to be supported by the ocean's water and the sea level all over the earth will rise enough to sustain the weight of the new object floating in it. This can also be shown by watching the level of the water in glass before and after you drop an icecube into it. The water level rises only once, at the time you drop the icecube in, and remains constant after that.
Same on the Weather Channel!
AHH!!!! IT IS GETTING WARMER!!! QUICK GIVE TAX MONEY TO SOLYNDRA!!! Msnbc = fear mongering POS media!