The IGY and the ice sheet: surveying Antarctica

Naylor, Simon; Dean, Katrina; Siegert, Martín J.

doi:10.1016/j.jhg.2008.07.001

Cited by 20 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…For the first time new technologies made it possible to map subglacial topography, and the resulting geophysical and glaciological data lent credibility to Taylor's 1914 hypothesis. Whereas scientists had previously estimated the thickness to be from 600 to 1200 m new data confirmed measurements of up to 4000 m in west Antarctica (Naylor and others 2008a, 2008b: 589; Taylor 1960). Just as importantly Taylor welcomed the collaborative commitment of IGY scientists to share data between nations otherwise divided by political differences and rival ambitions.…”

Section: Post-war Internationalism and Idealismsupporting

confidence: 51%

“…Taylor's approach to Antarctica from the 1910s to the 1950s, a shifting mix of exploration, political strategy, scientific competition, self advancement and naïve idealism manifested equally in the twentieth century's expeditions, international rivalries and diplomatic manoeuvres. This observation does not undermine Naylor's argument, that the IGY's peaceful international science failed to supplant geopolitical competition (Naylor and others 2008a: 591); rather, it draws attention to the role that individuals, and not just national governments, have played in the fraught pursuit and imaginings of Antarctica.…”

Section: Antarctic Echoesmentioning

confidence: 90%

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Griffith Taylor's Antarctica: science, sentiment, and politics

Strange¹

2009

Polar Record

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Griffith Taylor (1880–1963) was a scientific member of the Terra Nova expedition. Although he published initially on his geomorphological, glaciological and meteorological research, conducted between 1910 and 1912, he was also a teacher, lecturer, publicist and later political commentator on Antarctica. Initially a loyal ‘Britisher’ he developed an internationalist perspective on Antarctica without compromising his self-promotional ambitions. Through his professional career in Australia, the US and Canada over the early to mid twentieth century Antarctica's shifting scientific, cultural and political history can be mapped. Just as self-interest permeated the Antarctic Treaty of 1959, so Taylor's ambitions persisted as he fashioned himself into a scientific prophet for peace. Taylor's Antarctica, an amalgam of sentiment and science, rivalry and cooperation, imperialism and internationalism, popular culture and global politics, was the twentieth century's Antarctica.

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Section: Post-war Internationalism and Idealismsupporting

confidence: 51%

Section: Antarctic Echoesmentioning

confidence: 90%

Griffith Taylor's Antarctica: science, sentiment, and politics

Strange¹

2009

Polar Record

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“…Radio-echo sounding (RES) is commonly used to measure ice thickness and to understand subglacial topography and basal ice sheet conditions (Dowdeswell and Evans, 2004;Bingham and Siegert, 2007). A series of airborne geophysical explorations were conducted across East Antarctica in the 1970s (Robin et al, 1977;Dean et al, 2008;Turchetti et al, 2008;Naylor et al, 2008), which led to the first compilation folio of maps of subglacial bed topography, ice sheet surface elevation, and ice thickness in Antarctica (Drewry and Meldrum, 1978;Drewry et al, 1980;Jankowski and Drewry, 1981;Drewry, 1983). Since then, multiple efforts have been made to collect and compile RES data in order to expand the subglacial topographic database across the continent (Lythe et al, 2001;Fretwell et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bed topography of Princess Elizabeth Land in East Antarctica

Cui

Jeofry

Greenbaum

et al. 2020

Earth Syst. Sci. Data

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Abstract. We present a topographic digital elevation model (DEM) for Princess Elizabeth Land (PEL), East Antarctica. The DEM covers an area of ∼900 000 km2 and was built from radio-echo sounding data collected during four campaigns since 2015. Previously, to generate the Bedmap2 topographic product, PEL's bed was characterized from low-resolution satellite gravity data across an otherwise large (>200 km wide) data-free zone. We use the mass conservation (MC) method to produce an ice thickness grid across faster flowing (>30 m yr−1) regions of the ice sheet and streamline diffusion in slower flowing areas. The resulting ice thickness model is integrated with an ice surface model to build the bed DEM. Together with BedMachine Antarctica and Bedmap2, this new bed DEM completes the first-order measurement of subglacial continental Antarctica – an international mission that began around 70 years ago. The ice thickness data and bed DEMs of PEL (resolved horizontally at 500 m relative to ice surface elevations obtained from the Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica – REMA) are accessible from https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4023343 (Cui et al., 2020a) and https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4023393 (Cui et al., 2020b).

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“…Another corollary of the superpower rivalry was the renewed scientific investigation of the poles. Fifty years later, the politics and findings of the International Geophysical Year (1957–1958) has been a particular focus for historians, along with other examples of scientific collaboration and competition in subsequent decades (Doel, ; Doel et al, ; Lajus & Sörlin, ; Launius, Fleming, & DeVorkin, ; Naylor, Dean, & Siegert, ; Turchetti et al, ). The hostile environment of the poles is a recurrent theme in these histories of glaciology, demonstrating the material limits on human endeavors as well as the persistence of imperialist narratives of polar and alpine exploration from the late nineteenth century (Antonello, ; Cruikshank, ; Griffiths, ; Lajus, ; Martin‐Nielsen, ; Pyne, ; Stuhl, ).…”

Section: Water Across Timementioning

confidence: 99%

Climate, weather, and water in history

Morgan

2018

WIREs Climate Change

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This essay integrates the largely separate trajectories of climate and water histories, their distinct historiographies, and their different methods and expertise. Informed by the human-nature insights of environmental history and historical geography, this paper identifies four intersections between histories of climate and water: first, conceptualizations of the climate and hydrological systems; second, adaptations to climate and hydrological variability and change; third, weather control; and finally, water over time. These particular intersections shed light on shared concerns for human relations to water and climate across different spatial and temporal scales; the development and function of networks of environmental knowledge; the formation and impact of environmental imaginaries; and the emergence of particular cultures of risk and resilience. The English-language histories of climate and water to which I refer pertain largely to the study of the 19th and 20th centuries in relation to the spread of European and North American empires. Histories of water, I argue, offer more personal and localized insights into histories of climate and climate change.

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The IGY and the ice sheet: surveying Antarctica

Cited by 20 publications

References 6 publications

Griffith Taylor's Antarctica: science, sentiment, and politics

Griffith Taylor's Antarctica: science, sentiment, and politics

Bed topography of Princess Elizabeth Land in East Antarctica

Climate, weather, and water in history

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