Category: Antarctica

Back to Antarctica

dchone April 22, 2022

As those familiar with this blog may recall, I have been fortunate to visit the Antarctic Peninsula on more than one occasion. These visits have been part of a long standing relationship between Shell and the 2041 Foundation. The 2041 Foundation is named for the point in time that countries may begin to consider reopening the Antarctic Treaty, or 50 years on from its agreement (2041) and eventual ratification (2048). The treaty currently prevents any use of Antarctica for commercial and development purposes, other than limited tourism and scientific research. The preservation of Antarctica has become 2041’s raison d’être, which also broadens into the subject of climate change given that surface temperature warming represents a direct threat to Antarctica.

In mid-March, after two years of COVID-19 deferments, a group of 170 people set off from Ushuaia in southern Argentina on board the Ocean Victory, headed for the Antarctic Peninsula. The group came from many backgrounds and countries, including entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, YouTube influencers, corporate staff, students, artists and academics and led by Robert Swan, the founder of the 2041 Foundation and the first man to trek on foot to both the North and South Poles. I was there, along with others, to give some talks on climate change and the energy transition to the broader group. Much of the material from various blogs I have posted over the last two years featured in the sessions.

While the learning opportunity is excellent and the group of people were outstanding in so many respects, the scenery, wildlife and conditions of Antarctica loom large over everything. The continent, and noting that we saw just a tiny fraction of it, is majestic and presents itself on a scale that is unmatched anywhere else I have ever been. Having crossed the infamous Drakes Passage and experienced 7+ metre waves, the relative calm of the Peninsula and its accompanying archipelago awaits. The sights are astounding, from vast ice formations slowly edging their way into the sea where they end their days as haunting sculptures on the shore line, to penguins in colonies going about their business preparing for the winter. Whales can be seen on a regular basis, although on this trip it was primarily humpbacks that were spotted. We even managed a very quick dip in the ocean at Deception Island, the site of a long abandoned whaling station in the caldera of a dormant volcano. The water was at 2°C, so when I say “very quick”, I mean it.

A particular highlight for me was to travel with my son, who took the spectacular sunset photograph below. It was good to see him relaxing after a long two years of COVID tension as an NHS Junior Doctor.

As someone who has been to Antarctica several times over the space of more than a decade, I am often asked if I have noticed a change in the environment. The honest answer is no, but on this trip we did experience something that nobody on board had ever experienced before in Antarctica, rain. That was highly unusual, even for Robert Swan who has been to Antarctica many times over a near 40 year time span. But perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised as while we were there the deeper continent experienced the largest temperature anomaly ever recorded, a swing from -50°C to -10°C (see below). These anomalous readings are becoming more common as the global surface temperature rises, which could ultimately threaten the stability of ice shelves and lead to faster and earlier rises in global sea level. During my visit in 2015 we were passing by an Argentine weather station on the day and at the time it measured and reported the highest ever recorded temperature on the Peninsula.

*Image from Climate Reanalyzer (https://ClimateReanalyzer.org), Climate Change Institute, University of Maine, USA.*

For now, Antarctica remains a pristine and largely untouched wilderness, still looking the same as when explorers first sighted the continent and when intrepid expeditions led by the likes of Scott, Amundsen and Shackleton trekked across the continent. It’s important for the sake of all of us that we ensure this remains the case.

For additional photographs from the expedition, click here.

Crossing the Antarctic Circle

dchone March 13, 2018

Visiting Antarctica is something most travellers there only ever do once, but over the last two weeks I have had the privilege of visiting the continent for the third time, but on this occasion going further south and crossing the Antarctic Circle.

All the visits have been in association with 2041, a small but incredibly active NGO dedicated to the preservation of the continent as the last remaining pristine ecosystem. The name derives from the 1991 addition to the Antarctic Treaty of an agreement not to utilise the continent for commercial purposes (science and limited tourism is okay) and the 50 year moratorium it places on such actions (taking it to 2041), after which any one of the Parties to the Agreement can seek a review (in fact the 50 year clock was started after ratification of the Agreement, which took place later in the 1990s).

I was there helping the participants on the expedition understand the issues around climate change, one of the key planks on which 2041 build their case for leaving the continent untouched. The organisation has also embarked on a new challenge in relation to climate change; removing (which includes not emitting) 326 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over the next seven years. That is one ton for every person in the United States.

As a keen photographer, Antarctica is a joy to visit. The wildlife, polar light and towering ice sculptures all make for stunning compositions. Here are a few of my images from the trip.

Biofuels in Antarctica

dchone December 21, 2017

As you enjoy the Christmas festivities, perhaps toast the people on the South Pole Energy Challenge (SPEC). In mid-November, my friend Robert Swan and his son Barney Swan started a walk across Antarctica to get to the South Pole sometime in January. With them is videographer Kyle and guide Martin. Traversing Antarctica is an extraordinary journey to embark upon and a feat of physical endurance that few people could attempt. But Rob has set the team an even more remarkable challenge; they will make this journey powered entirely by renewable energy. Their goal is to highlight the role that renewable energy can play in a 21^st Century energy system that leads to no net release of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

That energy will come from two sources; a solar energy system adapted for the conditions by NASA and a supply of advanced biofuels. The latter was developed solely for this trip by Shell, using a technology that turns solid waste into biofuels, produced at the Shell Technology Centre in Bangalore, India. On a standard polar expedition, each person uses around 200-250 millilitres of jet aviation fuel per day. This fuel is used sparingly for heat, to melt ice to provide water and for cooking. SPEC is pioneering a different approach to managing the energy needs for polar expeditions. Using passive solar thermal systems, a NASA designed ice melter, and advanced biofuels the team will attempt to use a renewable energy mix to sustain their water, heating and cooking needs. Additionally, they will be using solar technology to charge lithium batteries that will power their camera and communication devices.

The story behind this and the relationship with Shell goes back over a century to the Scott Antarctic Expedition of 1912. Rob initially approached Shell for expedition funding in the 1980s, when he set out to walk to South Pole for the first time. This was the beginning of his own relationship with Antarctica, which he intends to see preserved as a pristine continent sized ecosystem. For that journey, Rob convinced Shell that as the company had sponsored the original Scott expedition, he was a worthy recipient to continue that practice. In a like for like manner, Shell supplied fuel for the expedition ship, as they had supplied fuel for the Scott expedition.

The 1912 expedition became part of the early Shell legend of supplying fuel for all purposes under all conditions and at the time featured in various Shell advertisements. One such example is shown below.

The company was subsequently involved in other expeditions, including the Shackleton Expedition.

The 2017 Swan Expedition continues, although in the run-up to Christmas the team was faced with a difficult decision. Despite grueling conditions, including extreme winds and freezing temperatures, they reached the half way point just after mid-December, but the pace had not been as hoped. With the longest day of the year behind them the team will begin to lose sunlight leading to extreme cold, which now leads to something of a race against time to ensure the trek is successfully completed before the short expedition season closes. Under these circumstances, Robert decided to return to Base Camp at Union Glacier to allow the team to move along at a faster pace. He will however meet back up with the SPEC team at the 89th parallel to complete the last 60 miles of the expedition to arrive at the Geographic South Pole.

Robert will continue to play a lead role in the expedition and is determined to ensure that the rest of the team, together with his son Barney, complete this historic challenge. They’re doing it to raise awareness of the need for more and cleaner energy, and continue the Antarctic legacy set by Robert in the 1980s and continued through his 2041 Foundation.

These are two great ambitions that Shell is proud to be part of. So am I. Back in 2009 Robert invited me to speak about climate change to participants on his annual 2041 Expedition to the Antarctic Peninsula. Since then, people from Shell have been involved in every expedition, either as participants or as climate and energy speakers. Following the SPEC Expedition, Robert and Barney will be back on the Antarctic Peninsula in late February with a large group of young people, all eager to learn about SPEC and to better understand the climate issue. ClimateForce 2018 will kick off a series of new climate change initiatives for the father and son team and I am proud to say I will be there at the start of yet another adventure.

Merry Christmas and best wishes for 2018.

Antarctica

Back to Antarctica

dchone March 26, 2015

Back in 2009 this blog was kicked off by a trip to Antarctica for the NGO 2041. Over the last two weeks I have had the privilege to return, again with 2041. This is an NGO that is dedicated to the preservation of the continent as a last untouched place on earth – the name derives from the 50th anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty which imposes a moratorium on mining and resource extraction form Antarctica, but with the possibility of review of that provision in the 2040s.

2041 run annual expeditions to the Antarctic Peninsula in a bid to help younger people understand the importance of the continent with the potential that some of them may be in a position to make a difference on the outcome of any review in 30 years time. This overarching story about Antarctica serves as a backdrop for a deeper dive into sustainability and environmental issues, including climate change.

I gave a series of presentations on climate change over the two weeks, drawing extensively from the material in this blog and from my recent book. When I spoke in the theatre on the ship, the world’s largest cache of fresh water was visible through the window beside me; as ice stored in the mighty glaciers of the Antarctic continent. A chain of events is now unfolding leading to a gradual reduction in ice mass in Antarctica, thereby raising sea levels and slowly impacting coastlines the world over. The young people in the audience will have to deal with this legacy.

On the trip we saw a different legacy of sorts, with a stop at Whalers Bay in Deception Island; I use the word “in” here because you literally sail into the island to reveal its splendour. Whalers Bay is a sombre place where for a period of some thirty years early in the 20th Century killed whales were brought ashore for rendering and extraction of their valuable oil. Although US whale oil use had almost vanished by 1900, it continued on globally for some time after this, being used for lamp oil, soap and margarine. But by the 1930s when Whalers Bay was eventually abandoned, whale oil prices globally had collapsed as substitutes for almost all its uses had been found. Electricity, crude oil and vegetable oils brought this industry to an end. Whalers Bay is an interesting place to contemplate the market shifts we may see this century!

To close out, here are a few of my photographs from the expedition. The final photograph is of a rare sighting of a sperm whale near Cape Horn.

Talking about climate change

dchone January 29, 2015

From the rarefied atmosphere of the Swiss Alps to a small London theatre, there has been a lot said about climate change over the last couple of weeks.

The World Economic Forum held its annual retreat at Davos, with climate change high on the agenda. Much of the discussion was about building additional momentum towards a UNFCCC led agreement in Paris at the end of this year. Business leaders, politicians and other prominent people from civil society reiterated the need for a strong outcome. World Bank President Jim Yong Kim was more specific and called on leaders to “break out of the small steps of business as usual and provide that structure, first and foremost by putting a price on carbon”. The call for more emphasis on carbon pricing has been a strong World Bank theme for a year now.

While there was good talk emanating from Davos, in Brussels the scene was very different. The EU Parliament ITRE Committee (Industry, Research and Energy) was apparently not listening to the calls from Davos and instead ended up with “no opinion” on the important proposals required to support the carbon price delivered by the EU ETS, through the early implementation of the proposed Market Stability Reserve (MSR). The “no opinion” outcome was the result of not supporting the need to start the MSR early and use the 900 million backloaded allowances as a first fill, but then rejecting an alternative proposal on how the MSR should be taken forward. The only silver lining in this otherwise dim cloud is that the debate is about the proposed structure of the MSR, rather than whether an MSR should be present at all. Nevertheless, it is disappointing that some industry and business groups in Brussels did not seem aligned with the recognition that many of their member CEOs were giving to the carbon pricing discussion in Davos just a few hundred miles away. The proposals for the MSR now have to go to the important ENVI (Environment) Committee in Parliament as well as to the Member States, where there is cause for optimism that they will adopt a position in favour of a stronger MSR reform.

One business group did give very strong support to the MSR proposals, the UK and EU based Corporate Leaders Group (CLG). This organisation started its life 10 years ago, which means it is also celebrating a landmark birthday along with the EU ETS. The CLG sits under the Cambridge University Institute for Sustainability Leadership, with the Prince of Wales as its patron. This is a group that has been talking about the need for a robust carbon price in the EU for many years and backing that talk up with strong advocacy in Brussels and various Member State capitals. Birthday celebrations were held in London to mark the occasion, with the Prince of Wales in attendance. The CLG was a step ahead of the World Bank with its own Carbon Price Communique back in 2012. While the World Bank effort has garnered greater support than the original CLG effort, it is worthy of recognition that the current push for this important instrument had its roots in the business community.

Despite the important talk in Brussels and Davos, the real talk on climate change came from a small theatre in Sloan Square, London. Climate change might seem like an odd subject for the London theatre scene, but nevertheless there it was. Chris Rapley, former head of the British Antarctic Survey, more recently the head of the Science Museum and now Professor of Climate Science at University College London, staged an engaging one man show to talk about the climate. This wasn’t the Inconvenient Truth with its high profile narrator and 200 odd PowerPoint slides, but more a fireside chat about paleo-history, the atmosphere, trace gases and the global heat balance. Here was a man who had spent the majority of his life studying this issue, from field measurements in Antarctica to computer analysis of satellite observations and his message was very clear; we are in trouble. There was no alarm, no hysteria and no predictions of an apocalypse, but just a softly spoken physicist explaining his job and describing with great clarity what he had learned over the course of some forty years of hard work. The audience was engrossed by the monologue and the gently changing backdrop of graphs and charts that seemed to envelop the speaker.

This production is a unique approach to communicating the climate change issue to a new audience. It is small in scale, but it will get people thinking about the subject and hopefully discussing it in less partisan terms. The show, 2071, has now completed a second short run in London but may be destined for some other venues. I would highly recommend it.

The real issue

dchone October 28, 2010

As CO2 levels in the atmosphere continue to rise (and given the current state of global action they could quite possibly go on rising for much of this century) we hear a great deal about storms and droughts but not a huge amount about the really difficult issue that most countries face, rising sea levels.

Although the hydrological cycle will inevitably change as a result of rising temperatures, there is still much research going on to understand what this means in terms of global, regional and local precipitation. By contrast, a great deal seems to be known about sea level, CO2 and temperature, thanks to the paleoclimate record. This was the subject of the first session of the 31^st MIT Global Change Forum which was held in Brussels last week in association with Université Catholique de Louvain. The specific focus was the interglacial periods of the last million years which saw global temperatures and CO2 levels at 1850 (i.e. pre-industrial) levels. These relatively warm periods occur every 100-150,000 years (we are in one now) as a result of the additional heat falling on the planet from small variations in the earths orbit around the sun.

The most recent inter-glacial peak was the Eemian, about 130,000 years ago, which saw both CO2 levels and temperature peak at the top end of the inter-glacial range, but with the CO2 level far below the current 390 ppm. There is good evidence that the sea level in this period topped out at some 7 metres above current levels, before plunging 135 metres as glaciation took hold in the northern hemisphere. This of course raises the issue of where sea level might peak as a result of the current elevated levels of CO2, although the analysis that was presented was more about where so much water would actually come from.

Certainly there is enough in Greenland to raise sea levels another six metres, but we know that Greenland didn’t melt completely during the Eemian period as we have much older Greenland ice cores. Rather, the evidence points to a partial melting of the Greenland ice sheet followed by the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The former contributed some 2.2-3.4 metres of sea level rise and the latter 4.4-6 metres. During this period the polar regions of the northern hemisphere experienced temperature rises of 3-5°C, in response to a global temperature rise of 1-2°C, or less. The rate of sea level rise was 5-6 mm/year or ~5.6 metres over 1000 years. This sounds like an extraordinary amount of time, but we shouldn’t forget that some buildings in both London and Paris are already nearly 1000 years old and still in use! We also shouldn’t forget that the extra radiative forcing driving the change today is likely to be quite a bit more than in the Eemian period.

Estimates of near term sea level rise vary significantly, with some studies showing an overall change of up to 2 metres by the end of this century, considerably more than that given in the IPCC 4^th Assessment Report. Such a rise could be very disruptive and require considerable relocation of people and infrastructure (see below, Long Island).

It was an interesting session and set the stage for another excellent MIT conference.

Unrelated to MIT but nevertheless related to the subject above is some recent holiday reading that I enjoyed. The novel, Ultimatum by Matthew Glass, is set in 2033 just as a new President is coming into office in the United States. It is a world that has tried hard but done little to address emissions. By this time the US already has a Relocation Program underway, in response to rising sea levels and more severe storm surges. In his first meeting with the outgoing President, the new Commander in Chief learns that sea level rise is accelerating (a fact kept from the public) and that a much more ambitious relocation program must be established. He also learns that a diplomatic initiative with China to agree on real and decisive cuts in emissions is going nowhere. With a President faced with potential social catastrophe in the decades ahead, so a real political page turner begins, ending, not surprisingly in an ultimatum situation with the Chinese over emissions. It’s a good read and puts the science into an interesting political perspective.

Antarctica

A final word and video on Antarctica . . .

dchone April 3, 2009

Getting back to work this week hasn’t been easy – too much on my mind, too much to contemplate about the trip. But Bonn awaits early next week as I head off to meet with some of the national delegations at the first formal meeting of 2009 leading to Copenhagen. More on that in subsequent posts.

This video was shot by Kyle O’Donoghue for 2041 and it brilliantly captures the trip in just a few minutes.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=3985493&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1
2041 Expedition to Antarctica from David Hone on Vimeo.

Finally, if you are interested in seeing where exactly we went, you can download a Google Earth kmz file and have a look. It doesn’t show the path of the ship, just all the land stops and my meanderings – as it was my Garmin GPS watch that collected it all.

Antarctica, Nicholas Stern, climate change and Copenhagen

dchone March 30, 2009

As you will have read over the past three weeks, I have had the huge privilege of visiting the continent of Antarctica.

First of all, two acknowledgements, to Robert Swan at 2041 for asking me to come on his expedition and talk about climate change and to Shell for supporting me.

David and Robert Swan on the Antarctic Peninsula

Unlike the Arctic, Antarctica is not a place to really see the effects of climate change, at least not yet. There is strong anecdotal evidence of changes on the Antarctic Peninsula and there have been some spectacular break ups of big ice shelves over the last few years, but despite recent findings published earlier this year in Nature, the science is not yet clear on the fate of this continent and its vast ice coverage as the world warms – but it is hard to rationalise that nothing will happen there.

Visiting Antarctica is quite an overwhelming experience. Standing on the rugged shore (no docks here) in a remote bay watching penguins go about their business and whales feed in the icy water, it makes you think about what the world was once like, before humans shaped it for our own use. We have “geo-engineered” the planet and its atmosphere in just 1000 years, with the bulk of it happening in the last 100 years.

There is little true land-based wilderness left, just pockets here and there, but even they are usually inhabited or used by man.

Mankind has also changed the composition of the atmosphere. First it was local air pollution, then regional impacts and now it is global. We have already seen that global change in the atmosphere does have an impact. The ozone layer thinned following a build-up of Chloro-Fluoro-Carbons (CFCs), perhaps the most telling aspect of our presence on this planet for a long-term visitor to the Antarctic. But we have also demonstrated that these local, regional and even global issues can be addressed and that a balance can eventually be restored.

Now humans are altering the quantity of greenhouse gas components in the atmosphere with scant collective thought about what it really means for the future. The issue is highlighted again in the Guardian today with an article about Nicholas Stern . Lord Stern has shown us very clearly that there is an economic rationale for addressing the build-up of CO2 and other GHGs in the atmosphere, yet as the article discusses we persist in an endless debate on the issue itself.

As a person with a science and engineering background, the issue is very simple and it astonishes me that the simple physics behind what is happening in the atmosphere is so disputed. The facts are clear:

Humans are raising the level of CO2 and other GHGs in the atmosphere through the huge level of global industrial activity.

We all know and have known for over 100 years that GHGs, in particular CO2, are key regulators of our long-term global environment.

Given this, we shouldn’t be surprised to expect a change if we double or triple the level of these gases in the atmosphere or (like CFCs) we introduce them in significant quantities for the very first time.

Despite the fact that we have enormous regard for science and take it for granted in devices we use every day (such as the computer you are reading this blog on), we seem bent on not believing our atmospheric chemists and others like them who have worked just as hard at establishing their base of knowledge as those who led the way for transistors, semi-conductors and now nanotechnology. It’s a bit like being given some very bad health news by a world leading oncologist then visiting 99 other doctors with various qualifications until one tells us that we will probably be OK and then deciding that this is the one that must be right – and it turns out his specialty isn’t oncology and he might not be a doctor at all – but we believe him anyway.

We can even measure the change in infrared absorption over the last 30 years yet still we argue the point.

Changes in outgoing long-wave radiation 1970-1997 (satellite)

Nicholas Stern has also outlined the key elements of a global deal. It’s not complicated, but it will require an unprecedented level of global cooperation to agree and implement. But as I saw on my Antarctic expedition, attended by people from over 20 countries, that level of cooperation is possible.

So now I am back in the real world of politics and self-interest (and e-mail) and today the first round of international talks (for 2009) in the lead-up to Copenhagen starts in Bonn.

There is much to do !

Antarctica

Some final photos from Antarctica

dchone March 30, 2009

An albatross following the ship in the Drake Passage.

A fur seal on the Antarctic Peninsula

Closing in on the face of a glacier

Some sunlight at last

A gentoo penguin

Gentoo penguins after a swim

Ice is nice

Birdlife in the Antarctic

A glacier face in Paradise Harbour

A curious leopard seal circling our Zodiac boat

Antarctica

Back in Buenos Aires

dchone March 28, 2009

We left the Antarctic Peninsula in something of a rush on Tuesday morning. The expedition arose early to view the incredible Lemaire Channel, which narrows to some 800 metres with mountains of at least that height rising vertically from the channel itself on both sides. But the weather was dreadful and whilst we got some idea of the majesty of this scene, we really saw very little. Our first scheduled stop after the Lemaire was pretty much a washout as well. Apart from the hardy satellite guys who need the steadiness of dry land to upload the various blog posts and other messages, none of us made it ashore.

A few Zodiac excursions were arranged, but those onboard (me included) were soaked through within minutes as waves broke relentlessly over the bow of these tiny vessels and driving snow, ice and wind made it almost impossible to make progress.

An early executive decision was made to abandon plans for our last shore visit and head back to Ushuaia instead, given that the storm we were now in the midst of could make progress across the Drake Passage pretty slow. So we headed off into a Force 8 gale and the Drake gave us its best (well we thought it was pretty bad but the old hands on board still insisted it was nothing much).

Not many made it to dinner that evening as sea legs proved to be less than ready for the onslaught. The Akademic Ioffe is a brilliant ship and very stable, but 6+ metre waves lifted the ship high out of the water with the flipside zero G feeling as the vessel dropped down the back side of the swell to sea level. After a dozen or so of these in the space of a few minutes most have had enough – but this is like a broken carnival ride – there is no getting off.

: Crossing the Drake Passage (the calm bit)

The storm passed but the rest of the passage was rough nevertheless. On Thursday afternoon (March 26th) we spotted Cape Horn and officially “rounded the Horn” together with the cruise ship Amsterdam heading in the opposite direction.

The Amsterdam rounds Cape Horn

So now I am back in Buenos Aires, but still a day from London. It took most of today to get from Ushuaia to here, with delays and distance rminding me that Antarctica really is a distant land.

Plotting the course across Drake's Passage

Plotting the course across the Drake.

A more traditional (b)log.