Word: antarctica
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...adventurers reach the South Pole by dogsled, but that is just the halfway mark in a journey across Antarctica. Admiral Peary's claim to have made it to the North Pole gets fresh support...
...Here we are! Hooray!" Those were modest words for a momentous achievement. They came in a radio message from a six-man team of adventurers and scientists that reached the South Pole last week after a 3,213-km (1,992-mile) trek across Antarctica by dogsled. The expedition was the first to reach the pole by dogsled since Roald Amundsen beat Robert Scott there 78 years ago. But impressive as the feat is, it marks only the midpoint of an even more ambitious journey: a 6,450-km (4,000-mile) campaign that would be the first dogsled trip...
...seven-month, $11 million Trans-Antarctica Expedition was conceived by wilderness lovers Will Steger, 45, a Minnesotan who earlier led a historic dogsled trek to the North Pole, and Jean-Louis Etienne, 43, a French physician. Their purpose was to draw attention to the increasingly endangered continent and to foster the international cooperation that can preserve it. The team, whose other members come from the Soviet Union, China, Japan and Britain, is conducting a variety of studies. Among them: recording ozone levels, air temperatures and wind speeds, and taking samples of snow that will be analyzed for pollutants...
...inspired the most interest. The journey began smoothly on July 27, when the six explorers, 36 dogs and three sleds, each loaded with nearly 450 kg (1,000 lbs.) of food and gear, left the base of the Seal Nunataks mountains and started gliding across the Antarctic Peninsula. But Antarctica's ferocity proved to be stunning. Although it is now summer there, windblown snow has produced near- zero visibility, and frozen drifts have periodically caused the heavily < laden sleds to tip over...
...carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, aggravating the global warming process that could cause the average worldwide temperature to rise as much as 4.5 degrees C (8 degrees F) within the next 60 years. Another 11.3 million hectares (28 million acres) of tropical forest were destroyed. The ozone hole over Antarctica remained alarmingly large, and scientists reported evidence that a second hole was developing over the Arctic. Whether or not all of the dire predictions come to pass, they underscore a chilling message: the planet is in grave trouble. If nations do not take drastic action, it could...