Word: antarctica
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Soon after assuming his current duties last June, Hoyle -- along with Staff Writer Michael D. Lemonick, who wrote this week's report -- became intrigued by plans of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and other agencies to investigate a disturbing hole in the ozone layer high above Antarctica. At the same time, scientists were growing increasingly alarmed about the ominous evidence of the warming of the earth's climate, caused by the so-called greenhouse effect. Says Hoyle: "When we heard about the NASA Antarctica expedition, we knew we had an awfully good peg for a look at changing weather...
...from the Presidente Ibanez Airport, twelve miles northeast of Punta Arenas. Often the 40-odd scientists and support crew listed for a given flight had to leave the hotel soon after midnight to prepare the plane and its research instruments. Once airborne, the DC-8 would bank south toward Antarctica, 1,000 miles away, fighting vicious winds before settling into a twelve-hour round-trip flight at altitudes of up to 40,000 ft. Along the way, the instruments continuously collected data on atmospheric gases, airborne particles and solar radiation high above the frozen continent. Meantime, parallel flights took...
...combined sponsorship of NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Science Foundation and the Chemical Manufacturers Association. The purpose: to find out why the layer of ozone gas in the upper atmosphere, which protects the earth's surface from lethal solar ultraviolet radiation, was badly depleted over Antarctica. The scale of the mission reflected an intensifying push to understand the detailed dynamics of potentially disastrous changes in the climate. The danger of ozone depletion is only part of the problem; scientists are also concerned about the "greenhouse effect," a long-term warming of the planet caused by chemical...
...threat to the ozone was first discovered in 1983, when scientists with the British Antarctic Survey made the startling observation that concentrations of ozone in the stratosphere were dropping at a dramatic rate over Antarctica each austral spring, only to gradually become replenished by the end of November. At first they speculated that the phenomenon might be the result of increased sunspot activity or the unusual weather systems of the Antarctic. It is now widely accepted that winds are partly responsible, but scientists are increasingly convinced that there is a more disturbing factor at work. The culprit: a group...
Conditions aboard the DC-8 were considerably better. The plane, which carried up to 41 scientists, flew no higher than 42,000 ft. on its 13 missions, and those on board were free to move about. But heavy clouds obscured views of Antarctica most of the time, and the flights were a tedious eleven hours long. Observes Atmospheric Scientist Ed Browell, of NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia: "I sort of likened what we were doing to taking off from the East Coast, flying to the West Coast to do our work, then flying back East to land...