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| For Christmas, the oceanographers on the SA Agulhas had to dress up with fancy hats. From left to right are Dr Thato Mtshali (CSIR), Amy Harrington (UCT student), Dr Bob Scholes (CSIR), Dr Sandy Thomalla (Chief Scientist, post-doc CSIR/UCT), Fiona Preston-Whyte (UCT student), Dr Yuri Cotroneo (Italian post-doctoral researcher, UCT), Sarah Nicholson (UCT student), Tiara Walters (TimesLive journalist with a blog called Pole Dancing: Dangerous moves in Antarctica), Cainwyn Smith (UCT student) and Samantha Maxwell-Haffen (UCT student). |
The SA Agulhas arrived at South Georgia on Sunday 24 January. These four photographs were taken on the 2008-trip by Dr Stephan Woodborne |
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| In the emails of 24 and 25 January, Bob Scholes writes about his experience of seeing South Georgia for the first time: "Dear Mary and Stirling - In the summertime, on the rare days when the sun shines, South Georgia must be one of the most beautiful places on Earth. We had one of those days.
This is not going to be a scientific email. For some things, science is simply inadequate and inappropriate."
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CSIR fellow Dr Bob Scholes will be writing daily emails to his 13-year old son, Stirling, about his experiences and research aboard the SA Agulhas on its round trip to Antarctica.
The SA Agulhas left Cape Town at 14:00 on Wednesday, 9 December and will return in three months’ time. On board is R6 million-worth of state-of-the-art equipment of the Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observatory Programme.
In the first email, written at 16:00 on 9 December at 33.8724 South and 17.7360 East, Scholes writes about being on an ocean, while all his life he has been studying the ecology of African savannas: “What am I doing running an underway laboratory on the Southern Ocean?”
By writing the emails Scholes hopes to maintain contact with his family and specifically Stirling, who celebrated his birthday on Friday, 11 December, and to enlighten him and other children of his age on the wonderful world of science.
All emails will be posted here according to date, time and latitude. You can read the first email here:
09 Dec 2008, 16:00 UTM 33.8724S 17.7360E
Dear Stirling
Most people know me as an expert on the ecology of African savannas. What am I doing running an underway laboratory in the Southern Ocean? Well, the connection is not so strange. It all has to do with global warming, or to be more precise, the changes that are taking place in the Earth's atmosphere due to human activities. The burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas and the alteration of the land surface, for instance by clearing forests, is currently putting just more than 8 billion tonnes of extra carbon into the atmosphere every year.
But only about 3.5 billion tonnes stay there.
Where does the rest go? Well, about half goes into the oceans and half is taken up by land ecosystems. I have been measuring the carbon uptake in African savannas, which is one of the land 'sinks'. Now I am helping to measure the uptake in the Southern Ocean, one of the most important and least-understood sinks of all.
Obviously, Mother Nature is giving us a big help by sucking up all that carbon! If not, we would be in much deeper trouble regarding global warming than we already are. But what if the capacity of the planet to help us out becomes exhausted?
My work has helped to show that the storage capacity for carbon on land is limited and may become full within this century. Lots of people thought that the oceans were so big that they would never get full of CO2! Now we know that is not true.
The uptake by the oceans is slowing, especially in the Southern Ocean.
There is a CSIR/University of Cape Town project to collect detailed monitoring data regarding the carbon cycle in the Southern Oceans, taking advantage of the fact that the South African ship Agulhas crosses this least-visited place on the planet six times a year - going to, and coming back from Marion Island, Gough Island and the South African base in Antarctica, SANAE IV. My colleague, Dr Pedro Monteiro, is an expert on carbon cycling in these waters. He has equipped a very sophisticated laboratory on the Agulhas to measure carbon dioxide and many other things as we sail across the ocean. He needed people to operate the equipment and I volunteered.
Actually, the instruments have some similarities to those that I run at the flux measurement tower near Skukuza, so it is not completely strange to me. But being on a rocking boat, on my way to the frozen lands in the south, is very different to working in the heat of the savannas!
Love to you and Mom, and Happy Birthday for Friday!
Dad
February 2010 Emails
January 2010 Emails
December 2009 Emails
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These pictures are from two webcams on the South Georgia and Sandwich Islands in the Southern Atlantic ocean. The one webcam is situated in Larsen House at King Edward Point, with a view across Cumberland Bay East to Greene Peninsula and the mountains beyond. The second webcam is outdoors, installed on a weather mast, usually looking out across the Cove to Grytviken, or looking down the beach towards Hope Point. To see more images, visit South Georgia's website at
http://www.sgisland.gs/index.php/%28h%29Welcome_to_South_Georgia
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