Antarctica invites exploration.
Its surface resembles that of a distant planet. It has moisture-free air and crystal-clear ice, ideal for the kind of exacting measurements dear to astronomers and physicists. And its miles-thick glaciers are center stage for the study of one of humanity’s direst environmental challenges. All that has drawn hundreds of scientists from dozens of U.S. colleges to take advantage of the brief Antarctic summer and a variety of research opportunities underwritten by the National Science Foundation.
But the science, however cutting-edge, isn’t the only point of bringing American scientists to this vast, forbidding continent. They’re also players in—and beneficiaries of—a U.S. geopolitical strategy dating to the 1940s. Under a treaty signed in 1959, Antarctica is reserved for peaceful, cooperative scientific research, and the State Department sees keeping the three American research stations here—including the one at the South Pole—staffed year-round as “essential” to U.S. interests.
That’s not to suggest that the research taking place here is insignificant. In fact, scientists endure the rigors of working in the icy Antarctic climate to find answers to questions as vexing as the winter nights here are long. Bradford A. Benson, of the University of Chicago, is peering into the heavens to decipher the origins of the universe. Jeffrey P. Severinghaus, of the University of California at San Diego, is digging deep into the ice to learn how the planet responded to high doses of atmospheric carbon in the past. Joseph S. Levy, of Oregon State University, is studying exotic microbes in hopes of unlocking secrets behind the creation of life.
Those projects and many more now stand to be shaped by a White House-commissioned review, due this year, that could lead to an overhaul of the U.S. program in Antarctica. And the decisions facing the commission could hinge on whether it believes Antarctic science is as important as Antarctic politics.
Challenges and Perks
For researchers, working in Antarctica has both benefits and drawbacks. Access is tightly controlled by a combination of the unforgiving environment and the government-run program that caters specifically to the needs of the scientists—transporting them, housing them, feeding them, even giving them coats, hats, and boots. Compared with how many scholars go about their work elsewhere—lugging their own equipment, booking their own hotel rooms, and negotiating their own way through foreign countries—doing research here can be a pretty good deal.
And Congress thinks that the U.S. Antarctic Program, which costs more than $300-million a year, is a good deal for taxpayers. Administrations dating back to World War II have recognized the political and military benefits of maintaining a presence on the continent and thereby helping to head off the possibility of overt hostilities. Some 30 countries now have research stations here, generally following the spirit of scientific cooperation set out in the 1959 Antarctic Treaty.
Relations among countries working in Antarctica haven’t always been that harmonious. In 1952, Argentine forces fired shots over the heads of British scientists in a bid to press Argentina’s claims to nearby Antarctic territory. Just last month, a major oil find near the Falkland Islands revived tensions between Britain and Argentina over that territory—and raised the specter of renewed competition for natural resources in and around the lands they claim in nearby Antarctica.
“If the Antarctic Treaty were to break down, then who knows what would happen?” says Adrian Howkins, an assistant professor of history at Colorado State University who has studied the continent. Because of that fear, he says, geopolitical motivations have “been entwined with the science from a very early stage.”
In general, though, the link between politics and science here has worked to science’s advantage. After the last thorough review of Antarctic policy, in 1997, the White House pushed through a $174-million replacement of the South Pole station, with geopolitical concerns a chief motivator. The head of that review, Norman R. Augustine, was chairman and chief executive of the defense contractor Lockheed Martin. He said the South Pole station was especially important among the three U.S. facilities because its location straddles almost all past Antarctic land claims made by rival countries.
The current review of U.S. policy, also being led by Mr. Augustine, could lead to an even bigger overhaul.
The most pressing questions center on McMurdo, the largest of the three U.S. research stations and the supply hub for the South Pole site and for dozens of seasonal field stations around the continent. As the point of entry into Antarctica for most American researchers and their equipment, McMurdo relies on airports built over the ice-covered ocean and on an ever-changing cast of icebreaking ships and cargo vessels for large-scale deliveries by sea.
But the station, established in 1955, is showing its age. Its infrastructure is outmoded, and its warehouse-like facilities are deteriorating. Members of the current White House commission, Mr. Augustine says, have been touring Antarctica and meeting with experts in a bid to find alternatives to McMurdo that would have both a deep-water port and a permanent airfield. “We’re looking,” he says. “They’re hard to find.”
For the researchers who depend on McMurdo and the Antarctic Program, what to do about McMurdo is a potentially momentous decision. During the 12 years it took to build the new South Pole station, the construction project ate into not only research outlays but also crucial transportation capacity—925 cargo flights were needed to deliver all the building materials.
Similar worries about the effects on science loom over the forthcoming decision. For instance, U.S. law and the Antarctic Treaty set out environmental protections for the continent, and the researchers need uncontaminated surroundings for their work, so bulldozing hillsides around McMurdo for an airport on land would present problems. But so does continuing the constant 18-mile parade of cargo, people, and fuel lines out to the main Pegasus airfield, on the Ross Ice Shelf.
Similarly, an entirely new location for the supply operations now housed at McMurdo could create serious complications for researchers with experiments and long-term study programs now located at the base or in the immediate area. Greatly improving transportation options also could put new pressures on the environment by appealing to tourists and corporate interests.
Indeed, tourists are already a growing presence. They’re increasingly seen on private boats off the Antarctic coast, and some tour packages include skiing and camping near the South Pole. Encouraging nonscience visitors could help scientists share costs, or it could degrade the scientific value of Antarctica, members of the Augustine commission say.
More worrisome, though, is the potential attraction of natural resources. Antarctica is estimated to have the world’s third-largest oil reserves, after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, and much of that oil is under the Ross Sea, near McMurdo. The continent also has minerals that include copper, gold, and platinum. Those resources are not generally considered worth extracting from such a challenging location, and the Antarctic Treaty forbids doing so. But the recent jostling for territory around the North Pole, including a 2007 Russian claim to a broad swath of the Arctic Ocean and its oil resources, has raised anxieties over the Antarctic Treaty’s long-term viability.
A more immediate concern may be “bioprospecting,” in which scientists hunt Antarctica for organisms with genetic protections against diseases. If not coordinated, the exploitation of such discoveries could devastate a native species or fuel international battles over royalties, says Diana H. Wall, a professor of biology at Colorado State who is one of three university researchers on Mr. Augustine’s 12-member panel.
In preparation for the panel’s discussions, the National Research Council last year assessed the scientific rationale for the Antarctica Program. It came up with a long list of justifications, headed by the need to assess climate-related threats comprehensively.
That still leaves a lot of room for the commission to figure out the most cost-effective ways of carrying out all the research. Offering researchers opportunities to work in Antarctica requires a great deal of advance planning, especially on big-budget endeavors such as the $271-million IceCube subatomic-particle detector, at the South Pole. The panel has been talking about making researchers more responsible for solving logistical needs as part of their grant applications.
Unexpected Benefits
The scientists who work in Antarctica are generally comfortable with their understated role in keeping the Antarctic peace, Ms. Wall says, even though locations chosen for geopolitical reasons, such as the South Pole, may not be optimal for some experiments.
And sometimes geopolitical concerns have brought unexpected benefits. Astronomers, for instance, now recognize that the South Pole location is ideal for some kinds of research never envisioned back in the 1950s, when U.S. strategists made a push to grab the location before the Soviets did.
In fact, the U.S. strategy of linking science to political status in Antarctica showed exceptional foresight, says Mr. Howkins, the Colorado State history professor, who is British. After Chile, Argentina, and Britain began quarreling over land around the Antarctic Peninsula, near South America, the United States started Operation Highjump in 1946, using some 4,000 troops to stake its own claims. It then began pressing for the Antarctic Treaty, preserving the continent for science and suspending all outside claims.
“So right from the beginning of the Antarctic Treaty, there’s this explicit connection between scientific research and participation in the politics, which was incredibly intelligent,” Mr. Howkins says. Even some reluctant countries have now come on board, and the treaty now has 49 member nations.
The effect is that each country’s status in Antarctica is largely based on its scientific prowess. “It benefits the U.S. greatly,” Mr. Howkins says, that American researchers are “doing the most productive science” and publishing the most papers.
The focus on science also encourages international cooperation. One study cited by the Augustine panel found that among scholarly papers on the Arctic and Antarctica, the proportion of those with co-authors from at least two countries rose from just 6 percent in 1981 to more than 40 percent in 2007.
Emphasizing science in Antarctica is “really one of the best possible outcomes that you can imagine,” Mr. Howkins says. “There’s all sorts of other things that could have gone much worse with Antarctica if the Antarctic Treaty hadn’t been designed around science.”
Correction (2/13, 3:22 p.m.): This article originally misstated the year of the federal government’s last thorough review of Antarctic policy. It was 1997, not 1977. The article has been updated to reflect this correction.
View: Tour “a scientific paradise” with Chronicle reporter Paul Basken. | 
