Standing on an ice sheet with solely a t-shirt on his again, 52-year-old Professor Benjamin Horton definitely didn’t expect such weather during his trip to Antarctica. “The first couple of days, the climate was superb. The oceans had been like a mirror. We had wildlife, humpback whales, popping out (of the ocean),” mentioned the director of the Earth Observatory of Singapore. “I was overdressed.” The region skilled around 15 degrees Celsius within the afternoon, which was not the sort of temperature one would anticipate to face in the South Pole.
Antarctica is the coldest, driest, and windiest continent on the planet. However, summer season days could be surprisingly delicate and unpredictable. Their subsequent day started with poor weather circumstances that prevented the team from disembarking from the boat.
Professor Horton and 26-year-old PhD pupil Tan Fang Yi had been part of a Singapore scientific expedition to Antarctica to check sea degree rise. Their work included sampling previous ice temperatures to make better projections of Antarctica’s glacier tipping level, generally known as the marine ice sheet instability. Once Sale ends soon is crossed, scientists imagine that efforts to cut greenhouse gasoline emissions back to pre-industrial ranges could not be sufficient.
“Every low-lying coastal nation will be influenced by what’s happening at the poles. That ice sheet has sufficient water contained within its ice to boost world sea levels in extra of 60 metres. And when a 3rd of Singapore is solely one metre above excessive tide, you possibly can see why it’s important,” mentioned Professor Horton.
During the journey, the scientists also collected samples of Antarctica’s air and ocean water to higher understand how it might help regulate the Earth’s climate. They confronted several challenges whereas conducting their experiments, including the necessity to work round harsh weather circumstances and preserving their footprint on the pristine panorama as minimal as potential.
Tan Fang Yi emphasised the importance of being flexible and resourceful through the expedition, stating, “I realised how versatile we have to be when attempting to conduct experiments as a end result of we really should work across the circumstances and the weather. It’s not like in Singapore the place I know (when) low tides are coming.”
Despite the challenges, visiting Antarctica was an essential alternative for the group. “For scientists like ourselves, having the chance to go to Antarctica really can’t be missed. But do people have to go to Antarctica to see climate change? No, they only want to think about how sizzling it’s in Singapore,” said Professor Horton..