Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 1.4.
Fridjof Nansen (George
Grantham Bain Collection, Library
of Congress).
(1918-1925) under Harald Sverdrup. Meteorological data from the
Maud
are
readily available (Arctic Climatology Project,
2000
). The first serious attempt to
explore the Arctic Ocean beneath the sea ice was made by Sir Hubert Wilkins and
H. Sverdrup in 1931. They reached 82.25°N, north of Spitzbergen, before storms
and damage to the primitive diving equipment forced their return.
In the 1930s, meteorological studies were carried out on the Greenland Ice Sheet.
In support of their work, the British Arctic Air Route Expedition led by Gino Watkins
(
1932
) had two aircraft equipped for ice or water landings. An ice cap weather sta-
tion (67.1°N, 41.8°W, 2,440 m) was manned from September 1930 to May 1931
(Mirrless,
1934
). Because of blizzards and supply problems, A. Courtauld oper-
ated the station on his own from December to March and he was trapped inside
the shelter from late March until the beginning of May 1931. At the same time, a
German expedition under Alfred Wegener, established the station Eismitte (70.9°N,
40.7°W, 3,000 m) near the crest of the ice sheet. The records were analyzed and
interpreted by F. Loewe (
1936
), who supervised the measurements. Ice thickness
measurements suggested for the first time that the bedrock of Greenland was a sau-
cer-shaped depression.
A Second International Polar Year was conducted in 1932-1933, fifty years after
the first, with ninety-four Arctic meteorological stations in operation (Laursen,
1959
). However, World War II prevented much of the data from being published and