Lab Report 2nd draft

Missing IX & X, and new pictures were not Put through post

Julian Chelo, Stefano Archangel 03-27-07
801 ESCI
Antarctica Climate Change
I. Abstract: Climate change (aka “Global warming”) is a major issue that can have serious negative affects on the world. Climate Change is even responsible for doing things like altering common weather conditions, or melting the polar ice caps. We thought that since Antarctica is continent made up mainly of ice, that it too can be damaged by climate change and have bad results. We found from our research on the matter, that Antarctica does in fact melt from climate change, and results in the world’s sea level increasing.

II. Background Information: When Pangaea began to separate, Antarctica was a part of Gondwanaland, as was Africa Australia and New Zeeland. Antarctica wasn’t always the ice mass it is today about 195 million years ago around the cretaceous era, Antarctica used to be tropical and had a lot more life then it has today, there were also lots of flowers, trees, fern, and other plants that grew commonly in Antarctica (known because many scientists found fossils of such plants on the continent). Over the years as the continent headed south, the temperature slowly dropped, for example, 60 million years ago, Antarctica was about as cold as the U.K is today, 40 million years ago the first ice cap started to form around Antarctica, also around the time the first penguin started to evolve (unfortunately for them). It was not until 25 million years ago that the entire continent became completely covered in ice, right when the first whales started to take form, which is why they are so many in the waters of the continent.

It was imagined by the Greeks (mainly philosophers) that there was some kind of place like Antarctica. (According to their constellations), but it was only a theory no one even knew it existed in those days, it was at that time an imaginary place. The Greeks thought it existed because they believed for the world to have balance there had to be some kind of negative place in the world. the first man to ever lay eyes on Antarctica was Thaddeus Bellingshausen, a Russian explorer/sea captain, he was however, not the first man to set foot on the continent, the first man to do that was an American named John Davis, a captain of a ship of seal hunters (some historians believe he was English, and others believe the explorer was an entirely different person, but a majority believes it was John Davis). There are no natives/ residents on the continent, the only people who live there do not even live there permanently, they are either tourists, explores, scientists, or are mining for oil, or other minerals found on the convenient like gold, iron, nickel, lead, copper, etc. There never were any native humans that live in Antarctica, there couldn’t have been because homo sapiens began to evolve after Antarctica was covered in tundra, if there were some primates they wouldn’t be able to survive the temperatures that drop way below zero, if their were primates on the continent, they probably died while in the evolution process.

Animals in Antarctica are being affected because the Animals can’t survive for many reasons such as ice mass loss from loss from 2002- 2005. It was recorded by NASA that for the first time Antarctica’s ice sheets decreased in size. The amount of Ice lost was enough to increase the earth’s sea levels by 1.2 millimeters. The Antarctic ice sheets lost 152 cubic kilometers between April 2002, and August 2005. The amount of water melted off the ice plate was the equivalent of how much water Americans use in three months, which is approximately 264 billion gallons of water. The temperatures during the summer reach -5 to -31 and during the winter it reaches a deadly -40 to -94. Even Antarctica is a normal habitat for some animals it is still to cold too survive some animals has to go through this every year. The warmest temperature ever recorded was 59 degrees in January 5 1974, and the coldest temperature ever recorded was -129 degrees, on July 21, 1983.
Ozone is a gas made of oxygen atoms. Usually oxygen atoms hang around in pairs in pairs - this is the sort of oxygen that we breathe and that helps things to burn. Oxygen sometimes however will form a molecule with three oxygen atoms this is what we call ozone:
02(g) - Two oxygen atoms - ordinary common or garden oxygen
03(g) - Three Oxygen Atoms - Ozone
Has a particularly useful characteristic that it can absorb large quantities of ultra-violet (UV) light - more of that soon. Most of the ozone on earth isn’t on earth at all, but in the layer of the earth’s atmosphere called the stratosphere. This is the upper layer of the atmosphere and begins between 12.9 and 19.3 km (8 to 12 miles) above our heads and goes upwards to almost 50 km (30 miles). The Stratosphere has no clouds or other form of weather it’s thinnest at the equator and thickest at the poles.

There are many who are unaware of the dangers that threaten Antarctica, it seams unlikely to people that Antarctica could melt into oblivion, but it could very well happen. There have been past recordings of ice melts where the ice sheets of Antarctica have melted, the melt was so significant that the earth’s sea level actually rose. Over years to come, think what could happen. To show what could happen I (Julian) am going to make a short animated documentary that shows the consequences of what could happen if the ice sheets do significantly decline, an how society will be affected.

Scientists expect to be able to find out if the ozone is harming Antarctica from ice samples from West Antarctic Ice Core, to help better understand the relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxide and temperature. The scientists also expect to learn more about the impact the West Antarctic ice sheets will have on the earth’s possible sea level rise. Finally the scientists will be able to observe, find, and record the influences of southern ocean and atmospheric circulation patterns on its climate.

III. Question: Does climate change have negative effects on Antarctica even though it is the world’s coldest, most southern Continent? If so what are these negative affects and what are they caused by?

IV. Hypotheses: We believe Antarctica is being affected by climate change, but in different ways than Greenland and the Polar ice caps. The results of the climate change will be dangerous for the native animals that live there, and in other continents. We think if the Ice in Antarctica did lose 264 billion gallons of water in 3 years then that would mean in 12 years, about 1056 billion gallons of water would be released into the ocean.

Extra facts: About 97.6% of Antarctica is Ice, the other is actual continent. The size of the tundra free land in Antarctica is said to be about the size of 48 US states, combined with about half of Mexico, only about 0.4% of the continent. The size of the Continent with ice is about 1.4 times bigger than The US, and 58 times bigger than the UK. Antarctica was the size of half of Mexico, and 48 states, when it began to break away from Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, and as it drifted south, it drifted further away from the equator, and it got colder and colder with every era. The continent of Antarctica went from being Tropical- to mild- to cold- to colder- to below freezing, and all these continental changes happened during the: cretaceous, Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene, and Miocene Eras, and as Antarctica matured, so did the ocean and the rest of the world around, and the first humans stared to evolve as well. Although there were never any native peoples on Antarctica, some people live their today, mainly scientists, and explorers.
V. Materials: Rubber liquid latex, water, map of Antarctica, plastic container, hair dryer, paint brush, 2 cameras, laptop, hair dryer, sharpie marker, ruler.


VI. Procedure:

1. First we took a picture of Antarctica from the internet.


2. Then using the map, we made an almost exact clay model of Antarctica.


3. Next we painted the statue in liquid rubber latex.


4. We waited for the rubber to dry and removed the clay statue, making a rubber ice tray.


5. We then filled the rubber cast with water and left it in the freezer.


6. Then we remove the rubber cast from the ice.

7. We now have an Ice version of the original Antarctica print out.

8. We then put the ice sculpture in a plastic container of blue water (while filming).



9. We then waited for Antarctica Ice sculpture to melt slightly and every time it melted it

was filmed, until the sculpture melted.






11. The melting of the ice sculpture later resulted in the water in the container rising by

several centimeters the video was then edited and slides with scientific data from several

researchers were inserted.


VII. Experiment: When the ice replica of Antarctica was complete it was placed in a
plastic transparent bowl filled with blue dyed water (to look oceanic). The lighting and camera were prepared while the ice sculpture began to set in the water. The ice first looked dry bright and full, but to make it melt, a small hair dryer was placed above the model and set on low. The iceberg began to shrink under the intense heat conditions, when there was a noticeable change in size on camera the ice burg was filmed again. The same process was done 9 more times and each time the water leveling the tank rose slightly.

VIII. Results: When the Ice statue was completely melted the water I the tank rose by approximately 2.2 centimeters, and also the water became a lighter blue than originally. 2.2 centimeters might not seam like a lot on a certain scale, but if that were the real thing then Manhattan would probably be the new Atlantis. The water changing color is also relevant to the real affects of Antarctica melting, because the blue water was paint water, and the ice statue was made of regular water and when mixed they became unbalanced. This is like the real scale because Antarctica’s ice is fresh water and the ocean is salt water, and when mixed the indifference can cause damage to the sea life as well.

IX. Analyze Results:

X. Conclusion: