Lab Report

Stefano Archangel 3/23/07
Julian Chelo

ABSTRACT: 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 beetween 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. (hypothisis) We think that if this continues every three years, than in about 12 years 1,056 gallons of water could be added to the sea levelThe 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.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION: 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.

QUESTION: Does Global warming have any affect on Antarctica?

HYPOTHESIS: When I hear the words global warming I think of the earth heating up causing ice to melt which raises the sea level. I think that a global disaster might happen. I have always seen photos of Antarctica melting and I always been curious of the future of Antarctica.
We believe Antarctica is being affected by global warming, but in different ways than Greenland and the Polar ice caps. It will be dangerous for animals that live there and other continents?

MATERIALS: Rubber latex, water map, plastic container, hair dryer.

PROCEDURE:

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

2. Then we made on the to of 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.

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 (wile filming).

9. We then waited for Antarctica Ice sculpture to melt slightly.

10. And every time it melted it was filmed until the sculpture melted completely

11. The melted of the ice sculpture resulted in the water in the container rising by several centimeters the video was then edited.

EXPERIMENT: we have a scale of how much gets melted from Antarctica and how much that will add to the oceans. With a hair dryer we will melt an ice model of antarctica and see how much the ice will rise in the up comeing years.

RESULTS: These temperatures although cold and unlivable to us are basic and pretty much daily for the people who work in these stations, but amazingly, Antarctica can get even colder then below 80, in fact the coldest recorded temperature on Antarctica was -129 degrees! And this was mainly around the vostrok station.
There are also other forms of land on Antarctica besides Ice masses and glaciers, including: plains, plateaus, nunataks, valleys, mountains, and even deserts. Three of the highest mountains on Antarctica are Mt. Vinson, Mt. Tyree, and Mt. Shinn, all of which measure over 1500 feet.

There are many who are unaware of the dangers that threaten antatarctica, it seams unlikly to people that antarctica could melt into oblivian, but it could very well happen. there have been been past recordings of ice melts where the ice sheets of antarctica have melted, the melt was so significant that the earrth’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 consiqunces of what could happen if the ice sheets do significantly decline, an how society will be affected.

The situation is not so much changing constantly, rather it is being assessed constantly and changes that may have already occurred (such as the decline in krill - below) are just being discovered.New research is being carried out, new things found and understanding is improving. For the foreseeable future, global warming in Antarctica is likely to be a fairly lively topic, for the latest news.