Tag: ice sheet

Keyword: ANTARCTICA | Words about frozen deserts

Photo by Kate Kloza (Australian Antarctic Division)
Antarctica actually means “not Arctic”. Not very original, true, but its designated name was already taken by the time this land was finally discovered. Terra Australis Incognita was a Latin expression literally meaning “Unknown South Land”. Since ancient times, it was believed that there was a land at the southernmost tip of the planet, but no one knew where it might be. During the colonial process, what is now Australia was first “discovered” by the Dutch, who named it as New Holland. Then came the British and they assumed this was the “unknown south land” our distant ancestors were looking for and, at the beginning of the 17th century, not long before the discovery of Antarctica, the English explorer Matthew Flinders thought “Terra Australis” was too long and that “Australia” sounded better. Australia is also known as “down under”, which conveys this idea of that land at the bottom of the planet.

So, when the true “terra australis” was found, they had to come up with a different name. “Arctic” comes from the Greek word arktikos, a reference to arktos, which means “bear”. In the old days (and even today, for those who are willing to skip GPS), people were guided by Polaris (the North Star), which indicates North for those located in the North Hemisphere. Polaris is a star right above the North Pole and, because of that, barely moves in the night sky. To find Polaris, one would only have to identify the constellation Ursa Minor (literally meaning Little Bear) and follow its tail. Therefore, as the Arctic was up in the north, near Polaris, then it was the land near the bear. The fact that the Arctic has polar bears, while Antarctica does not, may or may not be a coincidence.

Partly inside the Arctic Circle, there is Greenland, a huge island permanently covered by ice and with no trees. So, why is it called a land of green? Because it was, thousands of years ago, when the Vikings disembarked there. However, its true name is actually Kalaallit Nunaat, which means “the land of the Kalaallit”. The Kalaallit are the native Indigenous people of “Greenland”. They are Inuit, which means “people” (please note that “Eskimo” is a term European people used to use that is nowadays considered highly offensive). There are different tribes of Inuit. The Kalaallit are the ones from Greenland, or better yet Kalaallit Nunaat. There are also Inuit in Northern Canada and in Alaska. By the way, “Alaska” comes from the Aleut word alaxsxaq, which means “the object towards which the action of the sea is directed”. The Aleut are the Inuit of Alaska.

In the Arctic and in Antarctica there are no Indigenous people, but there are plenty of unique animals. Polar bears can only be found in the Arctic regions and penguins can only be found in cold regions in the southern hemisphere, especially in Antarctica. “Penguin” is a curious word… It comes from the Welsh words pen gwyn, meaning “head white”. In reality, it meant “great auk”, “auk” being a bird similar to the current penguins, but not related. Auks have become extinct in the 19th century. Back in the Arctic, narwhals are a type of whales perfectly adapted to these icy waters. Their name comes from Old Norse nāhvalr, a composition of the words nār and hvalr. This last word means “whale”, the first means “corpse” … but in the sense of having a colour similar to the one a corpse has. Another Arctic whale that was named according to its colour is the beluga. “Beluga” comes from the Russian word belyĭ, which means “white”.

Many other animals have adapted themselves to the extreme cold of the Poles. However, Antarctica, like Kalaallit Nunaat, was once green and warmer. In a continent roughly the size of Europe and Australia combined, there are high mountains like the Alps, glacier-carved valleys, flat plains and even an ocean. Researchers have recently succeeded in starting to figure all this out using technology (read the article “Landscape beneath Antarctica’s icy surface revealed in unprecedented detail”, from the link below). The problem for these researchers is that Antarctica’s landscape is covered by a thick ice sheet, just like Greenland. Ice sheets are similar to glaciers, but the former have a much greater extension. They consist of layers of snow that have not melted. Each layer of snow is compressed by the layers above and turns into a kind of ice-rock. As the snow keeps being added above, the snow-turned-ice-rock below moves slightly and very slowly. That is why glaciers carve valleys and ice sheets find their way to the ocean. Those high ice walls, typical images of Antarctica, are the edge of the ice sheet.

Researchers are studying ice sheets to understand how Antarctica is formed and how it will react to climate change. Essential for them are ships. Yet, these ships are not ordinary ships. They are icebreakers. Icebreaker ships are more resistant than a normal ship and have a special design in order to be able to cut the ice. Without this capacity, the ship may get trapped in the ice. That was what happened to Endurance, the famous ship of Captain Shackleton. Another famous Polar explorer ship is Fram. Fram went both to the Arctic and the Antarctica at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century and “lived” to tell the tale. This ship is now “parked” inside a museum, where we can get in and have an idea what it was like to travel inside it. Around it, there is plenty of information about its missions and about other missions during that time.

In the nutshell, there is a lot to discover about Antarctica, about the Arctic, and about Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland).

 
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