Strait of McMurdo

The strait of McMurdo is an arm of the sea separating the island from Ross of the continent the Antarctic. The cool water and full with Iceberg S of the strait is broad and long of approximately 55 km. It has: 4000 km of coast the Antarctic, open on the Sea of Ross to north. The Chaîne of Royal Society rises until: 4205 m top on the west coast of the strait, the barrier of ice of McMurdo forms the southern part, and the island of Ross, refuge of the explorers, the east coast. The Mount Erebus, a active Volcano, dominates the island of its: 3794 Mr. the scientific bases largest of the continent, the station McMurdo (the United States) and the bases Scott (New Zealand) are on the southern part of the island at the end of the Péninsule of Hut Point.

Discovered by the captain James Clark Ross in February 1841, the strait, located at approximately 800 km of the South pole, was named in honor of lieutenant Archibald McMurdo of the ship HMS Terror . Today, it is used as road of supply for the cargo liners and them planes which land on the drift ice close to the McMurdo station. The occupation quasi-constant of the station by scientists and employees since 1957-1958 polluted his bay, called the Winter Quarters Bay .

The ice-barrier on the coast of bay and in the remainder of the strait is an important obstacle for the ships which try to enter there. They need obligatorily hulls even reinforced escort of a Brise-glace. The difficulty of access still restricts the number of tourists, increasingly present in the remainder of the Antarctic peninsula. Those which manage to unload there can see there fantastic landscapes and a remarkable diversity of the fauna, energy of the orcs to the Phoque S and of penguins Adélie and emperors.

The arctic cold currents of the Antarctic Ocean reduce the impact of the hot currents coming from the south of the Pacifique and the Atlantique. The very cold winds are common in the strait, which is cold every winter, the ice being a thickness from approximately 3 Mr. the southern summer causes the dispersion of the ice; the wind and the currents can push them in north, in the Mer of Ross, mixing the cold currents which go up towards all the corners of the sphere. The temperatures recorded at the McMurdo station go until -50,5ºC during the long ones and cold southern winter months. December and January are the hottest months, with average temperatures of -1ºC and -0,55ºC respectively.

A strategic position

The strategic role of the McMurdo strait dates from the heroic age of exploration in the Antarctic. The explorers Ernest Shackleton and Robert Scott built bases on the coasts like starting point for their explorations of the interior of the continent.

The logistic importance of the strait continues to be very large nowadays. Planes transporting of the provisions and the passengers land on the cold tracks of Williams Field in front of the McMurdo station, on the permanent ice-barrier. The arrival, once per annum, on a cargo liner and a Ship cistern depend on the passage of the strait.

The bases American and New Zealand are both in the south of the island of Ross, the most southern ground accessible by the sea. The port of Winter Quarters Bay is most southern of the world. However, the access to the bases depends on the state of the strait and the ice-barrier. During the winter, the strait has an impenetrable mass of ice. During the summer, the ships are often confronted with concentrations of ice formed during the previous winter, fast ice (ice connected to the coast), and freezes very hard going back to several years. In these cases, one has recourse to ice-breaker, but the currents and the very strong winds antarctic can sometimes push these obstacles towards north, then opening the strait for the ships.

Iceberg B-15A

An event enough running in the area, the detachment of a Iceberg of the ice-barrier, produced problems in 2005. The Iceberg B-15 was detached from the Barrière of Ross in March 2000, it had a surface then of: 11000 km ². October 27th, 2005, the iceberg broke in several pieces.

The research made on Sismographe S placed on B-15 indicated that ground swells caused by a Earthquake with: 12900 km from there, in the Gulf of Alaska, caused the disintegration of the iceberg. The wind and the currents pushed then iceberg B-15A towards the strait of McMurdo. There, it blocked the exit of the ice in the strait as well as the passage of the penguins, which took this way to go to drive out in the sea. The ice piled up behind the iceberg, also blocking two cargo liners to on the way supply the stations in the south of the island of Ross. American ice-breaker USCGC Russian Polar Star and Krasine had to cut through a path until the base in the thick ice of 3 Mr. This way will follow the east coast of the strait to the island, escorting tanker USNS Paul Buck with the port of McMurdo at the end of January 2006. Cargo liner USNS American Tern will follow on February 3rd.

A similar ice-barrier blocked a forwarding of the National Geographic Society on the ship Braveheart , preventing them from approaching iceberg B-15A. However, the members of forwarding could explore under another iceberg, finding there fish, starfishes, Crabe S, and fish of ice, the latter being made holes in the ice to protect itself there. Forwarding also attended the rare spectacle of an explosion of iceberg. Pieces of ice jumped in the air, a few hours after the Braveheart starts to move away from the iceberg.

Winds

The polar Vent S are the driving force behind the three weather systems which meet on the strait: that of the polar plate and the Chain Transantarctique, that of the Barrier of Ross, and that of the Sea of Ross. These zones create a range of dynamic weather systems. Cold and heavy winds going down quickly from the polar plate, with a rise in: 3050 m creating of catabatic forts winds. These dry winds quickly reach a force of hurricane before reaching the coast. Instruments which measure the speed of the wind measured the highest speed ever recorded in the Antarctic in July 1972, at the coastal station of Dumont d' Urville: 327 km/h.

The winds which meet above the strait pass by geological collars and other formations, creating blizzard S locally called herbies . They can occur at any time of the year. The residents of the stations McMurdo and Scott named the islands White and Black Herbie Alley (“gone of the herbies”), for the winds which cause frequent blizzards between the islands.

The very cold air of the continent in general prevents moisture from forming snowflakes. The blizzards, instead of making snow, thus cause the dissemination of already existing snow on the ground. The equivalent out of water of annual precipitation on the island of Ross is only of 17,6 cm; in the interior of the continent it is only of 5 cm. The dry Valleys of McMurdo, on the west coast of the strait, almost never see snow.

The lack of precipitation in the Antarctic does not decrease the importance of its polar climate; its surface doubles each winter during the freezing of water. Thaw of: 8130000 km ² estimated constitute the annual climatic event most important of the world.

The McMurdo strait is component important of the effect which the Antarctic has on the world climate. A key factor is the polar wind, which can push the ice-barrier in the sea of Ross during the summer or the winter. The catabatic very cold winds touch water surface, formant of the ice. Cold water excludes salt from water in lower part, leaving the cool water and door which fall at the ocean floor. This process is spread on all the Antarctic coast, spreading cool water in all the oceans of the world.

In an interview, the climatologist Gerd Wendler said that, where that one goes in the world, at the ocean floor one will find water coming from the Antarctic: “Seventy-five percent of all the water of the bottom, where that one is, comes from the Antarctic. ”

The McMurdo station

  • Average temperature: -20ºC

  • Average temperature per month: -3ºC in January, -28ºC in August
  • Month with the most storms: February and October

Life under the ice

The underwater life is very rich under the ice of the strait. The cool water, which would kill many of other fish, shelters the Notothénioïdes antarctic, close to the yellow gilded and the poles. Notothénioïdes have a protein which prevents them from freezing in cool water. Approximately half of the fish species living on the antarctic coasts are notothénioïdes, component from 90 to 95% of the biomass.

So certain species are rare, they are not invisible. The strait thus shelters several sharp colors species, of which sponge S yellow “cacti” and sponges “sphere” green. The starfish, the sea urchin and the Sea anemone are also present. Large spider crabs live at the bottom, eating the anemones. The Krill the Antarctic lives close to water surface; it is a key component of the food chain of the area, feeding from the mysticètes to the Manchot S. the strait shelters also soft coral, whose flexible form allows it “to lean” to eat on the bottom of the strait.

The penguins of the Antarctic, famous for their manner of walking on the ice, transform themselves into swimmers powerful and full with grace under water. The emperor penquins drive out squids, fish, and much of Crustacé S, and they can plunge up to 600 m of depth to find some. The penguins Adélie are, them, less ambitious: he eats under water up to two minutes, and with a maximum depth of 170 Mr.

A study undertaken by the New Zealand government agency Antarctica New Zealand reveals that after several decades of evacuation of waste water of: 1200 estival residents directly in the strait had polluted Winter Quarters Bay. The dump close to the station let filter heavy metals, compounds of oil and chemicals in the water of bay.

The same study concludes that the sediments would cover possibly waste present on the bottom of the strait, while any test to get rid some would release even more pollution in water. The problem of the evacuation of waste water was solved with the creation of a small power station of water treatment, opened in 2003.

However, the zoologist Clive Evans of Auckland University described Winter Quarters Bay as “one of the most polluted ports world as regards oil. ”

For several years, one has seen operations of cleaning, recycling and export of waste by ship. The American the National Science Foundation began a 5 years plan costing 30 million dollars in 1989. It concentrated on the dump. In 2003, U.S. Antarctic Program known as to recycle approximately 70% of its waste.

The plan started in 1989 inspected hundreds of cisterns in the dump, the majority full of fuel and with waste water, before identifying them and putting them on a ship for its export. One started to export waste in 1971. The United States exported several tons of radioactive ground after the closing of small a Nuclear plant.

But the same ships which export waste of McMurdo Station present themselves a danger to the ecosystem. A study of the Australian Institute off Navy Science found that the Antifouling used on the hulls of the ice-breakers pollute water and kill the Algue S, the goose barnacles and other marine species which stick to the hulls of the ships. It found that samples raised on the bottom of the strait contained high levels of tributyltine (TBT), composing of paintings on the hulls. “The levels there present are close to the maximum which one will find safe everywhere with the strandings of the ships. ”

The ships, planes, and the terrestrial vehicles present a whole a danger of pollution by oil escapes. In 2003, the two years accumulation of ice prevented the American ship cistern MV Richard G. Matthiesen from arriving at the port of McMurdo Station, its destination, in spite of the assistance of the ice-breaker. One had to build a 5,6 km length temporary pipe on the ice-barrier to discharge the cargo liner from the ship. It sent thus more: 22700000 liters of fuel at the station.

The risk of Oil slick is however minimized by the authorities vis-a-vis the need for the supply of oil McMurdo Station. An accidental oil discharge in 2003 left: 24605 liters of the substance on the helistop.

The oil slick caused by the Argentinian ship Bahía Paraíso and its: 643520 liters of oil in 1989, close to the Antarctic peninsula, illustrated the dangers posed with the Antarctic environment.

Tourism

The distance and the inhospitable climate limit tourism in the Antarctic to an industry rather expensive and largely concentrated on the peninsula. However, the number of tourists on the continent quadrupled during the years 1990, until: 14000 in 2000, while ten years before there was only: 2500. More: 27000 tourists took towers of the coast in cruising in 2004 and 2005.

Only 5% of the tourists visit the area of the Mer of Ross.

Commercial flights which flew over the continent started in 1957, with a Boeing 377 Stratocruiser of Pan Am. The first commercial flights to be landed on the continent did it with the McMurdo strait and the South pole in the Années 1960. Overflights since the Australia and the New Zealand were very current between 1977 and 1980, and transported more: 11000 passengers. In 1979, flight TE901 of Air New Zealand was crushed against the Mont Erebus, on the east coast of the strait; the 257 people on board found death there.

The cruising of the ship Lindblad Explorer in 1969 was the precedent of all tourism of cruising in the Antarctic. The founder of the company, Lars-Eric Lindblad, combined cruising with education: “One cannot protect what one does not know. ”. The passengers of the ice-breaker go on the coast in inflatable dinghies. They can stop with the shelters of the former explorers on the island of Ross or with the course Royds.

The Russian ice-breaker offers also flights in Hélicoptère above the areas of difficult access, like the dry Vallées of McMurdo; they take off of the ice-breaker. However, one established nonofficial standards to discourage from thus disturbing fauna. There is a shelter built by Ernest Shackleton and its crew of the Nimrod in 1907.

  • Discovery Point: Also called Hut Not . Place of construction, in 1911, of the shelter of Robert Falcon Scott during a forwarding.
  • Languages of ice: The Langue of ice Erebus projects 11 or 12 km in the strait from the coast and measures up to 10 m in height. The language of MacKay ice is on the other side of the strait in the North-West, in Granite Harbor .
  • dry Valleys of McMurdo: These valleys on the west coast are called thus because of very low moisture and the little of snow and ice which is there.
  • Barrier McMurdo: This barrier of drift ice in the south of the strait is part itself of the Barrière of Ross.
  • Mount Discovery: Volcanic cone isolated on the west coast from the strait. : 2681 Mr.
  • Mount Erebus: The active volcano most southern of the world. On the island of Ross. : 3794 Mr.
  • Island of Ross: Have four volcanos: the mounts Erebus, Terror, Bird and Terra Nova. The scientific bases American and New Zealand are in the south.
  • Royal Link Society: Volcanic, it belongs to the transantarctic Monts, one of the longest links on Earth. On the south-western coast of the strait.
  • Island White ( white island ): The McMurdo ice-barrier surrounds it. Visible since the Scott Base (New Zealand). A permanent slit in the ice makes it possible the seals to live all the year there.

See too

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