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Antarctica - US Relations

Through its year-round presence in Antarctica and participation in international Antarctic affairs, the United States has maintained scientific and political leadership and assured US participation in future uses of the region. US Antarctic activity in the 20th century began with Richard E. Byrd’s hugely popular, privately financed, expeditions in 1928-1930 and 1933-1935. Byrd’s success led to Congressional appropriations of $10,000 in 1939 and $340,000 in 1940 (totaling about $4.1M in 1997 dollars) for the US Antarctic Service, organized as a civilian entity under four cabinet agencies. Intended to be permanent but curtailed to a single winter and two summers because of World War II, the field work in 1939-1941 nevertheless was the largest Antarctic expedition up to that time, and it produced discoveries in a number of research disciplines.

After the War the US Navy Antarctic Developments Project (Operation Highjump) in 1946-1947 was then (and remains) by far the largest Antarctic expedition, with more than 4,700 naval and marine personnel, 44 observers, 13 ships, and a number of aircraft. The expedition sighted more than 1.5-million square miles of Antarctica, half of it previously unexplored, and took 15,000 aerial trimetrogon (mapping) photographs. The following season the US Navy Second Antarctic Developments Project (Operation Windmill) used ship-based helicopters to get geodetic ground control for the Highjump photographs.

The expedition contributed to production of the first medium-scale maps of the region and influenced decisions regarding locations of stations for the International Geophysical Year the following decade. At a time when other countries had embarked on programs of permanent bases, the US Navy Second Antarctic Developments Project also was a vehicle for continuing the US presence in Antarctica.

As early as 1948, drawing on its leadership in Antarctic and world affairs, the US proposed an international trusteeship. Under this plan the seven claimant nations and the US (and other nations, if they wished) would have agreed “not to seek a division of the territory in the area, but to join with the others.” The eight nations would make joint explorations and would have free access over the area.

For a decade the idea did not gain necessary support. The US established six Antarctic IGY [International Geophysical Year - 01 July 1957 to 31 December 1958] research stations: Little America (on the Ross Ice Shelf), Hallett (in Victoria Land), South Pole and Byrd (in Marie Byrd Land), plus Wilkes (on the coast of Wilkes Land, East Antarctica) and Ellsworth (on the Filchner Ice Shelf). Naval Air Facility, McMurdo Sound (now McMurdo Station), was set up as a logistics base from which to supply South Pole. Studies were directed toward geophysics and upper atmospheric physics and complemented simultaneous observations around the globe. Long traverses were made to collect data in glaciology, seismology, gravimetry, and meteorology. Geological and biological samples were also collected, although these disciplines were not formally part of the IGY.

The International Geophysical Year renewed ties among nations involved in Antarctica, and in May 1958 President Dwight D. Eisenhower invited the 11 other Antarctic IGY nations to Washington to draft an Antarctic Treaty. He wrote: “The U. S. is dedicated to the principle that the vast uninhabited wastes of Antarctica shall be used only for peaceful purposes...We propose that Antarctica shall be open to all nations to conduct scientific and other peaceful activities there.” Referring to the IGY, the President wrote: “Our proposal is directed at insuring that this same kind of cooperation for the benefit of all mankind shall be perpetuated.”

Year-round research stations
• Palmer (65°S 64°W), Anvers Island, west coast of Antarctic Peninsula—marine biology and other disciplines, population 10 to 44
• McMurdo (78°S 168°E), Ross Island, southwest corner of Ross Sea—all research disciplines, operational hub, logistics center, population 160 to about 1,100
• Amundsen-Scott South Pole (90° S), geographic South Pole—astronomy and astrophysics, meteorology and climate studies, population 60 to 240
  
  Summer research camps
• Siple Dome (Siple Coast, West Antarctica). Two field camp personnel will provide daily weather observations for airplanes operating in West Antarctica and will support transiting Kenn Borek Air flight crews. (automatic weather stations)1
• Western Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide Camp (West Antarctica). Glaciology, including ice-core sampling, radar surveys, and installation of a magnetometer; automatic weather stations; GPS monitoring of bedrock motion. Nine projects will work at the camp, including a team (I-477) that will collect a 3,400-meter ice core.
• AGAP South Field Camp (Gamburtsev Mountain range, East Antarctica). Seismic and aerial geophysical surveys of the Gamburtsev Mountain range; passive seismic experiment and retrieve a seismometer array.
• CReSIS Traverse (1,084 nm from McMurdo Station; 160 nm from WAIS Divide). Two projects (I-199-M and I-205-M) traverse from WAIS Divide to the Thwaites Glacier and back to conduct relection seismic experiments and study flow dynamics and glacier subsurface.
• Byrd Field Camp (West Antarctica). Five Projects will work from the field camp, including one installing a GPS array throughout West Antarctica and two projects collecting aerial radar data in the Pine Island Glacier area. Two other projects will depart from Bryd Camp for the Pine Island Glacier.
• Small field camps at Beardmore Glacier (Transantarctic Mountains) and at remote sites supported by other national antarctic programs.
• Numerous camps in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, on sea ice, and on Ross Island.

The basis for US historic policy toward Antarctica has in no way been diminished by global events over the intervening years since the Treaty was ratified. To the contrary, it has become increasingly clear to the global scientific and policymaking establishments, as well as to the general public, that the polar regions serve as the global environmental “barometer” with respect to the depletion of ozone in the upper atmosphere, global warming, and the impact of these phenomena on living systems. Antarctic research complements related activities in the rest of the world, including the Arctic.

On 9 June 1994 Presidential Decision Directive NSC 26 ( “United States Policy on the Arctic and Antarctic Regions”) stated that U. S. policy toward Antarctica has four fundamental objectives: (1) protecting the relatively unspoiled environment of Antarctica and its associated ecosystems, (2) preserving and pursuing unique opportunities for scientific research to understand Antarctica and global physical and environmental systems, (3) maintaining Antarctica as an area of international cooperation reserved exclusively for peaceful purposes, and (4) assuring the conservation and sustainable management of the living resources in the oceans surrounding Antarctica.

The US presence and its central role in bolstering the Antarctic Treaty are symbolically and physically manifested in the operation of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. The site lies on the Earth’s axis of rotation, the geographic apex of territorial claims. The station, and the U. S. commitment to research there, are a keystone to the maintenance of the Antarctic Treaty as well as a testament to the U. S. commitment to understand the global environment. Intermittent US presence in Antarctica, and particularly at the Pole, would preclude the conduct of much of the research now underway and would undermine the US policy of non-sovereignty.

The Antarctic “barometer” is also relevant to US national security policy and interests since climatic effects are recognized as having a direct connection to the political stability of nations. Increased drought, for example, can, through agricultural impacts, have profound economic and political implications in developing nations. Understanding trends in climate can assist in identifying possible corrective actions and anticipating future global security issues.