Antarctic summer colder and drier than usual

Antarctic summer colder than usual

Also drier

26 Feb 10 - Two University of Oklahoma researchers, Gerilyn Soreghan, professor of geology and Elwood Madden, assistant professor of geochemistry, originated a project in search of clues to the Earth's climate system.

Focusing on a controversial hypothesis that ice existed at the equator some 300 million years ago, they decided to search for answers in four distinct environments: the cold-dry environment found in Antarctica, the cold-wet environment found in Norway, the hot-wet environment found in Puerto Rico and the hot-dry environment found in the Mojave Desert.

For the Antarctic portion of their research, the OU team flew to Antarctica at the end of December.

Even though they arrived in Antarctica during the summer season, the extremely cold weather proved challenging.

They pinpointed the glaciers where they would take water and sediment samples. When they were ready, a helicopter dropped them in the Dry Valleys and they began collecting samples in one of the smallest rivers in Wright Valley.

However, not everything went as planned.

The OU team found that "summer in Antarctica was colder and drier than usual and the task of collecting samples downstream was more difficult than expected."

See entire article, entitled " Oklahoma Geologists Look For Answers In Antarctica"
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Oklahoma_Geologists_
Look_For_Answers_In_Antarctica_999.html
Thanks to Eddie Mertin for this link

THE NEXT ICE AGE - NOW!