'It's heartbreaking': Shutdown could ruin years of Antarctic research

[highplainsdem]

Source: NBC News

More than 10 years of planning, $10 million of government funding and tireless work from the team that discovered life in a lake buried beneath an Antarctic glacier earlier this year may largely go to waste because of the government shutdown.

The WISSARD drilling program — a collaborative effort of 14 principal investigators including glaciologists, geophysicists, microbiologists and others from nine institutions across the country — is one of the largest programs ever fielded by the U.S. Antarctic Program.

The team consists of more than 50 scientists, graduate students and support staff members, who aim to explore the underbelly of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet— a flowing mass of ice about the size of France — in order to study its dynamics and improve models that predict its melting rate. If it were to melt completely, the ice sheet would increase average global sea level by between 10 to 16 feet (3 to 5 meters).

The National Science Foundation funded WISSARD in 2009 with stimulus money, providing enough resources to complete two field seasons during the Southern Hemisphere summers of 2012-2013 and 2013-2014.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/science/its-heartbreaking-shutdown-could-ruin-years-antarctic-research-8C11373796

[flamingdem]

1. Thanks for posting nt

[ffr]

2. There's going to be more too.

97% of NASA is shutdown as well.

Who needs all that sciencey complicated research space thing spectrometer stuff anyway? What is all this data? I can't figure it out. Therefore, unimportant.

[RC]

4. Spying on our E-mail and phone calls is more important 'cause it keeps us safe.

Or makes somebody more money or something.

[quadrature]

3. a cleaner Antarctic environment...

everybody wins!

[xocet]

6. sarcasm? n/t

[quadrature]

7. not at all

how much fuel does it take to keep
the South-Pole station open,
and how do I benefit?

keep in mind that most people's minds
are made up on the matter of Global Warming

[Posteritatis]

8. "And how do I benefit?" That's a pretty revealing question. (nt)

[groundloop]

9. People may have already chosen sides in the climate change debate, however....

by learning as much as possible about how the climate is changing scientists just might be able to help us choose the best, most efficient path to alleviate the problem. When you're dealing with science you never know where more knowledge is going to lead, IMO it's never a bad thing to learn as much as possible.

[BeyondGeography]

12. Peoples' minds were made up on gravity, too

[snooper2]

14. you're not going to reply anymore are you

[xocet]

15. How do you want to benefit from this?

What would be a direct enough benefit for you to justify the expense/minimal pollution?

Also, while you are at it, please tell me about a cleaner Antarctic environment.

FYI: The fuel arch holds forty-five 45,000 gallon tanks, and that is for Feb. through Nov. with some extra fuel.

[Iliyah]

5. GOPers don't believe in science, environment, global warming, nor basic logic

Shame tho.

[Ash_F]

10. But everything the Republicans love stays funded. /nt

[BREMPRO]

11. sure the kock bro's are happy about this.. maybe this is the secret motive behind the shutdown..

shut down the epa, and global warming research.. big win for them to undermine years of careful glacial research... [e-mail] ...

[AverageJoe90]

17. Gotta wonder about that, too, TBH. n/t

[BillyRibs]

13. Just don't cut off,

The Congressional Paycheck, the war machine, and the gym. the rest of it only affects those damn Bureaucrats any way

[Omnith]

16. That's alot of ice, hopefully it will still be there after the shutdown is over.

[Auntie Bush]

18. Rethugs don't give a S***...don't believe in science anyway.