Sociologists studying human behavior may influence reality simply because they are there, observing. Climate scientists have that challenge too, because they are emotionally involved. They are hoping a tiny, remote island a thousand miles from anywhere may enable them to discern the truth more clearly. Bouvet Island may tell the truth about climate change, but will we listen?
What and Where Is Bouvet Island?
Bouvet Island ‘belongs’ to Norway but is in the South Atlantic at the southern tip of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Nobody lives on the 19 square mile rock of which a glacier covers 93%. Scientists believe this makes it a natural laboratory for learning more about the past climate of Antarctica.
They call this island “impressive, beautiful and scary as hell to work with” because the weather is dangerously variable. It lies within a belt of westerlies that hurtle around the earth, driving ocean upwelling. Their increasing strength drives warmer water from the deep under coastal glaciers and causes ice sheets to melt.
Are These Winds Naturally Variable?
“We know from the recent observational record that these winds have been strengthening but those records only go back 30 or 40 years,” says Liz Thomas from the British Antarctic Survey.
“What we’re interested in is whether this strengthening is part of natural variability. Do they just do this? Do they speed up and slow down? Or is this something unusual – a human-made impact on the climate.” Scientists can tell how strong winds were in the past by measuring the debris in ice cores.
“We were only on Bouvet Island for a matter of hours,” Liz Thomas continues. “This was because we could only work in a weather window that was good. And we had to get off the island quickly by helicopter when the cloud started to descend. But I definitely think there is the possibility to go back there and drill a very deep core. This could be a record of several hundreds, if not thousands, of years of climate variability.”
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Preview Image: Cape Valdivia, Bouvet Island
