Polar Regions

POLAR REGIONS. - GEOGRAPHY - This designation refers to the complex of continental or insular territories that extend into the regions nearest the Poles. While in the boreal cap, which forms a vast maritime basin (Arctic Ocean: 14.2 million sq km), they consist entirely of islands, the largest of these being Greenland, which with Cape Morris Jesup reaches as far as 83° 40' N. (the northernmost point of the peri-Arctic landmasses), the South Pole is occupied by a vast (13.2 million sq km) continent, which in the opposite direction extends beyond the polar circle, touching 63° 30' S. in Graham Land, while the islands, by contrast, are few and far from one another, scattered over an even more extensive liquid surface (Antarctic Ocean: 20.4 million sq km).

Of the Arctic islands (246,500 sq km), the largest (163,500 sq km) belong to the European sector, among which are the Spitzbergen, Novaya Zemlya and Nansen Land, the first a Norwegian possession (they form the prefecture of Svalbard), notable for its economic value (fishing, and above all coal mines) and because permanently inhabited (1000-1500 souls); the latter belonging to the USSR. To the USSR there also belong all the islands of the Asian sector (Severnaya Zemlya, New Siberia, Wrangel, etc.; in all 8 thousand sq km), for the most part uninhabited, but recently risen to a special interest because of their position along the NE sea route, on which the Soviet Union has sought to organize a regular commercial traffic. In the American sector, among the Arctic territories, fall all of Greenland (2.2 million sq km) and the Canadian archipelagos (13 million sq km), still of scant economic value, but likewise made the object of ever more thorough studies and research because of their presumed or ascertained mineral resources and their strategic importance.

Antarctica consists, it appears, of a vast plateau, elevated on average above 2000 m, still almost entirely unknown, and which seems to rest toward the W. (Ross Sea) on a series of reliefs, rising even above 4000 m in height (6100 m in the American sector) and which are believed to connect the South American archipelago (Graham Land) to New Zealand. The whole region is covered by a thick blanket of ice; from the plateau immense glaciers descend toward its margins and, melting, form a continuous ice pack, which ends in the long (600 km) wall with which it plunges over the sea. A part of these ices, moreover, extends into the latter, forming the so-called ice barriers: the largest, that of Ross, extends by itself over 1/2 million sq km. The polar pack ice, finally, here far more extensive than in the Arctic, pushes even between 60° and 50° S. The climate is extremely harsh, certainly the coldest on the globe. Given the mean annual temperatures (-25°) and absolute minima (-80°), the frequency and violence of hurricanes and winds, and the very fact that the limit of permanent snows is here (and only here) at sea level, one may say that Antarctica is always in a winter regime, and of a terrible winter. Vegetation and fauna are almost entirely lacking in the interior; in the narrow coastal strip only mosses and lichens thrive, where the ground is clear of snows, and seals, sea leopards and elephant seals, penguins, petrels and gulls live. With all this, and although stable human settlements are everywhere impossible, the importance assumed, in the peripheral seas, by the hunting of marine mammals (whales, rorquals, sperm whales), the convenience of developing the strategic and commercial position of the continent (air bases) and the hope of exploiting its supposed or ascertained mineral reserves (coal, radioactive rocks?), have long since led to a political partition of Antarctica into sectors (for this reason delimited by meridians), which follow one another in this order (longitude from Greenwich): 1) Norwegian (20° W-45° E; from Coats Land to Queen Maud Land; plus the Bouvet and Peter I Islands; 2.5 million sq km); 2) Australian (45°-136° and 142°-160° E, south of 60°; also called East Antarctica, or the Wilkes-Enderby complex; 4.5 million sq km); 3) French, or Adélie Land: 136°-142° E, with the Kerguelen Islands, the Crozet Archipelago, the McDonald, Heard, St. Paul and New Amsterdam Islands (370 thousand sq km, administratively dependent on the governor of Madagascar); 4) New Zealand, or Ross Dependency: 160° E-150° W, again south of 60°; comprising, among other things, the whole of the Ross Sea (2 million sq km); 5) United States: 150°-80° W, in the so-called Pacific Quadrant (1800 thousand sq km); 6) British: 80°-20° W, south of 58°, between 80° and 50°; for the rest south of 50°, further comprising Graham Land, the South Shetlands, South Orkneys, South Sandwich and South Georgia (8.5 million sq km, administratively dependent on the Falkland Islands; while the islands of Tristan da Cunha, Gough and nearby islets are attached to the island of St. Helena).

[This partition has nevertheless given rise to numerous disputes; to the first claimants, in fact, others have been added (not excluding Germany, which claims a part of the Norwegian sector), among which Argentina and Chile appear the most directly interested, if only because of their geographical position, in setting foot in the British sector. Argentina has already established a maritime base in Scotia Bay (South Orkney Island) and two meteorological stations on Melchior Island (off the western coast of Graham Land) and at Port Foster, on Deception Island, while Chile, for its part, had, as early as Feb. 1948, established its own settlement (Soberania) on Greenwich Island, also in the sector of Graham Land. Argentina claims the territory between 25° and 74° W, south of 60°; Chile that between 53° and 90° W.

As for the two Poles, it should be remembered that the northern one coincides with a point of the Arctic Ocean 2743 m deep; the southern one, with a point of the plateau elevated 2765 m.

Giuseppe Caraci

EXPLORATIONS

Among the various regions of the earth, the polar ones were the last to become known to man: their exploration in fact still continues and at an ever-increasing pace, because of the enormous strategic and also economic importance that they have suddenly acquired.

The exploration of the Arctic lands goes back to the Middle Ages, when the Norsemen discovered and colonized Iceland and Greenland; before that, indeed, there were only legends about the "Hyperborean Sea" and about "Ultima Thule," the lonely island constantly illuminated by the sun. In the 16th century the numerous attempts made in search of a passage to the NE and to the NW, that is, from Europe and from North America toward eastern Asia, led unintentionally to knowledge, albeit summary, of many Arctic lands (Novaya Zemlya, Svalbard, Bear Island, part of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago): Barents, Frobisher, Davis, Hudson, Baffin, etc. contributed to this. After two centuries of stagnation, explorations were resumed in 1818 with Ross and Parry (to the latter is also due the first attempt to reach the Pole) and did not always have a happy outcome (it is enough to recall the mysterious end of Franklin). In 1850 Collinson and McClure discovered the Northwest Passage: in the following years the American Arctic world was almost entirely explored by Englishmen and Americans.

The Northeast Passage was accomplished for the first time by Nordenskiöld and by the Italian Bove in 1878. Other fruitful expeditions were those of Nansen (1893-96), of the Duke of the Abruzzi (1899), of Sverdrup (1898-1902), of Amundsen (1903-1906), of the Canadian Arctic Expedition (1903-10). It was only at the beginning of the 20th century, however, that the non-existence, around the Pole, of an extensive land mass, continental or insular, was proved. The exploration of Greenland, in particular, is due above all to Jensen, Nansen, De Quervain, Nordenskiöld, Rasmussen, Peary, Koch and Wegener, the latter of whom lost his life there in 1931. The principal expeditions toward the North Pole, which attempts were made to reach as early as 1773, were, besides the aforementioned ones of Nansen and of the Duke of the Abruzzi, those of Peary - to whom belongs the glory of having been the first to reach it, overland, on 6 April 1909 - of Byrd (by airplane, in 1926), of Amundsen-Nobile (1926), of Wilkins (1927), of Nobile (1928) and of the airship Count Zeppelin (1931). As for the enterprise of General U. Nobile, it should be remembered that he received, through Cardinal Tosi, Archbishop of Milan, from Pius XI a cross with an inscription dictated by the Pontiff himself, so that it might be thrown onto the North Pole. This took place on 24 May 1928. The progress achieved by aviation subsequently led to the almost total conquest of the Arctic lands. American, Russian and English aircraft have flown in the last 10 years, far and wide, over a great part of the land and sea spaces north of the Arctic Circle. Particularly important are the military expeditions, modernly equipped, both land ones (among them the American one of 1946, called Musk Ox, and the Danish one of 1947 in Peary Land, the northernmost in the world), and maritime ones (among which should be remembered that of the United States aircraft carrier Midway in Baffin Bay).

The history of Antarctic explorations is brief and recent. The first voyages, from that of Tasman to that of Cook, gradually dispelled the hypothesis of an austral land, which the cartography of the 16th century, following in the footsteps of Hipparchus, Marinus and Ptolemy, had accepted, even lowering the equatorial limit of that continent to latitudes close to 50°. G. Cook inaugurated modern exploration: in his three voyages made between 1772 and 1773 he proved the non-existence of the continent at low latitudes and the isolation of New Zealand, the Kerguelen Islands, Bouvet and South Georgia. The second circumnavigation of the Antarctic cap, after that of Cook, was carried out by Bellingshausen (1819), the third by Biscoe (1830), to whom is due the first discovery of Antarctic continental mainland, that is, Enderby Land. The researches carried out by whalers were followed, from 1838, by the initiatives of governments and scientific societies: the voyages of D'Urville, of Wilkes and above all of James Ross are remembered, who explored that sea which later took his name, discovering Victoria Land and the two volcanoes Erebus and Terror. Toward the end of the last century there began, with the expeditions of the Belgica and of the Croce del South, the period of explorations with wintering among the ice; among these those of Drygalski, Scott and Nordenskiöld excel. After a first attempt by Shackleton (1909), the South Pole was reached on 14 Dec. 1911 by Amundsen and on 18 Jan. 1912 by Scott, who perished on the return journey. The expeditions of Shackleton, Larsen and Mawson in the following years established the continuity of the continent, from Victoria Land to the Weddell Sea, along the quadrant known by the name of Wilkes Land and Enderby Land. Aerial reconnaissances from land bases were then carried out by Byrd and Wilkins; the former crossed, in 1929, the entire continent, flying over the Pole. Subsequently, important observations were made, from aircraft supported by ships, over ever more restricted territories, in order to deepen knowledge in the various sectors already summarily explored by the first heroic pioneers. Graham Land was thus studied by Rymill (1934-37), by Ellsworth (1938), by Byrd (1939-41), by Ronne (1946-48) and by some English meteorologists (1947-48). At the beginning of 1947 Admiral Byrd - the only man along with Amundsen who has seen both Poles - organized a new and grandiose expedition, in which 11 ships and 4000 men took part, modernly equipped and provided, among other things, with amphibious tractors, automobiles and aircraft. On that occasion an area larger than half that of the U.S.A. and 9000 km. of coastline were explored by aircraft, and the Pole was once again flown over.

Antarctica is, however, still by and large an unknown land (the last one); indeed only its general features are known, and even these only vaguely (it has not yet been ascertained, for example, whether a channel joins the Ross Sea to the Weddell Sea or not). The best-known parts are currently Graham Land and the Ross Sea.

Luigi Pedreschi