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Highlighting twenty years of U.S. scientific research conducted since the International Geophysical Year (IGY) of 1957-58, this volume marks a turning point in the history of polar investigations and provides a lucid summary of the contributions of many distinguished scientists. The authors provide an overview of major polar research programs,
past and present; explore concepts derived, from highly interrelated aspects of physical and life sciences;
and seek to offer a glimpse of future polar science and polar development. The introduction briefly describes major physical, biological, and interdisciplinary research programs, as well as the magnitude, extent, and international character of contemporary polar science. Twenty years of polar biological investigations are then reviewed, and subsequent chapters address principles and advances in meteorology, physical oceanography, glaciology, and the geological evidence that hears on the origin of Antarctica. These physical sciences delineate a matrix for the polar biospheres and provide a background for understanding the major categories of structure and dynamic functioning of the marine ecosystem, polar marine mammals, adaptational physiology, and terrestrial biotic adaptations.
List of contents
Foreword -- Preface -- Introduction -- The Emergence of Antarctica -- Polar Research: A Synthesis with Special Reference to Biology -- Antarctica and Gondwanaland -- The Role of the Polar Regions in Global Climate Change -- Polar Oceans: Similarities and Differences in Their Physical Oceanography -- Primary Productivity and Estimates of Potential Yields of the Southern Ocean -- Problems in the Conservation of Polar Marine Mammals -- The Physiology and Biochemistry of Low Temperature Adaptations in Polar Marine Ectotherms -- Terrestrial Adaptations in Polar Regions -- Polar Logistic Support: The United States Navy -- Polar Research: Status and Prospectus -- Major International Polar Research Programs
About the author
Mary A. McWhinnie
is a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at De Paul University. Her research has focused on comparative physiology, particularly the metabolic basis of low temperature adaptation in cold-blooded animals and the life cycle of Euphausia superba
(krill) and she has published widely on these subjects. She was the first American woman scientist to work in Antarctica, to winter-over at McMurdo Station, and to serve as station scientific leader. She has participated in seven cruises on the antarctic research ship USNS Eltanin
and was chief scientist in 1972. She chaired the Advisory Committee for Processes and Resources of the Bering Sea (PROBES) and is a member of the Polar Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences and of many other national and international groups concerned with polar activities.
Summary
This book highlights twenty years of U.S. scientific research conducted since the International Geophysical Year of 1957-58. It provides an overview of major polar research programs, past and present, and explores concepts derived, from highly interrelated aspects of physical and life sciences.
