Objectives of Antarctic Glaciological Research

Abstract

Antarctic glaciological studies should focus principally upon features unique to the region and upon basic relations of world‐wide significance. Antarctic ice is the greatest mass of land‐locked water substance on Earth, and determination of its volume by geophysical means is needed with respect to a complete world water inventory, to a determination of Pleistocene eustatic shifts of sea level, and to estimates of possible future shifts of sea level. A prediction is made that ice in East Antarctica may prove to be as much as 3500 to 4000 meters thick and that the average thickness of Antarctic inland ice exceeds 1600 meters. Return of even a part of this water to the oceans has far‐reaching geological and economic significance, but changes in Antarctic ice wastage will probably be slow enough and small enough so that the sea level shifts will not be catastrophic. Data on the past, present, and future behavior of this ice will be sought through studies of accumulation and wastage, of firn stratigraphy, of geological evidence for ancient fluctuations, and of pertinent glaciometeorological factors. Identification of annual accumulation layers is essential, and oxygen‐isotope ratios (O^(18)/O^(16)) promise to be useful for this and for identifying and indicating the nature and magnitude of earlier secular climatic variations.