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SUMMARY:Shackleton’s Endurance expedition – unlucky with the weather? 
 - John C. King (BAS)
DTSTART:20250306T110000Z
DTEND:20250306T120000Z
UID:TALK227506@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Thomas Caton Harrison
DESCRIPTION:In December 1914\, Sir Ernest Shackleton and members of the Im
 perial Trans-Antarctic Expedition sailed into the Weddell Sea on board the
  barquentine Endurance. The story of the entrapment\, drift and sinking of
  the ship in the Weddell Sea pack ice\, and the subsequent epic tale of su
 rvival and rescue of all of the expedition members are well known. However
 \, there has been relatively little investigation into how weather conditi
 ons in 1914-15 may have affected the fate of the Endurance and her crew.\n
 \nRegular meteorological observations were made as part of the expedition
 ’s scientific programme up to the abandonment of Endurance in October 19
 15 and during the subsequent journey over the ice to the relative safety o
 f Elephant Island. Remarkably\, these records survived the expedition and 
 are now kept in the archives of the Scott Polar Research Institute. Compar
 ison of the Endurance observations with modern-era (1979-2021) data from t
 he ERA5 reanalysis has revealed two unusual features of the weather encoun
 tered by Endurance in 1914-15. First\, temperatures during the late summer
  and autumn of 1915 were consistently low\, which would have promoted an e
 arly start to the freeze-up in the southern Weddell Sea. Second\, pressure
  remained persistently high from late winter through spring\, with the mea
 n August-October pressure recorded by Endurance only being exceeded in one
  year of the ERA5 record. A persistent high-pressure anomaly in the Weddel
 l Sea is associated with wind anomalies that oppose the northward flow of 
 sea ice to the east of the Antarctic Peninsula which\, in 1915\, could hav
 e contributed to the failure of Endurance to break free from the ice and t
 he consequent loss of the ship.\n\nAlthough other factors\, such as a lack
  of advance knowledge of ice conditions and the limited ice capabilities o
 f Endurance\, may also have contributed\, the meteorological observations 
 made by the expedition do suggest that some aspects of the meteorology of 
 1914-15 were exceptional and are likely to have played a role in the fate 
 of the expedition. The Endurance observations also provide us with a uniqu
 e record of conditions in the Weddell Sea sector from the early 20th centu
 ry.
LOCATION:BAS Seminar Room 2 and Zoom
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