March of the Tourists

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Lynch, with a master's in physics and a Ph.D. in biology from Harvard, is representative of what may well turn out to be the distinguishing feature of 21st-century science—the reintegration of the last century's separate disciplines into something beginning to resemble one. What she offers the Antarctic Site Inventory is the bandwidth to crunch relatively sparse population numbers alongside data on sea ice, climate, and ocean productivity—plugging it all into hierarchical Bayesian models—statistical analyses so complex that only recently has the computational power emerged to manage them. (An early Bayesian application in 1968 stretched computers of the day, yet succeeded in locating the sunken nuclear submarine the Scorpion, lost somewhere in the Atlantic.) The work derives from the 18th-century British mathematician and Presbyterian minister Reverend Thomas Bayes and his theorem on the probabilities of the behavior of billiard balls.

Lynch hopes to use Bayesian models to address what Fagan calls the weak-data problem in conservation biology: the persistent dearth of field records over consequential timescales. The statistical tools aren't quite the equivalent of sinking all your pool balls on the break. But they set them up cleanly for your next shot.

At Booth Island, in a heavy snowfall, the naturalists aboard the Endeavour land ahead of the guests and set up orange traffic cones to mark footpaths as close to the action as front-row seats, yet far enough away from penguin trails and colonies to be respectful of their privacy. Along with ice and weather, Naveen and Lynch are also examining the impact of tourism on breeding penguins, though initial results seem to agree with other studies that well-managed tourism enhances penguin survival, possibly by keeping skuas—predatory gulls nearly the size of eagles—away. Good for penguins, bad for skuas, says Lynch.

The first 1,000-passenger liner traveled to Antarctica in 2000, and last year a 3,000-passenger cruise ship visited. Not all make landings, yet the dangers are real, whether people come ashore or not. When the Explorer sank in 2007 it was small enough, and the weather calm enough, that nearby ships could rescue its passengers. And the ship sank cleanly enough that a major oil spill, far from any emergency infrastructure, was averted. In other words, conditions were excellent for a sinking, a reality unlikely to be repeated.

More tourists also change the aesthetic. Matt Drennan spends several hours a day calculating how to keep the Endeavour out of the line of sight of all the other ships competing for space at the 20 or 25 most popular landing sites on the peninsula. Maintaining the illusion of solitude is hectically orchestrated every July during the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators' online electronic derby. Ignorant of what December or January will hold, ships submit itineraries for which landing sites they'd like to visit on which days. Six months later, the reality of ice and weather hits and the schedules are reshuffled in an undertaking worthy of a Bayesian model. It's a process that's still workable, says Drennan, but only just. He doubts it can absorb twice as many visitors and still maintain the character of a wilderness experience.

Do visitors care? No matter the weather outside, the Endeavour's bow is stippled with a flock of hardcore guests wearing red Lindblad parkas—the $10,000 parkas, they joke—cameras at the ready, eyes tearing from the wind. Those less hardy rest in easy chairs in the library, watching the scenery glide by. Others nap in their bunks. A few anchor the bar. One soul holes up in the windowless computer lab with an everlasting game of solitaire. The old hands aboard, the 12 naturalists, who tally more than 150 years combined Antarctic experience, keep watch for whales from behind the windshield on the bridge. Sometimes a frozen guest joins them. But the inside lacks the raw power of the outdoors, the sensual jolt craved by those who know this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

The whales spout. The crabeater seals glance up from their daybeds on the ice floes. The penguins porpoise from the surface like flying minnows. Somewhere between the naturalists' lectures and the uncensored cut of the wind, the stunning landscapes of Antarctica transform into a living, breathing, ongoing story that will follow these visitors back to the other world and whisper in their ears for a long time to come.

Fifty years ago, a bunch of visiting scientists heard the call of Antarctica. The result was the Antarctic Treaty, written in language as stripped-down and clear as the Declaration of Independence, presenting a revolutionary argument for the rights of the uninhabited continent: "Recognizing that it is in the interest of all mankind that Antarctica shall continue forever to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes and shall not become the scene or object of international discord."

Because of the treaty and related agreements, known as the Antarctic Treaty System or ats, the continent enjoys freedoms unparalleled elsewhere on Earth, including freedom from any military presence (though some nations use their military to run their research), freedom of scientific investigation and cooperation, freedom from territorial ownership, and freedom from nuclear weapons. The frozen continent offers a thought experiment as to how an intelligent, informed, curious, energetic, disciplined, and mostly rational human society might operate at some future date.

The Arctic, in contrast, presents a dark glimpse into the past, as disappearing ice awakens piratical instincts in nations seeking heretofore inaccessible minerals, oil, fish, and seafaring riches. New data in the Arctic are already being used to boost increased American territorial claims by 100 nautical miles. Canada is embroiled in sovereignty disputes with the US, Russia, Denmark, and Norway over sites rich with oil and natural gas, and over ownership of the fabled Northwest Passage.

Yet Antarctica may be only temporarily immune from polar fever, since the ats suspends mineral exploration merely until 2048. Seven nations—Argentina, Australia, Britain, Chile, France, Norway, and New Zealand—maintain territorial claims in abeyance, for the time being. Along with 39 other countries, they wait, should the treaty change, poised inside 64 permanent and seasonal scientific bases, some facilitating no science, some facilitating exploitation thinly disguised as science. For better or worse, the research footprint grows far bigger than even the tourist footprint in Antarctica.

It's questionable whether 40 years from now, when the mineral rights prohibition comes up for renewal, the equivalent spirit of enlightenment will prevail. By then, the frozen goodies known to abound under Antarctica's snowfields may well be more accessible. The United States has already completed a controversial 1,000-mile snow road connecting its bases at McMurdo Sound and the South Pole—the road to plunder, should conditions allow. By 2048, the global population will have soared to 9 billion, an increase almost equivalent to the total number of people living on earth in 1959, when the first Antarctic Treaty was signed. Pressures on Earth's resources may well have outgrown our generosity.

In all likelihood we're only an oil shortage away from applauding the 19th-century sentiments of poet Bret Harte on America's original polar aspirations:

We make final landfall at Port Lockroy, a weatherproof harbor in the Palmer Archipelago, and historic site of an old British whaling station turned military base turned meteorological station. Whale skeletons line the shores. A pair of tiny black huts marks the line Churchill held against the Nazis in Antarctica. Enormous glaciers ring the bay, punctuated by rocky mountaintops knuckling through the snow. At metronomic intervals, ice calves into the sea, sonic booms marking puffs of snow and ice. Outside the protected harbor, hurricane-force winds blow, while five yachts that braved the Drake Passage moor in faultless calm.

Port Lockroy is crowded with tourists in kayaks, tourists beachcombing, tourists on Zodiac tours of the harbor. The hut's latest persona is as a museum, gift shop, and post office, its rooms crowded with visitors spending all manner of currencies on tea towels, T-shirts, and postcards. It's a snapshot of one Antarctic future.

A passenger aboard one of the moored yachts visits the Endeavour and gives a talk in the lounge. He's a well-known explorer, examining climate change and the impacts of tourism while making a documentary about himself kayaking in the Antarctic Peninsula. He refers to his kayaks as floating ambassadors, and the guests are eager to hear his take on this global warming business. But despite his audience of newly fledged envoys, despite the incomparable backdrop, and the pressing issues, the explorer is reticent, paddling around the touchy subject while waving a drink through the air. Perhaps this is what ambassadors do.

With a few working hours still left in Antarctica, Ron Naveen and Heather Lynch launch into the bird colony at Jougla Point, most of it off-limits to nonscientists, wading shin-deep in muck and slipping and sliding in melt pools on the edges of rocky escarpments. Naveen's no novice and skates nonchalantly along drop-offs; Lynch powers behind, field notebook in hand, hood cinched low. They count and recount, the simplest science imaginable. Much depends on their numbers, including decisions likely to be made about future human visitation here, the outlook for penguins, and, perhaps, a critical data point in the emerging picture of how this unpeopled world sustains us.

Snow sashays onto the nesting gentoo penguins and blue-eyed shags, disguising the pink mire of the colony that has turned their chicks into unrecognizable lumps of filthy down. The birds nest shoulder to shoulder, alongside old winch anchors, mooring blocks, whale skulls, wooden crates, discarded cable. They nest under the old World War II huts and on the cement block holding the British flag. Through every human endeavor that has blossomed here then faded, they've endured, cooing their courtship calls, hissing at intruders, spreading their feathered parasols to keep snow, sleet, rain, and sun from their perfectly hopeful chicks.

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Julia Whitty is Mother Jones' environmental correspondent.

Photo: Frans Lanting/Corbis

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