| Smithsonian
polar Research
National Museum of Natural
History Arctic Studies Center
Established in 1988, the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)
Arctic Studies Center (ASC) main focus is cultural heritage
studies, collection research, exhibits, educational and public programs
that are commonly developed in partnership with local indigenous
communities and cultural institutions throughout the entire northern
circumpolar zone. Under the cooperative agreement with the Anchorage
Museum of History and Art, the ASC also operates its Alaskan regional
office in Anchorage (since 1995). Recent research and collection
projects include an archaeological survey of the historical Basque
sites along the Gulf of St. Lawrence northern shore; ‘Deer
Stone’ project in Mongolia; ‘community archaeology’
surveys in Labrador with the Innu and Inuit people; a study of the
historical climate and subsistence change through the excavations
of medieval Saami sites in northern Sweden; research on prehistoric
environmental change in the Gulf of Alaska based upon excavations
of ancient Alutiiq sites; documentation of indigenous knowledge
in Alaska and Siberia of sea ice and marine mammals, and indigenous
observations of recent climate change in the Arctic. Igor Krupnik
serves as member of the Joint Committee for the International Polar
Year 2007-2008 and as curator of the recent exhibit, Arctic:
A Friend Acting Strangely.
Smithsonian
Astrophysical Observatory
The atmosphere over the Antarctic plateau is uniquely clear, transparent,
and stable at many wavelengths from the radio to visual. For some
types of observation, a large, heavy, relatively accessible telescope
in Antarctica has greater power than a smaller, more expensive telescope
in space. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory is involved
in three such projects, at different levels of realization:
a. The South Pole Telescope (SPT),
a 10-m diameter telescope for millimeter and submillimeter observations,
located at South Pole Station. This telescope is under construction,
with an expected completion date of January 2007. The SPT holds
the promise of making a significant breakthrough in our understanding
of the Universe and of physics in general. The first project for
the SPT, scheduled for 2007 and 2008, is a survey of the entire
Southern sky, 1/3 of the celestial sphere, for clusters of galaxies.
At present, there are about 7000 known clusters of galaxies, discovered
by optical, x-ray, or infrared telescopes. The SPT, using a novel
radio technique, is expected to discover 30,000 clusters—a
complete sample over the region of sky covered—during the
next two to three years. These data will provide substantially
improved measures of the “dark energy”, the newly-discovered
force (or particle or energy, no one knows) that is driving the
acceleration of the Universe. The hope is that better understanding
of the nature of the dark energy will yield insight into one of
the central problems of modern physics: the unification of gravity
with the electromagnetic, strong, and weak forces. Characterizing
the 30,000 new clusters of galaxies will become one of the central
themes in astronomy in the coming decades. The nature of the dark
energy and its evolution in time will ultimately determine the
fate of the universe.
b. The High Elevation Antarctic TeraHertz
(HEAT) telescope, a small (1 meter class) robotic observatory
to be placed on Dome A to carry out observations of the Milky
Way using heterodyne techniques at Terahertz frequencies. Some
background site testing has already been done at Dome A in collaboration
with the Chinese Antarctic program.
Smithsonian
Environmental Research Center
Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) and NSF support
the Photobiology and Solar Radiation Antarctic Research Program.
Ultraviolet radiation influences the dynamics of plankton processes
in the near-surface waters in the Southern Ocean in the austral
spring period when biologically damaging UV-B is enhanced by ozone
depletion. Progress has been made in estimating the quantitative
impact of UV (and enhanced UVB) in the S. Ocean for such processes
as phytoplankton photosynthesis, bacterial incorporation and DNA
damage. Little is known about responses in systems dominated by
the colonial alga Phaeocystis antarctica. This species
dominates spring blooms in a polynya (ice-free region in an otherwise
ice-covered ocean) that develops in the southern Ross Sea in October
and November. This polynya has particular interest because it results
in open water at a far southerly location in the spring, well within
the "ozone hole" exposing plankton to elevated UV-B. The
continuous daylight characteristic of this time of year has implications
for the regulation of DNA repair most of which normally occurs at
“night”.
Northern Latitudes Invasions Biology (NLIB) is a research
focus of SERC’s Invasions Biology Program (Senior Scientist
Gregory M. Ruiz). Most marine invasions have been documented at
temperate latitudes, occurring primarily in bays and estuaries,
with a conspicuous decline in the number of non-native species reported
for high latitude systems. It is not clear what is driving this
latitudinal pattern, which may result from (a) differences in supply
of organisms, including especially human-mediated transfer mechanisms,
(b) differences in susceptibility to invasion by non-native species,
or (c) biases in the amount of historical search effort (knowledge)
of polar versus temperate systems. Recent surveys of six different
regions of Alaska have detected several new invasions, indicating
a northward spread of non-native species that had colonized California.
Other invasions have recently been reported for Arctic and Antarctic
waters, including the spread of King Crab in Norway. The emerging
data suggest high latitude systems are certainly invulnerable to
invasions, but the extent to which non-natives can establish, become
abundant, and exert significant effects is unresolved. To evaluate
the invasion of high-latitude systems, we have initiated:
(a) A citizen monitoring network to detect new invasions by non-native
tunicates in Alaska, including six sites from Sitka to Dutch Harbor.
(b) Experimental analyses and modeling to examine the environmental
tolerance of known non-native species in western North America,
and their capacity to colonize polar systems.
U.S. Antarctic
Meteorite Program
Begun in 1976, the U.S. Antarctic Meteorite Program is a
cooperative program run by the Smithsonian Institution, NASA, and
NSF for the collection, curation, and long-term storage of Antarctic
meteorites (over 12,000 specimens) recovered from the Antarctic
ice sheets by U.S. Scientists. Curators at the Department of Mineral
Sciences at the National Museum of Natural History classify each
of the meteorites returned and publish these results in the Antarctic
Meteorite Newsletter, issued twice a year by NASA's Johnson Space
Center. The real success is in the rare meteorites now recognized
from the Moon, Mars, and previously unsampled asteroids, which have
been invaluable in increasing our understanding of the history of
the Solar System.
USNM POLAR
INVERTEBRATE ONLINE DATABASES
NMNH provides professional collection management services to the
NSF United States Antarctic Program (USAP) and the international
scientific community. A primary focus of this project was improving
access to the collections through our cataloging (inventory) program
(over 900,000 USAP specimens) and our loan program. More than 170,000
USAP specimens in 138 separate transactions were either lent or
returned from loan between 1995 and the end of 2004, supporting
the research efforts of scientists in 22 countries. Several hundred
lots of archive samples from the Palmer Long Term Ecological Research
(LTER) program were also acquired.
The
National Zoo in Antarctica
Smithsonian National Zoological Park investigates Weddell Seal Energetics
supported by NSF. Animals that employ ‘capital breeding’
rely principally on stored reserves to support reproduction. Phocid
seals are the best-studied group of mammalian capital breeders,
but many species appear to rely on a combination of stored reserves
and ongoing foraging to support lactation costs. Weddell seal capital
expenditure, lactation energetics and the importance of food intake
is investigated using a novel multimarker approach to determine:
(1) Changes in maternal capital stores (body energy, fat, protein)
over the course of lactation; (2) Maternal energy expenditure (heat
production); (3) Maternal milk production including transfer of
energy, fat, water and protein to pups; (4) Timing of the onset
of feeding in lactating females and pups; (5) Contribution of food
intake to the maternal energy and substrate budget; and (6) Duration
of the lactation period and nature of the weaning process. From
these data, we expect to be able to evaluate the relative importance
of capital expenditure and food intake, and of energy vs. protein,
in the evolution of a mixed capital and income breeding strategy.
Smithsonian Scientific
Diving Program
The Office of the Under Secretary of Science - Scientific Diving
Program, through an Interagency Agreement enacted in 2001, manages
the NSF/OPP-sponsored scientific diving activities at McMurdo Station,
Palmer Station and from the research vessels L.M. Gould and N.B.
Palmer. Over 30 scientists dive each year through USAP and over
4,800 scientific ice dives were logged for the 2000-2005 period.
Formalized ice diving training is provided by the SDP by means of
a biannual ice diving course in Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard. The
40-year history of scientific diving under ice validates its effectiveness
as a research tool in increasing our knowledge of polar science
and will likely increase during this IPY. The USAP scientific diving
exposures in support of underwater research enjoy a remarkable safety
record and scientific productivity. A greater understanding and
mitigation of the physiological impacts of cold-water diving and
the technological development of ice diving equipment enables this
support of scientific research in extreme polar environments.
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