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THE U.S. ANTARCTIC
RESEARCH PROGRAM
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 9, 1999
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Basic Research,
Committee on Science,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:13 p.m., in Room 2318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Nick Smith [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Chairman SMITH [presiding]. The Subcommittee on Basic Research will come to order.
For over 40 years, the United States has maintained a presence in Antarctica. The geopolitical and scientific reasons for doing so have been reaffirmed by many Administrations. In keeping with the civilian aspect of our mission in Antarctica, the National Science Foundation represents the major official U.S. presence on the continent, with logistical support by the Navy and the Air Force.
The International Geophysical Year of 1957 ushered in a new era of research and exploration in Antarctica. Twelve nations participated at that time in the largest coordinated scientific study of Antarctica ever attempted. The informal arrangements that they made at that time to avoid disputes over territorial claims became the basis for the Antarctica Treaty of 1959.
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From these beginnings, the U.S. presence in Antarctica has grown considerably in size and scope. Today, the United States maintains three stations—Palmer Station, McMurdo Station, and Amundsen-Scott Station—that accommodate about 1,300 people, as I understand it, during their summer months. One purpose of this hearing is to evaluate to what extent the U.S. Antarctic program provides unique opportunities that could not be performed elsewhere at a lesser cost, and to conduct this kind of research in and around the coldest, driest, and, I am told, quite inhospitable, place on the planet. Yet, Steve tells me it is wonderful place to go, and he encourages that this Committee make that trip down there.
Maintaining a year-round presence and conducting world-class research in such a distant and harsh environment requires considerable resources. About $200 million a year—each year goes to support research, and support the logistical and modernization activities.
This hearing is being held to discuss the future of the U.S. Antarctic program and whether U.S. taxpayers are getting their money's worth. We will discuss the modernization of South Pole station. The South Pole modernization and safety and environment upgrades will cost $153 million, in the estimates that I currently have. It is my understanding that $19 million is yet outstanding, and would like, Dr. Erb, some testimony whether you expect to stay within budget to complete that effort.
The Committee hopes that other items for discussion will include the transfer of logistical air support from the Navy to the New York National Guard, long-term plans for the McMurdo Station, the rebidding of the Antarctica support contract, the impact of growing tourism, weather forecasting, air traffic control, satellite communications. I will be looking to the panelists to suggest ways to improve management and efficiency of the program, and I want to thank all the witnesses very much, and look forward to your testimony.
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It is, as you know, the tradition of the Committee that witnesses will be asked to take an affirmation oath. Steve, should we—I think go ahead and take the oath now. So if you would rise and raise your right hand?
Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Dr. ERB. I do.
General BERBERIAN. I do.
Dr. MANAHAN. I do.
Chairman SMITH. Let the record show that all the witnesses answered in the affirmative.
Let me briefly introduce our witnesses, a very distinguished group. Dr. Karl Erb is Director of the Polar Programs at the National Science Foundation and will provide us with an overview of activities NSF is supporting in Antarctica and its plans for the future.
Brigadier General Archie Berberian is Chief of Staff of the New York Air National Guard and is here today to give us his assessment of the transition of the air logistic responsibility from the Navy to the National Guard, and to discuss some of the challenges of operating in the Antarctica.
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And Dr. Donal Manahan is Chairman of the Polar Research Board at the National Research Council and Director of the Marine Biology Station in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Southern California. Dr. Manahan has been invited to provide his views on issues of interest to the scientific community.
Again, thank you all for being here today.
And, Steve, what is the protocol? Shall we wait for Eddie Bernice?
Dr. Erb, why do not we start with your testimony?
Pardon? Oh, yes, thanks, Steve. You are going to show us a film first. What would Eddie Bernice rather see—to hear the testimony or see the film? I think we will hold the film. Is there any cause and effect between the film and your testimony?
TESTIMONY OF KARL ERB, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF POLAR PROGRAMS, NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION; ACCOMPANIED BY BRIGADIER GENERAL ARCHIE BERBERIAN II, CHIEF OF STAFF, NEW YORK AIR NATIONAL GUARD, AND DONAL MANAHAN, CHAIRMAN, POLAR RESEARCH BOARD, NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
TESTIMONY OF KARL ERB
Dr. ERB. No, Mr. Chairman. I would be perfectly happy to begin with the testimony.
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Chairman SMITH. Okay. Good.
Dr. ERB. Thank you very much for having me and my colleagues here to talk about the Antarctica program. That is something we love to do, but I promise to do it in just five minutes. And I guess I should start this clock running. Okay.
I have actually attempted to address several of the issues that you raised in your opening remarks in my written testimony, and if I could, I would like to have that inserted in the record.
Chairman SMITH. Yes, without objection, all the written the testimony will be made part of the record.
Dr. ERB. Thank you. With that, then, maybe I will take my five minutes to just address a few issues that we are focusing on in particular, and address several of the important issues you raised in your opening remarks.
Antarctica is a very important place to do scientific research. As a result, there is increasing pressure from a larger and larger number of U.S. scientists to do forefront research there.
At the same time, the resources that we can deploy to support their research are limited. And so we have a supply and demand situation that forces us to continually assess whether we are doing things in the most efficient possible way.
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And I want to come back to that point. That is one of the themes that I would like to address is this efficiency theme.
I won't say much about the science that we are doing there—but I would be happy to answer questions about that—partly because Dr. Manahan is the Chair of the Academy's Polar Research Board—and I believe he plans to address some of those issues as well—science quality issues.
But let me just say that we believe that all of it is first class, world-class. And much of it addresses issues of global importance. And I may have a chance to make a few remarks about that.
Now, Antarctica is a very difficult place to do research. There is no infrastructure there, and we will see that in the film later on. If you want a road, if you want a landing strip, a cafeteria, whatever, you have to put it there in the first place. It is also a very harsh and rugged environment in which to conduct research. It presents extreme issues of safety. We have to be very careful. We are very concerned about the safety of the people that we put there, with both the scientists and the support staff—airmen, everyone else who makes it possible to conduct the research.
So, against that background, let me just remark that a few years ago, the station that we operate at the South Pole for this research had become obsolete, and continued operation of it raised in our minds—the minds of the National Science Foundation and the National Science Board—questions of whether we could continue to operate it safely. I think if we had not found a way to address that issue, we probably would be now in the process of closing South Pole Station and having to abandon what has turned out to be extremely promising research there.
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But we did propose, and the Congress found ways, to make it possible for us to modernize South Pole Station. That project is going on. I will say a little bit more in a few moments about the status of the project. But it is in hand, and I think our physical infrastructure at the South Pole will be, as a result, in good shape well into the next century and millennium, for that matter.
In addition, we have a plan in place, and we are working on it, to modernize McMurdo Station, to make it a more efficient and a better science support center. At McMurdo—which, by the way, is the gateway to the continent for us—it is at McMurdo that we—that we—from McMurdo we deploy the planes that get people out anywhere on this vast continent that they need to be in order to do their research. The continent is roughly the size of the United States and Mexico combined. So, General Berberian and his airmen and all their support people are actually critical to enabling us to get all these places in this harsh environment.
But it is a staging area, and it needs work. This year, because of the transition from the Navy to the Air National Guard, we have realized savings of $5 million, and we are applying that $5 million toward improvements, primarily at McMurdo. Among the improvements that we are determined to make are improvements in weather forecasting, weather monitoring. The reason for that particular focus is that we are really not able to predict the weather there well enough to know whether we are going to be able to land the flights that we put into the air in the first place. It means often times flights have to turn around and come back. They do not deliver their cargo. Nothing happens. We have to send them out again the next day. And that is—if we can minimize that, we can obviously make much better use of the resources that we have on the continent, to get more science done.
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So, we are going to invest in weather forecasting systems, weather monitoring systems, over the next several years.
While I am talking about the heavy lift aircraft capability, the ability to move vast amounts of material into the field in Antarctica, I should also add another way that we are looking to optimize our uses of that resources. Goodness.
It takes a hundred flights each year to move fuel to the South Pole, and we think that we can reduce that through energy conservation measures and alternate transportation measures by at least 10 percent. That will free up seven flights a year that we can move into the continent for the benefit of science.
Let me conclude by saying the South Pole Station project is on time, on schedule, within budget. The first phase of it, the safety and environmental upgrade project, will be completed shortly. All the procurement for that has been done. All that remains is to put the remaining pieces together. The South Pole Station Modernization Project, similarly, is on schedule and within budget. We are going to complete it within budget, within the budget that we and the Committee have agreed on. And, in the meantime, and at the same time, we are going to continue to support first-rate science on the continent. Thank you, sir.
Chairman SMITH. Dr. Erb, thank you. If it might give us, give me a better oversight, I think it would be appropriate to go ahead with the film now.
[Video.]
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Dr. ERB. People actually work in these conditions.
Chairman SMITH. Any wrapup comments, Dr. Erb?
Dr. ERB. Well, it is a wonderful place to do science, and it is a fascinating place to see. And I do hope members of the Committee will be able to find time, Mr. Chairman, yourself included, to see it firsthand.
Chairman SMITH. Thank you.
Representative Johnson, would you like to make a statement or——
Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. I am going to ask unanimous consent to put it in the record, so we can proceed.
Chairman SMITH. Certainly, without objection. And any other member that would like to put a statement in the record within the next—what do we do seven days, Steve?—it will be incorporated.
General Berberian, please proceed.
TESTIMONY OF ARCHIE J. BERBERIAN II
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General BERBERIAN. Chairman Smith, members of the Committee, thank you for giving me this opportunity to give testimony. I brought with me Colonel Graham Pritchard, the Wing Commander of the 109th Airlift Wing, for more detailed answers to questions later.
The United States Navy has provided support to the U.S. Antarctic program since 1955, with the establishment of a formal U.S. presence in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica during Operation Deep Freeze One. In the years following the International Geophysical Year of 1957 and 1958, the National Science Foundation exercised its principal management role, along with DOD, mainly the Navy presence at that time.
In 1988, the NSF invited the 109th Airlift Wing of the New York Air National Guard to begin augmentation of the Navy in Antarctica. The 109th had been flying in Greenland, on skis, since 1975, flying the LC–130. They took over the the Defense Early Warning Radar installation support mission from the Alaska Air Command that year.
They began supporting science in Greenland in 1978. In 1993, an Interagency Working Group was formed to consider alternatives to Navy LC–130 airlift support to Antarctica. Because of the Air National Guard's historic capability in polar support and access to the Air National Guard and the Air Force's substantial C–130 infrastructure system, the Working Group determined that the 109th Airlift Wing should be considered the best choice for transition to supporting of LC–130 operation.
In 1995, legislation was passed for the Fiscal Year 1996 defense authorization bill to authorize the Air National Guard to assume the Navy's role in air logistics support provided to the NSF and provided that full reimbursement was made to the DOD, and that support through the DOD was cost effective.
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Subsequently, the offices of the Secretary of Defense, Air Force, Navy, and NSF agreed on a three-year transition plan.
In May of 1996, a congressionally-directed National Science and Technology Council report underscored the potential cost savings of single point management of all LC–130 aircraft into one flying unit that supported both military and scientific requirements.
A key precept of the transition was the hiring of 235 full-time, active Guard Reserve members, whose principal task would be the support of the USAP. They, along with the 109th part-time Guardsmen and full-time military technicians, would form the workforce to support LC–130 operations at both poles.
In March of 1998, a MOA [Memorandum of Agreement] was signed that, under the mutual authority of DOD and NSF, this new document transferred authority of airlift support to the Air Force with operational control belonging to the commander and chief of the U.S. Transportation Command, and the executive oversight belonging to the Secretary of the Air Force, through the Office of Reserve Affairs.
Throughout the transition, the 109th has continued to fly an ambitious training and operational schedule in support of science in Greenland. This complement to the 109th's activities in Antarctica maximizes continuity and support of NSF's bipolar research program and enables NSF to achieve a much desired economy of scale.
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In addition to the performance of the operational science support missions, the six months flown in Greenland are used for initial air crew qualification, air crew training, and upgrade on ski qualification. It is also viewed by the unit as a test bed for evaluation of new equipment and practices to enhance bipolar operations.
As a result of all the coordination has taken place over the past three years between military and non-military agencies supporting the USAP, the transition was effective. Cargo, fuel, and passengers moved in the first year of Air Force operational management reached record proportions, allowing the NSF to maintain an effective science program while transporting 3.5 million pounds of cargo to South Pole Station for the upgrade.
At this time, I would like to acknowledge Congress' initiatives, which have resulted in the initial authorization of funds to convert and modernize two Navy LC–130–R model aircraft to mandated Air Force configurations. Continued congressional support would result in a third LC–130–R model reconfiguration. That would allow the 109th to provide aggressive airlift support for South Pole modernization and safety upgrades, return to historic levels of science support for science missions, while, at the same time, enabling the unit to maintain vital military training requirements. This expanded fleet of LC–130 aircraft will meet USAP and DOD needs for more than 20 years.
A second request is for the support of acquisition of classified imagery of Antarctic field sites obtained from the National Reconnaissance Office. This, in addition to expanded utilization of systems, such as ground penetrating radar for evaluation of remote landing areas, differential global positioning systems for navigation, mobile microwave landing systems, precision radar approach, tactical navigation aids, and other instrument approaches, can greatly improve mission effectiveness and safety in operations in some of the most difficult flying conditions found on Earth. We support any and all initiatives by the NSF to explore and, if deemed appropriate, authorize these and other systems for use.
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In the Committee's letter, two additional areas of interest were identified: air traffic control and weather. Antarctic weather is incredibly complicated to predict—ice, fog, and fast moving storms, which cause blowing snow, can begin without warning, and because of the diminished visibility, that result can bring your operations to an immediate halt.
NSF has worked diligently with its contractors to improve forecasting. Possible aids under evaluation are improved satellite coverage of Antarctica and an increased number of remote sensors located throughout the continent, and in particular in the McMurdo area.
The second area of interest is the—of the Committee's is air traffic control. Antarctica is a non-radar flying environment. In the absence of a comprehensive ATC [Air Traffic Control] radar system, this can mean that appropriate time sequencing must be imposed to assure suitable flight separation.
Let me assure the Committee that this is appropriate and an adequate method of ensuring aircraft separation and safe flying environment.
Finally, this past summer, the 109th, along with the Air Force and the National Science Foundation have undergone an aggressive organizational risk management assessment of flight operations, management operations, and also logistics and maintenance procedures. Together, they are forming a comprehensive list of procedures that will allow the operation Deep Freeze Commander, the deployment commanders, or the air crew themselves to identify unacceptable risks and stop a mission or mitigate those risks before they become a problem in the mission.
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Thank you very much.
Chairman SMITH. Dr. Manahan.
TESTIMONY OF DONAL MANAHAN
Dr. MANAHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Donal Manahan. I am Director of the Polar Research Board of the National Academy.
I am trying to give you the sense of the science activities down there, briefly. But before I do, let me just say that I think it is not an understatement to say that American scientists feel that we have the best program in the world.
And so, when anything changes, there is concern. And the concern in this particular case, if I could have my computer on, please—the concern in this particular case is, as shown behind you here, this massive continent. And if you are going to change the logistics support in this particular case regarding South Pole redevelopment, the diversity of scientists were concerned about the fact that this might impact their science.
So, what I did in preparing for this testimony was to ask as many scientists as I could, through the Polar Research Board and through the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, to get feedback on this, and to let you know whether, in fact, remodernization is, in fact, impacting science. What I will say, briefly, is that the news is very good. I mean, for the most part, it is not. The scientists are very happy with what is going on.
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The requested input is briefly summarized here. I asked scientists to tell me, has South Pole construction affected their projects in any way, and also if, and when, we get through this difficult period in the next couple of years, what they see in the future for the future exciting science.
So, to the first question, has the modernization program affected science, has had a negative impact? Let me give you an example of the diversity of scientists who responded here, and, in many ways, you will see it is very positive.
Atmospheric scientists. An atmospheric scientist responded to say, I have only good things to say of the support that NSF Polar Programs have supplied, and that things are basically going very well.
In the field of life sciences and biology, take a look just here at the last sentence—that it is the best science support that my project members have ever received anywhere. That is a very profound statement for people coming from a university, and I think it is fair to say that many professional scientists working in Antarctica often feel that they get better support down there than they do at their home institutions in America.
In the field of physics, the physics of sea ice, now here is an area that might be impacted on ice in general and glaciology by travel and logistical support. Here's a comment from an ice physicist saying, as far as I can determine, none of these projects have been negatively impacted by ongoing construction efforts at the South Pole.
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In particle physics and in complex issues of astrophysics, the comment was NSF Polar Programs is cooperating with us and others to ensure that science is able to continue in parallel with station modernization.
Social scientists, too, feel things are going very well. To my knowledge, the social scientists have told us the modernization program has not had any negative impact on human biology and medicine programs in Antarctica.
There is one area, however, of concern, and that is illustrated here. It is in the geosciences, geology—individuals who need to go all over this continent, and, again, this is a unique aspect of the American program: that you can travel all over the continent due to the heavy lift support. And, indeed, it is true to say that there has been some impact.
I might say that these impacts were anticipated in testimony given by the NRC former chairs to this panel, two years ago—or three years ago, in July 1996. And it has also been anticipated by the National Science Foundation, telling principal investigators not, in the short term, to ask for deep field support when South Pole construction is going on.
Still, some geologists comment that perhaps waiting to 2003 is definitely going to impact your program. As it said here, I am confident that the Pole construction has certainly impacted more deep field parties than just our program. So there is an impact in the geological sciences, but the sense is in no other area of science.
On the second issue, let me try and tell you it is little sense of the modernization of science, and how people feel that this will be very positive, the modernization of South Pole.
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Overwhelmingly strong community support for this whole program of modernization of South Pole. Here are some comments, even from the geoscientists. South Pole redevelopment will provide tremendous scientific opportunities for us. In human biology and medicine, the comment was that it will only enhance our ability to conduct research. And a third effort with respect to modernization, even of McMurdo Station, is coming from folks in biology who are saying that the scientific facilities over the last several years have greatly enhanced our ability to conduct research in biology.
Also very encouraging is the strong interagency support. A senior scientist at NOAA had this comment: that the NOAA monitoring programs at South Pole will not only benefit the new facility at South Pole, but also other university and other interagency-based activities, dealing particularly with atmospheric science.
Let me conclude with a couple of comments about why we think the U.S. program is so important and frankly is the world's best, and to give you a sense of the diversity of science that is going on there, that is being improved by these modernization programs. Look at this top quote here. This is my favorite quote. Neutrino astrophysics. And basically, what this is all about is the concept of trying to understand the origin of the universe. And this last sentence talks about that as we get these better facilities at South Pole, it could change our way of perceiving the universe. A very profound statement.
In biology, my own field of science, let me add that some of the exciting things that are going on in the life sciences is trying to understand life on the edge. How does life work in extreme environments? What can we learn about those environments, about life, and how it evolved on this planet.
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So, in closing, let me say that I think any close examination of a complex program, like the Antarctic program, is obviously going to reveal some areas of problems in addition to areas of supreme excellence. But it is overwhelmingly my feedback and my impression with respect to the feedback I have had in preparing this testimony, that is, the excellence is definitely outweighing any of the problems. Thank you very much for the opportunity to talk to you.
Chairman SMITH. Our thanks is to you.
Dr. Erb, how do you determine the research that is going to be conducted at the Antarctic and determining whether that kind of research cannot be conducted in other areas—at the university setting or whatever—or cannot be conducted as accurately. And maybe get both you and Dr. Manahan to react to that.
Dr. ERB. Well, first of all, we—all the research that we support is subjected to—the first pass—the standard NSF merit review criteria. But in addition, we have an explicit review criterion in Polar programs, and that is that it has to meet that condition; that it can only be done in Antarctica or is best done, by far, in Antarctica.
Chairman SMITH. And is that prior—do you make that determination and analysis prior to the peer review?
Dr. ERB. It is part of the——
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Chairman SMITH. Or is that part of the peer review?
Dr. ERB. It is part of the peer review. But at the same time, we—the peer review for us is advisory, so even if the peer review does not weed out that—the occasional program that perhaps could have been done somewhere else—our staff do that.
Chairman SMITH. And do I understand there is about 100 research projects. How many research projects are ongoing?
Dr. ERB. It is on the order that are, yes.
Chairman SMITH. And give me a breakdown of how many are one-year projects or three-year or six-year?
Dr. ERB. Let me ask my staff if they have that information, and if they do not, we will get it for you, certainly for the record.
Chairman SMITH. Okay. Dr. Manahan, did you have a comment on the uniqueness?
Dr. MANAHAN. I have a brief comment. Yes, in the sense that a lot of—I am just speaking for my opinion. I have been involved in Antarctic research for about 15 years—is that I tend to go down there and do what I really need to do there. And if I need to analyze samples in some way, those are the things I will bring back to my lab in the United States.
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So, I think most scientists are very cognizant of this issue: that you go there to do what you just need to do. And if it is things you can do back at home, then you will bring the samples back.
So, there is a lot of that going in terms of——
Chairman SMITH. So I wondered if you see a greater dedication among the researchers; that they work longer hours or——
Dr. MANAHAN. Oh, my goodness.
Chairman SMITH. They do not go out and party or see too many——
Dr. MANAHAN. No.
Chairman SMITH. New York shows or——
Dr. MANAHAN. No, in fact, I was just down there in January of this year, a few months ago, with a team of 40 scientists from 35 different universities. And the work ethic is stunning. I mean, people are basically—in fact, we have to warn my graduate students, my post docs, not to work too hard, because you are in an environment where there is 24-hours light. So, oh, yes, I mean, it is really an intense work environment.
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Chairman SMITH. Doctor, roughly the breakdown of——
Dr. ERB. Most of our awards are for three years at a time. And approximately 60 percent of our budget is committed in any one year, so that about a third of our budget is available for new projects. We have a few projects to which we make longer-term commitments, the longest of which is the science and technology center program at South Pole, to which we initially made about a five-year commitment. And the idea was that if they performed well for the first five years, it could be renewed for another five years, at the end of which, though, it had to be terminated. So, we do not fund at NSF anything in perpetuity down there. It has to be continually screened through the peer review system.
Chairman SMITH. General, you suggested in your testimony that the supply system is between Christchurch and Schenectady, New York, and McMurdo. Is it possible that there is a more efficient system of logistics? Is it possible of improving the efficiency of flight operations?
General BERBERIAN. Well, as far as—excuse me, Chairman—as far as the supply system for the logistics support of the C–130s and the 109th group that is down there, what we have been able to do is establish a Air Force supplies point, both at McMurdo and Christchurch, New Zealand. So we are part of the big Air Force supply system, which allows National Science Foundation to only purchase equipment items or repair items and parts at the time that they need them. Otherwise, they are all part of the big Air Force supply system, and you do not have to pay for those things until you actually need them. It is kind of a just-in-time supply system.
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In the past, they had to anticipate what kind of parts they would need and supplies they would need; purchase them well ahead of time; ship them down to Christchurch and McMurdo, and consequently, when the transition did take place, there was a tremendous backlog of old parts and old pieces, most of which were no longer usable to the system.
This just-in-time system allows us to only use what we need.
Chairman SMITH. Dr. Erb, how do you react to the Government Performance and Results Act in analyzing the operations to management—the logistics, the efficiency of communication? Have we considered New Zealand as a staging point or Christchurch? I know we have a depot there.
Dr. ERB. Actually, the Results Act, for us in this particular area of support for science in Antarctica, was very welcomed and fit right into our plans. We evaluate every year, in a variety of ways, the performance of our contractors and of ourselves in getting science into the field. And we use those measures to indicate to ourselves and to the contractors where we can improve.
So, it is, for us, a very useful management tool.
Chairman SMITH. Representative Woolsey. I asked your permission. Representative Johnson.
Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. I actually got here before everybody got here, but I had to go over and vote, and you guys have voted and came this way.
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Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you holding this hearing because this Antarctica station is really of interest to me, and I have seen pictures and slides and all that. And my imagination goes wild. But the report did indicate that the stations are aging and they are costly to maintain and in some areas, there might be some questionable safety. Could you comment on that and tell me what it takes to bring them up to a point of whatever needs to happen?
Dr. ERB. Yes, I will be happy to. We initiated in 1997, the South Pole Safety and Environmental Upgrade. And that is nearing completion. It had three major components. It was funded by the Congress, authorized by the Committee at a level of $25 million.
The first piece was to build new storage for fuel. Previously, we had stored fuel in, essentially, bladders, and then there were fire hazards. They were hazards of spills. The new containment is completed. It is full. It contains 450,000 gallons of diesel fuel, jet fuel. Steel containers with confinement mechanisms. By Christmastime next year, approximately, we will have completed the second phase, which is the garage and mechanical equipment area—shops. That was a significant safety hazard. We had to exercise all sorts of extreme administrative procedures to enable people to work safely there. That will be finished. We will be transferring operations in the next austral summer season there.
So, we are really very, very comfortable and happy about that. And then the final phase will be completed shortly after that.
The modernization project is underway that would modernize the rest of the station. That will be completed in 2005. We are still in the procurement phase there. We are actually doing well on procurements. Procurements are coming in at or under the estimates, so we do not see any threats to completion of that project.
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By 2005, we think we will be in good shape for the next 25 years at South Pole.
Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Okay. You know, in early 1995, I was scheduled to come over, and we started acting up here, and these people shut the government down, and it had to be canceled. Now, we are going to act a little better this coming year, and I plan to try to go, so——
Dr. ERB. I hope you do.
Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. No, this place shut down. We shut government down for a short period, so it delayed our trip by—what?—about four or five years almost. But I wonder if your budget request is anticipated to change too much once you get to a certain point?
Dr. ERB. Well, as General Berberian said, a very important part of our budget request this year is for funds to convert the third LC–130 aircraft so that it meets Air Force standards. With that plane, then, we will be able to support science in the way we had been able to prior to initiation of the South Pole construction project. That is really very important for the momentum and the health of the science. It is a request for $12 million.
Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Do you have to be concerned about Y2K readiness?
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Dr. ERB. We do, indeed. We, in fact, invested a little over a million dollars of the savings that we realized when the Air Guard took over the operations from the Navy. A little over a million dollars of those savings we are spending this year, in fact, on Y2K compliance.
I think we are in good shape there, but we are not able—in March, we were supposed to have moved into a phase in which we demonstrated a certain level of compliance. But in March, Antarctica is inaccessible to us, because of the weather.
So, we think we are in good shape. We are doing everything we can to ensure that we are, and I have got my—we are all hoping for the best.
I am not worried about it, but——
Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Dr. Manahan, you indicate that most research fields have not been seriously affected by the diversion of logistical support from science missions to the South Pole Station modernization effort. And the geosciences, however, which have traditionally required support for work at the remote field site, have suffered from loss of air support. During this construction period, has NSF explicitly established priorities for science support among research fields in order to spread the pain equitably. What is the status of the physical audit required by the Chief Financial Officers Act?
Dr. MANAHAN. Can you repeat the last part of your question? The auditing of what?
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Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Oh, I am sorry. I have got my question mixed up here. During this construction period, has NSF explicitly established priorities for science support among research fields in order to spread the pain?
Dr. MANAHAN. Yes, it has, but in a way that, I think it was done quite effectively. They basically turned to the geoscience community and said, in the short term, please direct your scientists—in geology—towards areas that do not require this support.
So, it is not to say that there is not geological support. There still is strong geosciences support. It is just emphasizing other areas of the geosciences in the short-term. And the community has responded quite well to this, with redirecting scientists for proposals themselves to other areas within the geosciences, knowing that it is just a short-term change.
Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Thank you very much. My time has expired.
Mrs. MORELLA [presiding]. I guess I have an opportunity then to ask a few questions. I went to Antarctica in 1994. I will never forget it, and I think it is appropriate that we have this hearing today during a scorchingly hot day, and we come and talk about Antarctica and the fact that you wear the multi-layers, and everybody dresses the same, in their red jackets, and all.
I also, when I was there—there are so many things that have happened since then, and so many things happened then. There was a teleconference, a teleconference with schools throughout the United States, in terms of what was happening with the weather at McMurdo Station. And then there was another teleconference at the South Pole. I thought this was remarkable that these students could talk about the fact that, once upon a time, Antarctica was part of the whole mainland, and it was a tropical area, and how it separated, and I just thought this is what distance learning is all about, and Antarctica is a great opportunity for it; also global warming.
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But at the time also, we saw what was happening with the South Pole Station. And a constituent of mine, Norm Augustine, is the one who headed that task force that came out with the report which evidently is being followed. So it evidently was such a good report that now the modernization, from what you have said, is progressing exceedingly well.
I was also a co-sponsor, as were some other members of this Subcommittee and the full Committee, of the bill for the Antarctic Treaty. And I guess what I am going to ask you—well, okay, back to the South Pole. At the South Pole, I met a man who was a scientist. He was my constituent. He worked for NASA, and so that get backs to your idea that you have got these people who are passionate in their scientific interests and quests. And that is something that always has impressed me.
I am going to ask you about the Antarctic Treaty. Whether—I mean, it sets it up as a peaceful zone—whether there have been some implications with it that this Subcommittee might be interested in? Does it seem to have worked? We could use that in former Yugoslavia, of course. But I wonder if you might want to comment on the ratification of that treaty?
Dr. ERB. I would be happy to comment. It is a marvelous experiment, I think. We have a continent, as I said, the size of the United States and Mexico combined, governed in a collaborative way. Individual nations have—not the United States—but other nations have made territorial claims, but they have agreed to put all these claims into abeyance under the treaty. And to agree that the presence on the continent should be by any nation—should be either expressed scientific research or environmental stewardship. And the United States is active in both areas.
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I think it is working extremely well. An example of that is the way in which scientists collaborate with each other in Antarctica, not just sharing costs of experiments, but also sharing labor, and operating almost in a—oh, I have forgotten the expression—but a mode in which they exchange goods rather than cash. So, we operate sort of like a family on the continent. It is very refreshing.
Mrs. MORELLA. Also, when I was there, it was the Navy that did the support work. And I know now you have changed—they were starting to at that time—to the New York Air National Guard. How has that worked out?
Dr. ERB. That transition has gone very smoothly. It is now completed, and General Berberian and his staff now are leading the effort for flying the heavy lift aircraft on the continent. They took that over at the end of this season. Next season will be even better. We are really quite comfortable.
It has also led to considerable economies for us. And, in addition, the fact that the traditional Guardsmen, who come to the continent for two weeks, return home to their PTAs, their schools whatever, and carry the Antarctic story to their home communities in a way that I think gets young people more interested in science and research.
Mrs. MORELLA. Wonderful subject for young people.
Dr. ERB. It is, indeed.
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Mrs. MORELLA. And for science.
Any comments on that from you, General Berberian?
General BERBERIAN. Yes, this transition has been a three-year transition, but actually we really had about two and a half years to work the transition. One may think we started the process with seven ski airplanes. And as we transitioned from Navy stewardship of the Antarctic and Air Force stewardship of the Arctic in combining to this bipolar concept to develop economies, we have been able to modernize the fleet of LC–130s with the new R models coming on.
So we now have a fleet of airplanes that are modern and will continue to be modernized through the Air Force C–130 infrastructure for well in to the future.
But there was a steep learning curve. A lot of training had to be done. When we brought that many people into the Air Force—from other parts of the Air Force—into the Air National Guard, they had to be trained in polar operations and how to fly and maintain airplanes. We talk about flying LC–130s in the polar environments, but we do not talk very much about fixing those airplanes in those harsh environments. And it is a very key aspect.
The Guard is an excellent place to maintain that stewardship of fixing the airplanes, because, in general, people stay in one place for a long time. And you are probably familiar with how the Guard operates, where they do not move around all the time: And, therefore, you get some more senior, more experienced, crew chiefs and maintainers who have years and years of experience—sometimes 25 years of experience—working on the same airplanes.
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But the process has gone well and will continue to go even better in the future.
And I might add that we have done this in the—at the same time with supporting South Pole redevelopment, South Pole safety, and environmental—building that all up, and then building our aircrews up at the same time.
Mrs. MORELLA. That is good news. I am glad to hear it.
My time has expired. Just give me the percentage of recycling. Do you know, Dr. Manahan? I know it is extraordinary.
Dr. MANAHAN. I think it is as high as 70 percent, but Dr. Erb might have the correct number.
Mrs. MORELLA. I think it is even higher maybe? I do not know.
Dr. ERB. The last number I heard was 75 percent. Now, I do not know what it is. I can check that and see if it has gone higher or lower. But the last number I heard was 75 percent.
Mrs. MORELLA. And the highest in the United States is?
Dr. ERB. Oh, it is much lower than that. I do not know.
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Mrs. MORELLA. Something like 16 percent.
Dr. ERB. Yes.
Mrs. MORELLA. It is just extraordinary. It is 10 percent, more like it.
Ms. Rivers, I would like to—or is it Ms. Woolsey who's next? Splendid. Ms. Woolsey, I recognize you, with pleasure.
Ms. WOOLSEY. All right. Sorry. Science, you know.
Dr. ERB. That is technology.
Ms. WOOLSEY. All right. What I said is I total—okay, yes, right, technology. There is the difference. I cannot imagine what you have got down there. I plan to be there on the first trip that is made possible to us. Will we see some of the science besides seeing the structures, and all that—will show us what is going—what your experiments are and, when we are there?
Dr. ERB. The scientists will not let you get away without showing you their science, I can assure you.
Ms. WOOLSEY. Oh, all right.
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Dr. ERB. They are very, very proud of it, as we are. And as Dr. Manahan said, they are also extremely dedicated to it. There are people of all ages, but particularly you find a lot of young people down there just totally dedicated to what they are doing.
Ms. WOOLSEY. Do you have a mix of young—or men and women scientists?
Dr. ERB. We do. Both in the science, and in the support activity. Now, I think women comprise 30 percent of the workforce on the continent.
Ms. WOOLSEY. Well, that is good, because we have a big effort, or I do, for women in math and science and technology. It gets them in these better paying, more interesting jobs, too.
I have a general question. And, as you were speaking, it just keep reoccurring to me. When you talk about risk management—and on the ground and all that—how do you evaluate the risk of being there in the first place to our ecology, and to our habitat? And how do you evaluate that with the benefit of the science we are getting, so we are sure that we are coming out ahead in the long run?
Dr. ERB. We have two aspects of that. For personal risk, just very, very exhaustive medical requirements, as members who have been to the continent can attest.
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But risk to the environment. First of all, there are areas that are set aside, and any researcher would have to have a permit in order to get into that area and do research. And we evaluate the permit requests. We turn a lot of them down, not because people come in with evil intentions, but they just have not thought through what the effect on the environment might be.
For example, we saw in the film a penguin rookery, and to get into that area, you have to have a permit. So, we are very mindful of that. We are also—we also work very closely with the international tour operators so that when they bring tourists onto the continent, they are fully aware of what could happen if they were not careful with the environment. And we also operate training sessions for those tour operators.
Ms. WOOLSEY. So, when we talk about 3.5 million tons—or pounds—of cargo, generally?
Dr. ERB. Pounds.
Ms. WOOLSEY. Pounds? That is still a lot.
Dr. ERB. Three-and-half million pounds of cargo.
Ms. WOOLSEY. That is still a lot. It is a lot of cargo. So we know that bringing that much in and then out again, I hope, with our 75 percent recycling that we do as little damage as possible to that part of our world.
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Dr. ERB. Well, and for example, we have—at McMurdo Station, which is the staging area where the aircraft land when they first arrive from New Zealand and on their way to South Pole or wherever they go to deliver that cargo, we had a major effort to build new fuel tanks that have carefully designed berms around them to prevent fuel spills. And we have been rebuilding all the fuel distribution lines around the plant, again, to prevent fuel, which if it were to leak into the environment would, of course, degrade it.
Ms. WOOLSEY. Anybody else want to comment on that? Dr. Manahan?
Dr. MANAHAN. A comment I heard, an anecdotal one, but I think it puts things in perspective is that the size of the whole operation in McMurdo is the size of a large high school, on a continent bigger than the United States. So, the footprint is very small; and, therefore, you might imagine the down effect of those in terms of pollution issues. That is why, you know, we are very cognizant of them all the time. I believe it is a very small impact, personally.
Ms. WOOLSEY. But you keep that as one of your goals, I am sure? I hope?
Dr. MANAHAN. Yes, absolutely. I mean, every time we as a scientist go into the field to do things——
Ms. WOOLSEY. I think that would relieve me.
Dr. MANAHAN. Everything comes back to the lab, and then every single chemical gets recycled. In fact, the recycling of the chemistry, of the toxins and so forth that we use, is, again, much higher than anything we do back in my home institution in Los Angeles.
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Ms. WOOLSEY. A good part of it is because getting it there is very difficult in the first place, but that is good. That shows cause and effect.
And so, General Berberian, if we come, you would do the flying. You would bring us there? You would take care of us?
General BERBERIAN. I will take care of you, and someone else will do the flying.
Ms. WOOLSEY. Well, I mean your crew.
General BERBERIAN. You do not want me to fly the airplane anymore.
Ms. WOOLSEY. No.
General BERBERIAN. Well, an added a comment about environmental: The transition to the Air National Guard has resulted in a smaller footprint as well on the continent, because of different economies of scale and also contractorization. They are fewer of the 109th people that are on the continent at any one point in time. So we make less waste.
Ms. WOOLSEY. That is good. Thank you.
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Dr. ERB. Could I just add one comment?
Ms. WOOLSEY. Yes.
Dr. ERB. If when you visit, if you talk to the cafeteria worker or any of the maintenance, anybody on the continent, you will discover that they are environmentalists. They do not come to the continent as environmentalists, but they absorb the atmosphere there, the attitude, and when they leave they are really committed.
Ms. WOOLSEY. Good. Thank you very much.
Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Ms. Woolsey. It is a pleasure to recognize Ms. Rivers. This is not a partisan conspiracy.
Ms. RIVERS. Just to follow up on something that Representative Woolsey mentioned, I represent a major university, and I cannot get down the hall without scientists dragging me in to show me their science, so I am sure we will get a chance to see that. And actually speaking of that university, after looking over your vitae, Dr. Erb, I would say to you, go blue—as. Dr. Erb has both his masters and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.
Dr. ERB. All right. Thank you.
Ms. RIVERS. As excited as we are about going to Antarctica, I know that there are others that are equally excited, and I know reference was made to the fact that tourists do come to the continent and visit. And I am particularly interested in some of the logistics of dealing with that in terms of the environment and then also in terms of the science.
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Dr. Erb, do you have trouble with that? And do you see disruptions in the science. Maybe if Dr. Manahan, too?
Dr. ERB. When I think about tourism, I think about it in sort of two different groups of tourists. One is the group that comes down on the large ships, the organized tour operator activities. And we have worked where there is now an International Association of Tour Operators that we have worked with closely for a number of years, and developed procedures that they follow quite religiously, I think it is fair to say.
It does take some of our resources. We have one person on staff who works with them on and off throughout the year. Probably it is a third of a full-time effort for that person. But it is well worth it, because I think it does keep that activity constrained and responsive, and responsible.
There are about 10,000 such tourists in that category each year. It may be a significant increase next year with the millennium. We are hearing from the tour operators that there is a lot of interest in going to Antarctica for the turn of the millennium.
The other category, though, are—I suppose they are best called the adventure tourists. There are only a few hundred of them that come to the continent each year. They cause us difficulties in different ways. They get into trouble, and we have to go rescue them. Part of the Antarctic Treaty is that we assume responsibility for the safety of anybody who is within an area where we can help them.
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And these ecotourists or adventure tourists do sometimes get themselves into situations where we have to divert an aircraft that we would rather be using for something different to rescue them. It is rare, but it happens often enough that we have instituted a policy, for example, of charging full cost recovery, I guess would be the expression, for the rescue operation, in hopes that they will convince the operators of the tour, the adventure tour networks to be more responsible at the outset.
Ms. RIVERS. Do these adventure people come in on boats, airplanes?
Dr. ERB. Typically, on airplanes.
Ms. RIVERS. And how do you handle that in terms of air traffic control, or do you have a problem?
Dr. ERB. We do not—we do not, either on aircraft or ship, we do not really provide guidance to them, but we also do not refuse permission to land. In fact, I do not think we can refuse permission to land. It could be enough of a problem in the future that we will have to adopt a more rigorous policy, but we have not had to up until now.
Ms. RIVERS. Dr. Manahan, have you seen disruption of scientific work because of outsiders or people that are there?
Dr. MANAHAN. The only case I have heard of occasionally is a very pristine environment called the dry valley, which I hope you get to see. It is a remarkable place, which is near McMurdo. And some of the tour guides fly in their own helicopters into those areas. And so they have been working closely with the long-term ecological monitoring program that is sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The scientists who are running that long-term program are trying to prevent those sort of impacts.
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Personally, I have seen no impact at all on my science or people that I have worked with closely. But I think that is, in part, because we are in McMurdo, where it is a little more difficult to get there. When they do come, they come in shiploads, and they are given the round of the base in a very formal way. I have heard anecdotally of similar problems in the Palmer Peninsula area, which, of course, is a much easier area to get access to by ship.
Ms. RIVERS. And was this research into animal populations or what sort of——
Dr. MANAHAN. These would be issues of sometimes getting access to rookeries. Obviously, that is big thing. You see on everything you see about Antarctica, there is going to be photograph of a penguin, and so that is what people want to see. And those are always sensitive scientific areas, where they are being used a lot of the time for issues of population study. So any damage to those areas are particularly sensitive.
But I would totally concur with Dr. Erb that, for everything I am hearing about the tour operators, they are extremely respectful of this need to not interfere with ongoing long-term science projects.
Ms. RIVERS. Dr. Berberian, or General Berberian, do you see any problems, logistical problems, with planes, more planes coming in, more boats coming in, and the job you have to do?
General BERBERIAN. No, I do not. We anticipate that with the new airplanes coming, it will have more capability, and we are also working very hard on better navigation aids, better approach aids, to help us have less turn around flights—the boomerang flights as you mentioned earlier.
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So, we see that, through enhancements to the flying program, that we will be able to keep ahead of the traffic problems.
Ms. RIVERS. Are you concerned at all about the other planes in the air not having radar capability or not being aware of you? Are your folks in danger in any way?
General BERBERIAN. No, there are many—most places on Earth do not have positive air traffic control radar facilities available. We have them here in the United States, of course, and most of Europe and the more populated places do. But much of the wilderness parts of the world do not have positive radar control.
What we are looking at, though, are a number of comprehensive improvements, and in particular in the McMurdo area, of in the future possibly creating a positive radar environment and that depends. But we are looking at that to see what the costs would be involved and the benefits of doing that. So presently, what we do is we control the departure and arrival times of aircraft and also altitude staging. And occasionally, there will be a delay of the take-off time, to make sure, especially in weather days, to make sure that we do have proper separation.
The number of flights in now and in the foreseeable future really do not present a problem.
Ms. RIVERS. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Ms. Rivers. It is rare, indeed, though, that tourists get to go to McMurdo, is not that correct? Or has that changed? I mean, when you get your tour ships in and the planes, you do not let them go to McMurdo, do you? Whoever wants to answer, Dr. Erb?
Dr. ERB. The tour ships do come into McMurdo Sound each year. I think the number is on the order—and this is a little bit of a guess, so somebody behind me will nod one way or the other—six or seven ships each year, which maybe means 500 to 1,000 tourists. Let us get a calibration. It is about that?
Mrs. MORELLA. About that.
Dr. ERB. But when they arrive in McMurdo, they are, as Dr. Manahan said, escorted around town. We have a fixed tour that we allow them to take, which keeps them from causing environmental trouble.
Mrs. MORELLA. Because, actually, I thought the questions that Ms. Rivers asked were most pertinent, because I, myself, was wondering about—you know, I read brochures now, and I see they have got these wonderful, you know, trips going to Antarctica, going by Chile, and I wondered about what was happening. It is becoming a very popular place because people are curious about it.
Dr. ERB. I have talked to some tour operators, and asked them if they expect that industry to grow, and they do not really.
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Mrs. MORELLA. They do not.
Dr. ERB. Because it is so expensive. It is a trip maybe, in round numbers, $15,000 per person. So they view it as a niche business.
Mrs. MORELLA. I know, speaking of the penguin rookeries, that it is against the law to harass a penguin, and they are very serious about all of that. I thought it was significant.
Also, as another totally irrelevant comment on my part, I think the best food in the world is at the South Pole. It is absolutely superb. McMurdo is pretty good, too, but the South Pole is terrific. I hope they still have the cooks of that cuisine.
Dr. Erb, as you know, there are some in Congress that are concerned that the Antarctic logistics and research is usurping money from the Arctic research. In Fiscal Year 1999, Arctic research received a 37 percent increase over Fiscal Year 1998, but at about $49 million, it is still far less than the $200 million going to support Antarctica and its operations.
I wondered could you explain, for the record and for us, what some of the differences are in operating the Antarctic versus the Arctic environment?
Dr. ERB. Yes. I would be happy to.
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First, I should say that augmentation of the Arctic logistics activity will enable us to mount a much more effective program of research in the Arctic. It is true that to do research in the Arctic, one has to get into the field, just as in Antarctica. And that costs money. The difference, however, is that there is an intrinsic infrastructure there. There are people who live in the Arctic. There are oil companies operating in Alaska, for example. And they have built up a sizeable infrastructure that we can tap into as well.
So we do not have to build an airstrip necessarily. We do not have to build a road. We just have to be able to get people where they need to be. So, the requirements are very different. I think with this current level of spending for Arctic infrastructure, which is about $20 million a year, or $22 million a year, over time, we can build up a program that will allow us to do the important science that we want to do.
What we need to be able to do in particular is to gain year-round access to the research cites. Some of the most interesting science in the Arctic in this context is life science. Life at the edge, as Dr. Manahan said. And one does not really know how those life systems handle the environment until you can observe them all year long, not just in the summer, but in the winter.
So these funds will be very useful in allowing us to monitor environmental systems, ecosystems, and so on. During the Arctic winter, we will be able to get there year-round.
Mrs. MORELLA. Well, I certainly hope that you will be able to continue with that level of interest and research and support that you have been receiving from Congress and from others.
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I guess I will ask you about the international community. I remember McMurdo is right next to, is it, New Zealand's post, where we visited?
Dr. ERB. Yes.
Mrs. MORELLA. Right where we visited. I mean, it was a nice exchange among the stations. Can you tell us something about the international cooperation, if it does exist. And what came from that? This would go for any of you two. I do not mean to be monopolizing you, Dr. Erb.
Dr. ERB. I will just answer then very briefly.
Mrs. MORELLA. Okay.
Dr. ERB. And let Dr. Manahan move on. I will just mention one. Since you mentioned the New Zealanders, we have a collaborative research project with them at Cape Roberts. It is a drilling project. It involves six nations. In addition to New Zealand, it is Italy, Germany, Great Britain, and it is—we pay about a third of the cost, but a little bit less. It is probably 27 percent, 28 percent of the total cost of that. It is studying the way that whole part of the world evolved, going back 80 million years, as the continents, which once were all gathered around each other, began to separate. Deep ocean trenches developed. And the whole climate changed in that world. That is a fascinating research project and it is thoroughly international in nature. It is—a lot of it is operated on the basis of a barter economy. That is the word I was trying to think of earlier. Let me then turn to Dr. Manahan.
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Dr. MANAHAN. If I could put on my professorial hat for a moment, as a professor, one of the things that works well I think in these cooperations is through education. And I am director of an education program in Antarctica, the largest of its kind actually, that involves—now we are in our fourth year of doing this—an international training program to get scientists from various different countries, at the Ph.D. or newly minted Ph.D., early in their careers, get young scientists who have never been to Antarctica before to start to work together.
So in the last program when I was involved in February of this year, we had individuals from Canada, from Russia, from the United Kingdom, from Germany, working alongside American scientists for a month, working on projects together.
I think there is room for improvement there with respect to the international collaborations. But I think if we can started by picking out the young and the best and the brightest from these various countries at early stages in their career and involve them in these programs, I think that will bode well for the future.
Mrs. MORELLA. General Berberian, if you would like to make a brief comment? I know my time has expired.
General BERBERIAN. Yes, I just wanted to add in a flight environment, all the international flyers use the same procedures, oceanic procedures. And there is positive control, and all the nations use that where they make position reports. They fly given altitudes by the oceanic control for the transit from New Zealand down to the continent, and then across the continent as well. And there is a lot of shared activity in fueling, loading, operations, and weather. So there is quite a bit of cooperation in the flight community.
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Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you. Thank you gentlemen, and I am very pleased now to recognize Mr. Etheridge.
Mr. ETHERIDGE. We are going to have to appropriate more money for mikes.
You know, we think about how our weather is affected by so many things until we get out on a day like today and try to walk three blocks as hot as it is. But my question to each of you, if you will respond on this, because I think, and it follows up what the Chairlady was just talking about, or at least alluding to, I think. And I would like to follow that up as it relates to having your assessment on the degree of international cooperation on large research projects.
And secondly, should we, as a Congress, be looking toward funding fewer or more joint venture projects of this type? And I would like for each of you to comment on that, if you would.
Dr. ERB. Let me start, if I might. I had just asked my colleagues behind me if they knew what the temperature was at South Pole right now, and we think it is around 70 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.
Mr. ETHERIDGE. If that is not one of the things you know when people talk about on average—it is like the river on average is six inches deep. It just happened to be 12 feet in one place, and 3 inches in another.
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Dr. ERB. Well, we think it is a good guess for today, but we could be wrong.
International collaboration is very important, I think, on scientific research projects. It happens naturally at the science at this level. Scientists get together in an natural way, and then the next challenge is for the funding agencies in the different governments to get together, to find ways of working together so that they can provide the kind of oversight that we all want to be able to provide and so on.
I mentioned the Cape Roberts project a moment ago. We have the Amanda project, which was mentioned earlier, a neutrino astrophysics project has significant cost sharing from Sweden, for example, and from Germany. And also, significant intellectual horsepower coming from those countries.
So those are real success stories. We believe that that is the way to go in the future. We also believe that the fixed infrastructure, for example, things that life support systems depend on, probably should not be realized in Antarctica on the basis of an international collaboration. You really need to—if you are flying an LC–130, you probably need to have one chain of command that you can look to and hold responsible for safety.
Dr. MANAHAN. I could comment that of the 80 or so different scientists who I have worked with from different countries in the last few years in Antarctica, many of them from the non-U.S. community, are absolutely staggered at the sophistication of the United States program. And I know they would love to be more involved.
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Now, how that translates into their getting government support at their end to join us is another issue. But I know, as I said, speaking to these younger scientists who are staring their careers, many of whom are from very sophisticated science countries—for instance, the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, and so forth—the sophistication of logistical support that we have, our ability to get anywhere on that continent, our laboratories are, by far, the world's best. And other countries are very envious of this. I am sure it could translate into much better collaboration.
As Dr. Erb said, it is usually done on a one-to-one basis without formal involvement of scientists—of government support necessarily from other countries. But I am beginning to see hints, now, of one of the scientists that we have brought down. And because he was able to come down and get some preliminary data, he was then able to get the Spanish government to formally support him to go back in the future.
So, a lot of this is a question of access. A lot of these other scientists cannot get there. They cannot get to the environments that we take for granted when we are part of the U.S. program. And, therefore, it is very hard for them to get to what we need to generate grant proposals, which are basic preliminary data, to be able to say, this is a good idea. But that is beginning to start happening, I think.
I am very encouraged by these interactions in the last few years.
Mr. ETHERIDGE. General.
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General BERBERIAN. Yes, we have a good relationship with the New Zealand Air Force, mostly because we are staging out our home in Christchurch. But we can improve upon that relationship as well, and we are looking at ways where we can do that.
We also have a contract with Air New Zealand in Christchurch. They actually built the skis on the three newest ski airplanes, and do unscheduled maintenance during the year that might come up. And then after the season, after the Antarctic season is over, we have a contract where they can also do depot level maintenance, too. And this makes for a very warm and cordial relationship there in Christchurch as well.
Mr. ETHERIDGE. I know I am running short, and we will be running out of time very quickly.
But let me follow that up a little more, because this to me it is very important, because as we start make policy, I would like to know that we can do that will enrich the opportunities for us to expand our base tremendously with the other scientific communities, who may not have access, but are there things we can do that would not compromise any of our security or any of the things we are doing. That will help us reach out, and shorten that time frame of improving and enriching the scientific opportunities.
Dr. MANAHAN. Well, I might comment. Early on, from testimony, Dr. Erb made the comment that most American scientists spend a lot of time planning to get down there in the following sense that we have a large rejection rate of American scientists who already want to go down. And, as a result, we have more and more of some of America's best scientists who want to go to Antarctica to do research. So how we balance that is going to be quite subtle. I mean, if you start to give away our limited logistics to more international programs, it is going to mean less American scientists can join, and that is a tricky one.
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Dr. ERB. It is important for us to look for a good quid pro quo. New Zealand, for example, can bring a lot to the table, and that really makes it—as can Italy in the region of McMurdo—and that it makes it a lot easier to set up these international collaborations.
Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Mr. Etheridge.
Obviously, there is a tremendous reduction of scientists staff support during the winter season. There would have to be. I remember hearing about some people who would go into the greenhouse in order to just get the light, so they didn't go wacky. Is that geared on a certain percentage or are there enough people there to maintain whatever needs to be maintained? And what does need to be maintained during that winter?
Dr. ERB. In the winter in the South Pole, for example, people are there primarily, first of all, to keep the systems operating, but also to keep the instrumentation up, to keep the science coming out. What our goal is is for the scientists to be down there in the summer; get all the equipment—let us say it is a telescope set up—so that we can leave the technician behind. And the scientist then can monitor the experiment from their homes, the University of Michigan—whether they make adjustments, in fact, through the Internet, to the instrumentation, and then communicate with the technician when something goes wrong so as to help the technician fix the instrument.
So, we really do not necessarily—that is the way we are designing the program. It means that we need actually not more people on site during the winter, but we need better communications capabilities. And that is probably means satellite communications. I did talk about that in my written testimony.
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Mrs. MORELLA. Good. I would like to ask you about whether or not you have seen any manifestation of global warming in Antarctica.
Dr. ERB. I will ask Dr. Manahan to comment in just a moment, but just this week there was an article in nature magazine. It was published. We have been collaborating with the Russians and French—another major international collaboration over the last decade—to take an ice core. It goes two miles into the ice in Antarctica. It carries a history of temperature that goes back 430,000 years. And this work was just published this week in nature magazines, nature journals. And it shows a number of cycles during which—over that period of time, 400,000 years, during which temperature, CO2, and methane would spike upward, spike downward, going through ranges of 20 degrees Fahrenheit roughly. So, in fact, there has been this enormous history of wild temperature fluctuations in Antarctica and in Greenland, too, we know from Greenland ice cores. So, historically, yes, there is excellent evidence of that.
In the shorter term, in Antarctica, there is evidence that on some parts of Antarctica that the ice sheets are thinner than they were; that the ice cover in other parts of Antarctica—the evidence seems to be the contrary. Maybe, Dr. Manahan wants to comment in more detail on that. We are trying to establish correlations among different cites in Antarctica, as well as between Antarctica and Greenland, for example, to determine whether what we are seeing are local variations or global variation.
Dr. MANAHAN. That is a very good question that you posed to us because certainly polar scientists on both the Arctic and the Antarctic feel that those two areas are probably the best, if I can use the analogy of the canary in the coal mine. I mean, if there are likely to be global climate changes, we would most likely pick up those effects on organisms, as we said, that are living on the edge of these environments. That is why biologists are very interested in it.
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I think the carbon dioxide monitoring program that has been run at South Pole by NOAA and others, again, the data are suggesting clearly warming areas in certain parts of the continent. People have looked with satellites at the extent of sea ice formation and retraction each year. But, again, this is a personal opinion. It is not certain. Something that I would say that all the scientists would agree on at this point is that the jury is still out on this point as to whether we are seeing global warming effects at the poles.
We are definitely seeing warming trends in certain areas. But whether this would be linked as yet to something of the global scale is still under much heated discussion in the scientific community.
Mrs. MORELLA. I ask the question because periodically we see articles in the newspapers that point out some occurrence that leads to the possibility that there is a global warming.
Well, I am going to give you all an opportunity for any parting shots that you may have; that there is any comment you want to have on the record. You want this Subcommittee to hear about the work you are doing in Antarctica; what we should know to represent the continent better, and hope you will let us know.
Shall we start off with the general?
General BERBERIAN. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with the Committee and present the testimony. We are very interested in our relationship with National Science Foundation; are building a very strong relationship, and look forward to supporting science at both poles for many, many years to come.
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Mrs. MORELLA. Excellent. Great. Dr. Erb.
Dr. ERB. Thank you. I, too, would like to speak for just a second to the partnership we have with the Air National Guard 109th Airlift Wing, as well as with NASA, Department of Energy, USGS, and all of our other colleagues in the Federal Government who helped make this program a success. NOAA is a significant player in the program, for example, of monitoring ozone changes and trying to understand in better detail the chemistry of all these activities, all these processes.
But I would particularly like to the thank the Committee for its support for the program over the years that without which I do not think we would be where we are now.
Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Dr. Erb.
Dr. MANAHAN. I would like to make a comment about the word communication. What we are faced with here, scientifically, is basically everything that we imagine, from astrophysics to zoology, all crammed into one program within the National Science Foundation that normally is handled by dozens of different program managers.
And this, and then on top of this, we have the interagency aspects. But what this has done is set up—and it is in a remote environment—it sets up a real challenge to communicate to, among the scientific community about what is going on down there; to the public; to yourselves. And how we deal with this, I think, needs a little bit of work as improvement, and I made this comment in my written testimony. There is ways clearly to do it, with Web and Internet. But do keep that in mind that you are talking about an extreme place that is far, far away with respect to communication issues, and you are doing such complex science that it is obviously, there is going to be certain degree of disgruntlement over certain issues. But, no, I was very pleased that there was so little as I looked at this in the last couple of years in preparing the testimony today. But things are going very, very well.
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Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you for that recommendation, too. I think you are probably right on target with regard to the communications. But it is rather unique to have such a hearing where things can be moving along exceedingly well. There are no major requests for more than what probably will be budgeted. And that there—there have been some achievements that help throughout the world with what is happening. And it certainly is the place every living creature and every fossil is revered and looked at ever so closely.
Also, today, I was at a press conference. Some of my colleagues, we introduced a bill that dealt with looking at the oceans, and this is something else we have not done too much of internationally in terms of that as a resource. And it is something that when you mentioned NOAA was very reminiscent of more work that we need to do in that vein.
So, if Mr. Etheridge has no other question or comment he would like to make, then, I wanted to thank Dr. Erb, and General Berberian, and Dr. Manahan for your expertise and for being with us, and giving us your testimony and your commitment.
And so the Subcommittee on Basic Research is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:40 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
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