Antarctic Climate Evolution 2Nd Edition Fabio Florindo Full Chapter PDF

Antarctic Climate Evolution, 2nd
Edition Fabio Florindo

Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/antarctic-climate-evolution-2nd-edition-fabio-florindo/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...
European Economic Governance: Theories, Historical

Evolution, and Reform Proposals Fabio Masini
https://ebookmass.com/product/european-economic-governance-
theories-historical-evolution-and-reform-proposals-fabio-masini/
Evolution 2nd Edition, (Ebook PDF)
https://ebookmass.com/product/evolution-2nd-edition-ebook-pdf/
Genetics and Evolution of Infectious Diseases 2nd

Edition Michel Tibayrenc (Editor)
https://ebookmass.com/product/genetics-and-evolution-of-
infectious-diseases-2nd-edition-michel-tibayrenc-editor/
Global Climate Change and Human Health 2nd Edition Jay

Lemery
https://ebookmass.com/product/global-climate-change-and-human-
health-2nd-edition-jay-lemery/
Constituting Freedom: Machiavelli and Florence Fabio
Raimondi
https://ebookmass.com/product/constituting-freedom-machiavelli-
and-florence-fabio-raimondi/
Effects of Climate Change on Birds 2nd Edition Peter O.

Dunn
https://ebookmass.com/product/effects-of-climate-change-on-
birds-2nd-edition-peter-o-dunn/
The Economics of John Maynard Keynes Fabio Terra
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-economics-of-john-maynard-
keynes-fabio-terra/
The Domestic Dog: Its Evolution, Behavior and

Interactions with People 2nd
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-domestic-dog-its-evolution-
behavior-and-interactions-with-people-2nd/
Thorp and Covich's Freshwater Invertebrates: Keys to

Neotropical and Antarctic Fauna 4th Edition Cristina
Damborenea
https://ebookmass.com/product/thorp-and-covichs-freshwater-
invertebrates-keys-to-neotropical-and-antarctic-fauna-4th-
edition-cristina-damborenea/
Antarctic Climate Evolution
Antarctic Climate
Evolution
Second Edition
Edited by
Fabio Florindo
National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, Rome, Italy
Martin Siegert
Grantham Institute and Department of Earth Science and Engineering,
Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
Laura De Santis
National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics—OGS,
Sgonico, Trieste, Italy
Tim Naish
Antarctic Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington,
Wellington, New Zealand
Elsevier
Radarweg 29, PO Box 211, 1000 AE Amsterdam, Netherlands
The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, United Kingdom
50 Hampshire Street, 5th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Details on how to seek
permission, further information about the Publisher’s permissions policies and our
arrangements with organizations such as the Copyright Clearance Center and the Copyright
Licensing Agency, can be found at our website: www.elsevier.com/permissions.
This book and the individual contributions contained in it are protected under copyright by the
Publisher (other than as may be noted herein).
Notices
Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research and
experience broaden our understanding, changes in research methods, professional practices, or
medical treatment may become necessary.
Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in
evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein.
In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety
of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility.
To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or editors,
assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of
products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods,
products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
ISBN: 978-0-12-819109-5
For Information on all Elsevier publications

visit our website at https://www.elsevier.com/books-and-journals
Publisher: Candice Janco

Acquisitions Editor: Marisa LaFleur
Editorial Project Manager: Andrea Dulberger
Production Project Manager: Paul Prasad Chandramohan
Cover Designer: Miles Hitchen
Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India
Contents
List of contributors xiii

Preface xvii
1. Antarctic Climate Evolution second edition 1

Fabio Florindo, Martin Siegert, Laura De Santis and Tim R. Naish
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Structure and content of the book 4
Acknowledgements 5
References 5
2. Sixty years of coordination and support for Antarctic

science the role of SCAR 9
Fabio Florindo, Antonio Meloni and Martin Siegert
2.1 Introduction 9
2.2 Scientific value of research in Antarctica and the Southern
Ocean 10
2.3 The international framework in which SCAR operates 15
2.4 The organisation of SCAR 16
2.5 Sixty years of significant Antarctic science discoveries 20
2.6 Scientific Horizon Scan 22
2.7 Summary 25
References 26
Appendix 27
3. Cenozoic history of Antarctic glaciation and climate

from onshore and offshore studies 41
Robert M. McKay, Carlota Escutia, Laura De Santis, Federica Donda,
Bella Duncan, Karsten Gohl, Sean Gulick, Javier Hernández-Molina,
Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand, Katharina Hochmuth, Sookwan Kim,
Gerhard Kuhn, Robert Larter, German Leitchenkov, Richard H. Levy,
Tim R. Naish, Phil O’Brien, Lara F. Pérez, Amelia Shevenell
and Trevor Williams
3.1 Introduction 41
3.2 Long-term tectonic drivers and ice sheet evolution 44
v
vi Contents
3.3 Global climate variability and direct evidence for Antarctic ice
sheet variability in the Cenozoic 46
3.3.1 Late Cretaceous to early Oligocene evidence of
Antarctic ice sheets and climate variability 47
3.3.2 The Eocene-Oligocene transition and continental-scale
glaciation of Antarctica 50
3.3.3 Transient glaciations of the Oligocene and Miocene 51
3.3.4 Pliocene to Pleistocene 57
3.4 Regional seismic stratigraphies and drill core correlations,
and future priorities to reconstruct Antarctica’s Cenozoic
ice sheet history 59
3.4.1 Ross Sea 61
3.4.2 Amundsen Sea 71
3.4.3 Bellingshausen Sea and Pacific coastline of Antarctic
Peninsula 76
3.4.4 The Northern Antarctic Peninsula and South Shetland
Islands 81
3.4.5 The Eastern Margin of the Antarctic Peninsula 82
3.4.6 The South Orkney Microcontinent and adjacent
deep-water basins 84
3.4.7 East Antarctic Margin 88
3.5 Summary, future directions and challenges 120
Acknowledgements 124
References 125
4. Water masses, circulation and change in the modern

Southern Ocean 165
Lionel Carter, Helen Bostock-Lyman and Melissa Bowen
4.1 Introduction 165
4.1.1 Defining the Southern Ocean 166
4.2 Water masses characteristics and distribution 167
4.2.1 Upper ocean 167
4.2.2 Intermediate depth waters 171
4.2.3 Deep water 173
4.2.4 Bottom water 174
4.3 Southern Ocean circulation 176
4.3.1 Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) 176
4.3.2 Southern Ocean meridional overturning circulation
(SOMOC) 177
4.3.3 Deep western boundary currents 178
4.3.4 Subpolar circulation gyres, slope and coastal currents 180
4.4 Modern Southern Ocean change 182
4.4.1 Climate change 182
4.4.2 Ocean change 183
4.4.3 Change in dynamics and circulation 185
4.5 Concluding remarks 186
References 187
Contents vii
5. Advances in numerical modelling of the Antarctic ice

sheet 199
Martin Siegert and Nicholas R. Golledge
5.1 Introduction and aims 199
5.2 Advances in ice sheet modelling 200
5.2.1 Grounding line physics 200
5.2.2 Adaptive grids 202
5.2.3 Parallel ice sheet model PISM 203
5.2.4 Coupled models 203
5.3 Model input bed data 204
5.4 Advances in knowledge of bed processes 206
5.5 Model intercomparison 208
5.6 Brief case studies 209
5.7 Future work 211
References 212
6. The Antarctic Continent in Gondwana: a perspective

from the Ross Embayment and Potential Research
Targets for Future Investigations 219
Franco Talarico, Claudio Ghezzo and Georg Kleinschmidt
6.2 The Antarctic plate and the present-day geological setting
of the Ross Embayment 221
6.3 East Antarctica 224
6.3.1 The Main Geological Units during the
Paleoproterozoic Early Neoproterozoic
Rodinia Assemblage 224
6.3.2 From Rodinia breakup to Gondwana (c. 800 650 Ma) 230
6.3.3 The ‘Ross Orogen’ in the Transantarctic Mountains
during the late Precambrian early Paleozoic evolution
of the paleo-Pacific margin of
Gondwana (c. 600 450 Ma) 237
6.4 West Antarctic Accretionary System 241
6.4.1 West Antarctica in the Precambrian to Mesozoic
(c. 180 Ma) evolution of Gondwana until the middle
Jurassic breakup 244
6.5 Mesozoic to Cenozoic Tectonic Evolution of the
Transantarctic Mountains 255
6.6 Tectonic evolution in the Ross Sea Sector during the Cenozoic 259
6.7 Concluding remarks, open problems and potential research
themes for future geoscience investigations in Antarctica 264
6.7.1 Persistent challenges for onshore geoscience
investigations 264
6.7.2 Antarctica and the Ross Orogen in the Transantarctic
Mountains 265
viii Contents
6.7.3 Antarctica after Gondwana fragmentation 267

References 269
7. The Eocene-Oligocene boundary climate transition:

an Antarctic perspective 297
Simone Galeotti, Peter Bijl, Henk Brinkuis, Robert M. DeConto,
Carlota Escutia, Fabio Florindo, Edward G.W. Gasson, Jane Francis,
David Hutchinson, Alan Kennedy-Asser, Luca Lanci,
Isabel Sauermilch, Appy Sluijs and Paolo Stocchi
7.2 Background 299
7.2.1 Plate tectonic setting 299
7.2.2 Antarctic paleotopography 301
7.2.3 Paleoceanographic setting 302
7.2.4 Global average and regional sea level response 302
7.2.5 Proxies to reconstruct past Antarctic climatic and
environmental evolution 303
7.2.6 Far-field proxies 304
7.3 Antarctic Sedimentary Archives 305
7.3.1 Land-based outcrops 305
7.3.2 Sedimentary archives from drilling on the Antarctic
Margin 313
7.4 Summary of climate signals from Antarctic sedimentary
archives 326
7.4.1 Longer-term changes 326
7.4.2 The climate of the Eocene-Oligocene transition 329
7.5 The global context of Earth and climate system changes
across the EOT 332
7.5.1 Climate modelling 333
7.5.2 Relative sea-level change around Antarctica 336
7.6 Summary 339
7.6.1 Early middle Eocene polar warmth 340
7.6.2 Late Eocene cooling 340
7.6.3 Eocene-Oligocene transition 341
References 342
8. Antarctic Ice Sheet dynamics during the Late Oligocene
and Early Miocene: climatic conundrums revisited 363
Tim R. Naish, Bella Duncan, Richard H. Levy, Robert M. McKay,
Carlota Escutia, Laura De Santis, Florence Colleoni,
Edward G.W. Gasson, Robert M. DeConto and Gary Wilson
8.2 Oligocene-Miocene Transition in Antarctic geological records
and its climatic significance 366
Contents ix
8.3 Conundrums revisited 371

8.3.1 What caused major transient glaciation of Antarctica
across the OMT? 371
8.3.2 Apparent decoupling of Late Oligocene climate
and ice volume? 374
8.4 Concluding remarks 378
References 380
9. Antarctic environmental change and ice sheet

evolution through the Miocene to Pliocene a
perspective from the Ross Sea and George
V to Wilkes Land Coasts 389
Richard H. Levy, Aisling M. Dolan, Carlota Escutia,
Edward G.W. Gasson, Robert M. McKay, Tim R. Naish,
Molly O. Patterson, Lara F. Pérez, Amelia E. Shevenell,
Tina van de Flierdt, Warren Dickinson, Douglas E. Kowalewski,
Stephen R. Meyers, Christian Ohneiser, Francesca Sangiorgi,
Trevor Williams, Hannah K. Chorley, Laura De Santis,
Fabio Florindo, Nicholas R. Golledge, Georgia R. Grant,
Anna Ruth W. Halberstadt, David M. Harwood, Adam R. Lewis,
Ross Powell and Marjolaine Verret
9.1.1 Overview and relevance 390
9.1.2 Far-field records of climate and ice sheet variability 395
9.1.3 Southern Ocean Paleogeography and Paleoceanography 409
9.1.4 Land elevation change and influences on Antarctic Ice
Sheet evolution 411
9.2 Records of Miocene to Pliocene climate and ice sheet
variability from the Antarctic margin 412
9.2.1 Introduction to stratigraphic records 412
9.2.2 George V Land to Wilkes Land Margin 414
9.2.3 The Ross Sea Embayment and Southern Victoria Land 424
9.3 Numerical modelling 453
9.3.1 Miocene 453
9.3.2 Pliocene 456
9.4 Synthesis/summary of key climate episodes and transitions in
Antarctica through the Miocene and Pliocene 461
9.4.1 Early to mid-Miocene 461
9.4.2 Miocene Climate Optimum 463
9.4.3 Miocene Climate Transition 466
9.4.4 Late Miocene 473
9.4.5 Pliocene 475
9.5 Next steps 479
References 482
x Contents
10. Pleistocene Antarctic climate variability: ice sheet,

ocean and climate interactions 523
David J. Wilson, Tina van de Flierdt, Robert M. McKay
and Tim R. Naish
10.1 Background and motivation 523
10.1.1 Introduction 523
10.1.2 Orbital cyclicity and climate 526
10.1.3 Antarctic feedbacks in the global climate system 527
10.1.4 Strengths of Pleistocene research on Antarctica 528
10.2 Archives of Pleistocene Antarctic climate and
climate-relevant processes 529
10.2.1 Polar ice cores 529
10.2.2 Deep-sea paleoceanographic records 535
10.2.3 Ice-proximal sedimentary records 543
10.3 Records of global and Southern Ocean climate during
the Pleistocene 545
10.3.1 Global sea level 545
10.3.2 Sea surface temperatures 549
10.3.3 Intermediate and deep ocean temperatures 550
10.3.4 Antarctic temperatures and atmospheric CO2 551
10.3.5 Sea ice extent and dust supply 552
10.4 Late Pleistocene carbon cycle and climate dynamics 553
10.4.1 Controls on glacial interglacial atmospheric CO2 553
10.4.2 Southern Ocean mechanisms based on sea ice,
ocean circulation and deep stratification 553
10.4.3 Southern Ocean mechanisms based on dust supply,
productivity and nutrient utilisation 557
10.4.4 Sequence of changes through the last glacial cycle 558
10.4.5 Millennial climate variability and the bipolar seesaw 561
10.5 Antarctic Ice Sheet dynamics in the late Pleistocene 565
10.5.1 Climate context 565
10.5.2 Global evidence on the Antarctic Ice Sheet 566
10.5.3 Regional studies of Antarctic Ice Sheet behaviour
before the LGM 568
10.5.4 Regional evidence on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet 568
10.5.5 Regional evidence on the East Antarctic Ice Sheet 571
10.5.6 Mechanisms of Antarctic Ice Sheet retreat and insights
from ice sheet modelling 577
10.5.7 Millennial variability and ice sheet ocean climate
feedbacks 581
10.6 Antarctica during earlier Pleistocene climate states 583
10.6.1 Lukewarm interglacials 583
10.6.2 Super-interglacial MIS 31 585
10.6.3 Mid-Pleistocene Transition 586
10.7 Future research on Antarctica in the Pleistocene 591
10.7.1 Motivation and outlook 591
Contents xi
10.7.2 IODP Expedition 374: Ross Sea West Antarctic Ice

Sheet History 592
10.7.3 IODP Expedition 379: Amundsen Sea West Antarctic
Ice Sheet History 593
10.7.4 IODP Expedition 382: Iceberg Alley and Subantarctic
Ice and Ocean Dynamics 593
10.7.5 IODP Expedition 383: Dynamics of Pacific Antarctic
Circumpolar Current 594
References 595
11. Antarctic Ice Sheet changes since the Last Glacial

Maximum 623
Martin Siegert, Andrew S. Hein, Duanne A. White,
Damian B. Gore, Laura De Santis and Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand
11.2 Response of the ice sheets to glacial climate and late
Quaternary ice sheet reconstructions 625
11.3 Constraining late Quaternary ice sheet extent, volume and
timing 627
11.4 Last interglacial (Eemian, B130 116 ka) 629
11.5 Last Glacial Maximum, subsequent deglaciation and the
Holocene (B20 0 ka) 630
11.5.1 Queen Maud/Enderby Land 631
11.5.2 Mac.Robertson Land/Lambert Glacier-Amery Ice
Shelf/Prydz Bay 632
11.5.3 Princess Elizabeth Land to Wilkes Land 633
11.5.4 Ross Sea sector 636
11.5.5 Amundsen-Bellingshausen Seas 641
11.5.6 Antarctic Peninsula 646
11.5.7 Weddell Sea Embayment 650
11.6 Discussion: pattern and timing of post-LGM ice retreat
and thinning 659
11.7 Summary 661
References 662
12. Past Antarctic ice sheet dynamics (PAIS) and

implications for future sea-level change 689
Florence Colleoni, Laura De Santis, Tim R. Naish, Robert M. DeConto,
Carlota Escutia, Paolo Stocchi, Gabriele Uenzelmann-Neben,
Katharina Hochmuth, Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand, Tina van de Flierdt,
Lara F. Pérez, German Leitchenkov, Francesca Sangiorgi,
Stewart Jamieson, Michael J. Bentley and David J. Wilson
12.1 Research focus of the PAIS programme 689
xii Contents
12.2 Importance of evolving topography, bathymetry, erosion

and pinning points 695
12.3 Reconstructions of Southern Ocean sea and air surface
temperature gradients 701
12.4 Extent of major Antarctic glaciations 705
12.5 Antarctic ice sheet response to past climate warmings 712
12.6 Antarctica and global teleconnections: the bipolar seesaw 721
12.7 The PAIS legacy: bridging the past and the future 725
12.7.1 The PAIS legacy 725
12.7.2 Challenges for the next programmes 729
12.7.3 Long-term projections and role of PAIS and future
programs 731
12.8 Coauthors from the PAIS community 733
References 735
Further reading 766
13. The future evolution of Antarctic climate: conclusions

and upcoming programmes 769
Martin Siegert, Fabio Florindo, Laura De Santis and Tim R. Naish
13.1 Introduction: the past is key to our future 769
13.2 Upcoming plans and projects 771
13.3 Conclusions 774
References 774
Index 777
List of contributors
Michael J. Bentley Department of Geography, Durham University, Durham, United

Kingdom
Peter Bijl Laboratory of Palaeobotany and Palynology, Department of Earth
Sciences, Marine Palynology and Paleoceanography, Utrecht University, Utrecht,
the Netherlands
Helen Bostock-Lyman School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of
Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
Melissa Bowen School of Environment, University of Auckland, Auckland, New
Zealand
Henk Brinkuis Laboratory of Palaeobotany and Palynology, Department of Earth
the Netherlands; Coastal Systems Department, Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea
Research, Utrecht University, Den Burg, the Netherlands
Lionel Carter Antarctic Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington,
Hannah K. Chorley Antarctic Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington,
Wellington New Zealand
Florence Colleoni National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics –
OGS, Sgonico, Italy
Laura De Santis National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics –
OGS, Sgonico, Italy
Robert M. DeConto Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts,
Amherst, Amherst, MA, United States; Institute for Climate Change Solutions,
Frontone, Italy
Warren Dickinson Antarctic Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington,
Aisling M. Dolan School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds,
United Kingdom
Federica Donda National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics –
OGS, Sgonico, Italy
Bella Duncan Antarctic Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington,
Carlota Escutia Andalusian Institute of Earth Sciences, CSIC and Universidad de
Granada, Armilla, Spain
xiii
xiv List of contributors
Tina van de Flierdt Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College
London, London, United Kingdom
Fabio Florindo National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, Rome, Italy;
Institute for Climate Change Solutions, Frontone, Italy
Jane Francis British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Simone Galeotti Department of Pure and Applied Sciences, University of Urbino
Carlo Bo, Urbino, Italy; Institute for Climate Change Solutions, Frontone, Italy
Edward G.W. Gasson School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol,
Bristol, United Kingdom; Centre for Geography and Environmental Science,
University of Exeter, Cornwall Campus, United Kingdom
Claudio Ghezzo Department of Physical, Earth and Environmental Sciences,
University of Siena, Siena, Italy
Karsten Gohl Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz-Center for Polar and Marine
Science, Bremerhaven, Germany; School of Geography, Geology and the
Environment, University of Leicester, Leicester, United Kingdom
Nicholas R. Golledge Antarctic Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington,
Damian B. Gore Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Macquarie
University, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Georgia R. Grant GNS Science, Avalon, Lower Hutt, New Zealand
Sean Gulick Institute for Geophysics & Deptartment of Geological Sciences,
Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX,
United States
Richard H. Levy Antarctic Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington,
Wellington, New Zealand; GNS Science, Lower Hutt, New Zealand
Anna Ruth W. Halberstadt Climate System Research Center, University of
Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, United States
David M. Harwood Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of
Nebraska, Lincoln, NE, United States
Andrew S. Hein School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh,
United Kingdom
Javier Hernández-Molina Department of Earth Sciences, Royal Holloway
University of London, Egham, Surrey, United Kingdom
Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Katharina Hochmuth School of Geography, Geology and the Environment,
University of Leicester, Leicester, United Kingdom; Alfred Wegener Institute,
Helmholtz-Center for Polar and Marine Science, Bremerhaven, Germany
David Hutchinson Department of Geological Sciences and Bolin Centre for Climate
Research, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
Stewart Jamieson Department of Geography, Durham University, Durham, United
Kingdom
List of contributors xv
Alan Kennedy-Asser BRIDGE, School of Geographical Sciences, University of

Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom
Sookwan Kim Korea Polar Research Institute, Incheon, Republic of Korea
Georg Kleinschmidt Institute for Geosciences, University of Frankfurt, Frankfurt,
Germany
Douglas E. Kowalewski Department of Earth, Environment, and Physics, Worcester
State University, Worcester, MA, United States
Gerhard Kuhn Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz-Center for Polar and Marine
Science, Bremerhaven, Germany; School of Geography, Geology and the
Environment, University of Leicester, Leicester, United Kingdom
Luca Lanci Department of Pure and Applied Sciences, University of Urbino Carlo
Bo, Urbino, Italy; Institute for Climate Change Solutions, Frontone, Italy
Robert Larter British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, United Kingdom
German Leitchenkov Institute for Geology and Mineral Resources of the World
Ocean, St. Petersburg, Russia; Institute of Earth Sciences, St. Petersburg State
University, St. Petersburg, Russia
Richard H. Levy GNS Science, Avalon, Lower Hutt, New Zealand; Antarctic
Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
Adam R. Lewis Department of Geosciences, North Dakota State University, Fargo,
ND, United States
Robert M. McKay Antarctic Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington,
Wellington, New Zealand; School of Earth and Environment, University of
Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom
Antonio Meloni National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, Rome, Italy
Stephen R. Meyers Department of Geoscience, University of Wisconsin-Madison,
Madison, WI, United States
Tim R. Naish Antarctic Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington,
Christian Ohneiser Department of Geology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New
Zealand
Phil O’Brien Department of Environment and Geography, Macquarie University,
Sydney, NSW, Australia
Molly O. Patterson Department of Geological Sciences and Environmental Studies,
Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY, United States
Lara F. Pérez British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Ross Powell Department of Geology and Environmental Geosciences, Northern
Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, United States
Francesca Sangiorgi Laboratory of Palaeobotany and Palynology, Department of
Earth Sciences, Marine Palynology and Paleoceanography, Utrecht University,
Utrecht, The Netherlands
xvi List of contributors
Laura De Santis National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics,

Trieste, Italy
Isabel Sauermilch Laboratory of Palaeobotany and Palynology, Department of Earth
the Netherlands; Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of
Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, Australia
Amelia E. Shevenell College of Marine Science, University of South Florida, St.
Petersburg, FL, United States
Martin Siegert Grantham Institute and Department of Earth Science and
Engineering, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
Appy Sluijs Laboratory of Palaeobotany and Palynology, Department of Earth
the Netherlands; Institute for Climate Change Solutions, Frontone, Italy
Paolo Stocchi Laboratory of Palaeobotany and Palynology, Department of Earth
The Netherlands; Coastal Systems Department, Royal Netherlands Institute for
Sea Research, Utrecht University, Den Burg, the Netherlands; Institute for
Climate Change Solutions, Frontone, Italy
Franco Talarico Department of Physical, Earth and Environmental Sciences,
University of Siena, Siena, Italy; National Museum for Antarctica, University of
Siena, Siena, Italy
Gabriele Uenzelmann-Neben Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Center for Polar
and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, Germany
Tina van de Flierdt Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College
London, London, United Kingdom
Marjolaine Verret Antarctic Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington,
Duanne A. White Institute for Applied Ecology, University of Canberra, Canberra,
ACT, Australia
Trevor Williams International Ocean Discovery Program, Texas A&M University,
College Station, TX, United States
David J. Wilson Institute of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University College
London and Birkbeck, University of London, London, United Kingdom;
Department of Earth Sciences, University College London, London, United
Kingdom
Gary Wilson GNS Science, Lower Hutt, New Zealand
Preface
In July 2008, we published the first edition of Antarctic Climate Evolution;

the first book dedicated to understanding the origin and development of the
world’s largest ice sheet and, in particular, how it responded to and influ-
enced climate change during the Cenozoic. The book’s content largely mir-
rored the structure of the Antarctic Climate Evolution (ACE) program,
which was an international initiative of the Scientific Committee on
Antarctic Research (SCAR), to investigate past changes in Antarctica by
linking climate and ice-sheet modelling studies with terrestrial and marine
geological and geophysical records. ACE was succeeded by another SCAR
programme named Past Antarctic Ice Sheet dynamics (PAIS), which existed
between 2013 and 2020. By building on the ACE legacy, and because of sig-
nificant improvements in ice-sheet modelling and the acquisition of palaeo-
climate records in key regions, PAIS led to new insights into Antarctica’s
contribution to former global sea-level change over timescales from centuries
to multiple millennia. PAIS also helped to understand better the interconnec-
tions between ice-sheet mass loss and atmospheric and oceanic processes at
local, regional and global levels.
The second edition of Antarctic Climate Evolution is a result of both SCAR
programmes, and serves to document the ‘state of knowledge’ concerning ice
and climate evolution of the Antarctic continent and its surrounding seas from
the beginning of the Cenozoic era to the present day. We hope the book will
continue to be of interest to research scientists from a wide range of disciplines
including glaciology, palaeoclimatology, sedimentology, climate change, envi-
ronmental science, oceanography and palaeoentology. We also anticipate that it
can serve as a guide to those wishing to understand how Antarctica has chan-
ged in the past, and how past change can inform our future.
Fabio Florindo1, Martin J. Siegert2, Laura De Santis3 and Tim R. Naish4

1
National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, Rome, Italy, 2Grantham
Institute and Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial
College London, London, United Kingdom, 3National Institute of
Oceanography and Applied Geophysics—OGS, Sgonico, Trieste, Italy,
4
Antarctic Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington,
New Zealand
xvii
Chapter 1
Antarctic Climate Evolution

second edition
Fabio Florindo1, Martin Siegert2, Laura De Santis3 and
Tim R. Naish4
1
National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, Rome, Italy, 2Grantham Institute and
Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College London, London, United
Kingdom, 3National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics OGS, Sgonico, Italy,
4
Antarctic Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
1.1 Introduction
The Antarctic continent and the Southern Ocean are influential components
of the Earth System. Central to the understanding of global climate change
(including increases in temperature, precipitation and ocean pH) is an appre-
ciation of how the Antarctic Ice Sheet interacts with climate, especially dur-
ing times of rapid change. To comprehend the rates, mechanisms and impact
of the processes involved, one must look into the geological record for evi-
dence of past changes, on time scales from centuries and up to millions of
years. For several decades, international efforts have been made to determine
the glacial, tectonic and climate history of Antarctica and the Southern
Ocean. Much of this information derives from studies of sedimentary
sequences, drilled and correlated via seismic reflection data in and around
the continent (e.g., Cooper et al., 2009). In addition, there have been numerous
terrestrial geological expeditions to the mountains exposed above the ice,
usually close to the margin of the ice sheet (e.g., GANOVEX expeditions).
Holistic interpretation of these data is now being made, and new challenging
hypotheses on the size and timing of past changes in Antarctica are being
developed.
In 2004 the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR)
commissioned a scientific research programme on Antarctic Climate
Evolution (ACE) to quantify the glacial and climate history of Antarctica by
linking climate and ice sheet modelling studies with terrestrial and marine
geological and geophysical evidence of past changes. ACE grew out of the
ANTOSTRAT (ANTarctic Offshore STRATigraphy) project, which was
Antarctic Climate Evolution. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-819109-5.00007-4

© 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1
2 Antarctic Climate Evolution
sanctioned by SCAR in 1990 to reconstruct the Cenozoic palaeoclimatic and

glacial history of the Antarctic region from the study of the sedimentary
record surrounding the continent. The main achievements of ANTOSTRAT
and ACE were published in a set of special issues (Barrett et al., 2006;
Escutia et al., 2012; Florindo et al., 2003, 2005, 2008, 2009) and summarised
in the first edition of this book published in December 2008 (Florindo and
Siegert, 2008). ACE was followed from 2013 to 2020 by the Past Antarctic
Ice Sheet (PAIS) dynamics programme, which continued to work on con-
straining Antarctica’s contribution to sea level resulting from past changes in
ice sheet mass loss, and understanding its impacts on global environments
through changes to atmospheric and oceanic circulation. Based on paleo
analysis, PAIS aimed to bound the estimates of future ice loss in key areas
of the Antarctic margin with a multidisciplinary geoscientific approach
and, importantly, by integrating observations and records with numerical
models.
The PAIS research philosophy was based on data data and data model
integration and intercomparison, and the development of ‘ice-to-abyss’ data
transects, extending from the ice-sheet interior to the deep sea (Fig. 1.1). The
‘data transect’ concept links ice cores, ice sheet-proximal information, off-
shore sediments and far-field records of past ice sheet behaviour and sea
level change, allowing reconstructions of former ice sheet geometries, and ice
sheet ocean processes and their interactions. Different sectors respond dif-
ferently to external forcing due to a variety of constraints including bed
topography and geology, proximity to warm water masses and ice accumula-
tion rates (to list a few), so results from one sector are not necessarily repre-
sentative of the whole of Antarctica. Therefore PAIS aimed to develop
several transects across numerous regions. These integrated datasets enable
robust testing of a new generation of ice-sheet models (Siegert and Gollege,
2021), which are beginning to be coupled with glacial isostatic, atmosphere
and ocean models.
ANTOSTRAT, ACE and PAIS stratigraphic studies were based on a
huge compilation of multichannel seismic profiles, collected by many nations
and made freely available via the Antarctic Seismic Data Library System,
established and endorsed in 1991 by SCAR and by the Antarctic Treaty for
scientific cooperation and research purposes (see McKay et al., 2021).
Extensive PAIS-facilitated fieldwork on land and at sea has been planned
and undertaken within a framework of national and multinational projects,
including International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) expeditions 374
(in 2018) (McKay et al., 2019), 379 (Gohl et al., 2021) and 382 (Weber
et al., 2021) (in 2019). PAIS research addressed some of the key questions
formulated by the 20-year Scientific Horizon Scan for understanding
Antarctic and Southern Ocean processes (Kennicutt et al., 2014, 2015, 2016,
2019), was influential in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) (IPCC, 2014), the IPCC Special
FIGURE 1.1 PAIS research approach. Left panel: Change of relative sea level caused by a deglaciation episode in West Antarctica normalised by the ocean-
averaged value, obtained solving the Sea Level Equation for an elastic Earth. Central panel: Proposed drilling strategy using International Ocean Discovery
Program drilling platforms to collect records linking climate, ice sheet and sea level histories on geologic time scales. Right panel: Ice sheet volume reconstruc-
tions for extreme interglacials considering four forcing mechanisms (sub-ice-shelf oceanic melting, sea level changes, annual precipitation changes and tempera-
ture changes from present). Black dots in the right panel indicate the ANDRILL, the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) deep and shallow
(SHALDRILL and MeBO) drill sites recovered from 2010 to 2019. Grey dots are pending/approved IODP proposals developed during PAIS. Left panel:
Adapted from Spada, 2017, (Spada and Melini, 2019), Central panel: Adapted from figure 2.6 of (Bickle et al., 2011); Right panel: Adapted from Pollard and
DeConto (2009).
Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (IPCC, 2019)

and the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), (IPCC, 2021), which will be
published in full during 2022.
The deep-sea oxygen isotope and atmospheric CO2 records (Fig. 1.2)
show an overall climate cooling combined with ice volume increase and
CO2 decline during the Cenozoic, punctuated by events recognised in both
seismic and sedimentary records. The reconstructions of environmental con-
ditions, and ice-sheet response, during such events have been a focus of
PAIS, with the aim to provide the IPCC with such knowledge to better
understand future changes we are locked into and those we can still avoid.
This book is a culmination of findings from both ACE and PAIS, and still
benefiting from the legacy of ANTOSTRAT. It documents the state of
knowledge concerning the ice and climate evolution of the Antarctic continent
and its surrounding seas through the Cenozoic era.
1.2 Structure and content of the book

The book opens with a chapter (Chapter 2) (Florindo et al., 2021a) that pro-
vides a background to the role of SCAR in over 60 years of coordination and
support of high-quality scientific research in the Antarctic and Southern Ocean.
Chapter 3 (McKay et al., 2021) summarises the current state of knowledge of
Cenozoic climate history in Antarctica in the context of near- and far-field
records, followed by a detailed discussion of the seismic stratigraphy, and drill
core constraints and palaeoclimatic records preserved within this stratigraphy,
from around the continental margin. Chapter 4 (Carter et al., 2021) focuses on
Chapte r 13 Chapte r 13 Chapte r 13 Chapte r 13

Chapte r 11
Chapte r 7 Chapte r 8 Chapte r 9 Chapte r 10
Epoch Cret. Paleocene Eocene Oligocene Miocene Pliocene Pleistocene Holocene pocene
Anthro
Maa
Da n
Mes
las t 1000 0 las t 150 300 years

Aqu
Ypr
Rup
Zan
Cha
Lan
Tor
Lut
Tha
Bur
Gel
Cal
Bar
Ser
Ionian Tarantian
Pri
Pia
Sel
Stage years years into the future
Magneto-
chron
C 11
C29
C27
C22
C13
C28
C10
C24
C21
C20
C19
C23
C12
C30
C25
C18
C17
C26
C16
C15
C7
C4
C3
C2
C1
C8
C5
C6
C9
16
East Antarctica
West Antarctica Southern Hemisphere polar ice 16
-1.0 Middle Eocene
Climat e Optimum Northern Hemisphere sheets
0.0 12 Eocene/Oligocene Miocene Las t Glacial 12

Mean deep-sea temperature
Climat e Optimum Middle-Pliocene Maximum

Benthic δ 18 O (‰)
Transition
difference to toda y (°C)
War m Period
Earl y Eocene
Climat e Optimum RCP8.5
1.0 Oligocene/Miocene
Transition
Middle Miocene Plio-Pleistocene
8
8 Transition Transition
Middle-Pleistocene
2.0 benthic deep-sea Transition
record
4 mid-Brunhes 4
Event RCP4.5
3.0 RCP2.6
0 0
4.0 HadCRUT4
Oi-1
-4 Glaciation -4
5.0
EPIC A Dome C NGRIP
65 60 55 50 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 4 3 2 1 400 200 20 10
50
00
50
00
18
20
21
23
Million Years Before Present) kyr Before Present Year
FIGURE 1.2 Global climate spanning the last 67 million years and future projections of cli-
mate change. Specific time periods in Antarctic history that are discussed in this book (Chapters
7 11 and 13) are indicated at the top. Published with permission by Thomas Westerhold.
Antarctic Climate Evolution second edition Chapter | 1 5
the modern oceanography to provide a physical basis for realistic reconstructions

of past environments in Antarctica. Chapter 5 (Siegert and Golledge, 2021)
synthesises developments in ice sheet modelling over the last decade, and how
they have helped to understand the growth and decay of ice sheets during the
glaciated history of Antarctica. Chapter 6 (Talarico et al., 2021) provides an
overview of the Antarctic continent evolution from its inclusion as part of the
Gondwana supercontinent to the break-up of this landmass and the repositioning
of Antarctica at southern polar latitudes since the Early Cretaceous.
From Chapters 7 to 11, the book presents a series of reviews dealing with
specific time periods in Antarctic history: Eocene/Oligocene (Chapter 7)
(Galeotti et al., 2021), Oligocene/Miocene (Chapter 8) (Naish et al., 2021),
Miocene to Pliocene (Chapter 9) (Levy et al., 2021), Pleistocene
(Chapter 10) (Wilson et al., 2021) and the Last Glacial Maximum and
Holocene (Chapter 11) (Siegert et al., 2021a). Chapter 12 (Colleoni et al.,
2021) focuses on how PAIS research has improved our understanding about
the ice and climate evolution of the Antarctic continent and its surrounding
seas through the last 65 million years. The final Chapter 13 (Siegert et al.,
2021b) briefly summarises the PAIS legacy and highlights research priorities
needed for over the next decade to answer key scientific questions on the
role of the Antarctic continent in global climate change.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to our many friends and colleagues for advice and encouragement through
the production of this volume. We thank Andrea Dulberger, Editorial Project Manager of
Elsevier Science, for the support in the production of this book. During the preparation of
this book, our colleague and friend Franco Talarico, lead author of Chapter 6 (The
Antarctic Continent in Gondwana: A perspective from the Ross Embayment and Potential
Research Targets for Future Investigations) died unexpectedly on 15th December 2020.
This book is dedicated to his memory.
References
Bamber, J.L., Riva, R.E.M., Vermeersen, B.L.A., LeBrocq, A.M., 2009. Reassessment of the
potential sea-level rise from a collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet. Science 324 (5929),
901 903. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1169335.
Barrett, P.J., Florindo, F., Cooper, A.K. (Eds.), 2006. Antarctic climate evolution: geological
records from the margin and modelling. Palaegeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology,
231, 1 252.
Bickle, M., Arculus, R., Barrett, P., DeConto, R., Camoin, G., Edwards, K., Fisher, F., Inagaki, F.,
Kodaira, S., Ohkouchi, N., Palike, H., Ravelo, C., Saffer, D., Teagle, D., 2011. Illuminating
Earth’s Past, Present and Future. The Science Plan for the International Ocean Discovery
Program 2013 2023. IODP: Integrated ocean drilling program, Washington, D.C.:
Integrated Ocean Drilling Program.
Carter, L., et al., 2021. Circulation and water masses. In: Florindo, F., et al., (Eds.), Antarctic
Climate Evolution, Second ed. Elsevier.
Colleoni, F., et al.,PAIS community 2021. Past Antarctic ice sheet dynamics (PAIS) and implica-
tions for future sea-level change. In: Florindo, F., et al., (Eds.), Antarctic Climate Evolution,
Second ed. Elsevier.
Cooper, A.K., Brancolini, G., Escutia, C., Kristoffersen, Y., Larter, R., Leitchenkov, G., et al.,
2009. Cenozoic climate history from seismic reflection and drilling studies on the Antarctic
continental margin. In: Florindo, F., Siegert, M. (Eds.), Developments in Earth and
Environmental Sciences, Vol. 8: Antarctic Climate Evolution. Elsevier, Amsterdam,
pp. 115 228.
Escutia, C., DeConto, R., Florindo, F., Bentley, M. (Eds.), 2012. Cenozoic evolution of
Antarctic climates, Ocean and Ice Sheets. Palaegeography, Palaeoclimatology,
Palaeoecology 335 336, 1 94.
Florindo, F., et al., 2021a. Sixty-years of Coordination and Support for Antarctic-Science - The
role of SCAR. In: Florindo, F., et al., (Eds.), Second ed. Elsevier.
Florindo, F., et al., 2021. Antarctic Climate and Ice Sheet Evolution. In: Second ed. Elsevier.
Florindo, F., Cooper, A.K., O’Brien, P. (Eds.), 2003. Cenozoic paleoenvironments: geologic
record and models. Palaegeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 198, 1 278.
Florindo, F., Harwood, D.M., Wilson, G.S. (Eds.), 2005. Long-term changes in Southern high-
latitude ice sheets and climate, the Cenozoic history. Global and Planetary Change 45,
1 264.
Florindo, F., Harwood, D.M., Levy, R. (Eds.), 2009. Cenozoic Antarctic glacial history. Global
and Planetary Change 69 (3), 1 184.
Florindo, F., Haywood, A.M., Nelson, A.E. (Eds.), 2008. Antarctic cryosphere and Southern
Ocean climate evolution (Cenozoic-Holocene). Palaegeography, Palaeoclimatology,
Palaeoecology 260 (1 2), 1 298.
Florindo, F., Siegert, M. (Eds.), 2008. Antarctic Climate Evolution. Developments in Earth and
Environmental Sciences Series, vol. 8, Elsevier, pp. 1 593.
Galeotti, S., et al., 2021. The Eocene/Oligocene boundary climate transition: an Antarctic per-
spective. In: Florindo, F., et al., (Eds.), Antarctic Climate Evolution, Second ed. Elsevier.
Gohl, K., Wellner S., J., Klaus, A., Expedition 379 Scientists, 2021. Amundsen Sea West
Antarctic Ice Sheet History. Proceedings of the International Ocean Discovery Program,
379: College Station, TX (International Ocean Discovery Program). Available from: https://
doi.org/10.14379/iodp.proc.379.2021.
IPCC, 2014. Climate change 2014: Synthesis report. In: Core Writing Team, Pachauri, R.K.,
Meyer, L.A. (Eds.), Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment
Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland,
p. 151.
IPCC, 2019. IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate. Pörtner,
H.-O., Roberts, D.C., Masson-Delmotte, V., Zhai, P., Tignor, M., Poloczanska, E., et al.
(Eds.). Available from: https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc/.
IPCC, 2021. Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group
I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Masson-Delmotte, V., Zhai, P., Pirani, A., Connors, S.L., Péan, C., Berger, S., et al. (Eds.),
Cambridge University Press. Available from: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-
report-working-group-i/.
Kennicutt, M., et al., 2014. Six priorities for Antarctic science. Nature 512, 23 25.
Kennicutt, M., et al., 2015. A roadmap for Antarctic and Southern Ocean science for the next
two decades and beyond. Antarctic Science 27, 3 18. Available from: https://doi.org/
10.1017/S0954102014000674.
Antarctic Climate Evolution second edition Chapter | 1 7
Kennicutt, M.C., Bromwich, D., Liggett, D., Njåstad, B., Peck, L., Rintoul, S.R., et al., 2019.
Sustained Antarctic Research: A 21st Century Imperative. One Earth. 1, 95 113. Available
from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2019.08.014.
Kennicutt, M.C., Kim, Y., Finnemore-Rogan, M., Anandakrishnan, S., Chown, S.L., Colwell, S.,
et al., 2016. Delivering 21st century Antarctic and Southern Ocean science. Antarctic
Science 28, 407 423. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954102016000481.
Levy, R.H., et al., 2021. Antarctic Environmental Change and Ice Sheet Evolution through the
Miocene to Pliocene A perspective from the Ross Sea, George V Coast, and Wilkes
Land. In: Florindo, F., et al., (Eds.), Antarctic Climate Evolution, Second ed. Elsevier.
McKay, R., et al., 2021. Cenozoic History of Antarctic Glaciation and Climate from Onshore
and Offshore Studies. In: Florindo, F., et al., (Eds.), Antarctic Climate Evolution, Second
ed. Elsevier.
McKay, R.M., De Santis, L., Kulhanek, D.K., the Expedition 374 Scientists, 2019. Ross sea
West Antarctic Ice Sheet history. Proceedings of the International Ocean Discovery Program
374. Available from: https://doi.org/10.14379/iodp.proc.374.2019. College Station, TX
(International Ocean Discovery Program).
Naish, T., et al., 2021. Antarctic Ice Sheet dynamics during the Late Oligocene and Early
Miocene: Climatic conundrums revisited. In: Florindo, F., et al., (Eds.), Antarctic Climate
Evolution, Second ed. Elsevier.
Pollard, D., De Conto, R., 2009. Modelling West Antarctic ice sheet growth and collapse
through the past five million years. Nature 458, 329 332. Available from: https://doi.org/
10.1038/nature07809.
Siegert, M.J., et al., 2021a. Antarctic Ice Sheet Changes since the Last Glacial Maximum.
In: Florindo, F. (Ed.), Antarctic Climate Evolution, Second ed. Elsevier.
Siegert, M.J., et al., 2021b. The Future Evolution of Antarctic Climate: Conclusions and
Upcoming Programmes. In: Florindo, F., et al., (Eds.), Antarctic Climate Evolution, Second
ed. Elsevier.
Siegert, M.J., Golledge, N.R., 2021. Advances in Numerical Modelling of the Antarctic Ice
Sheet. In: Florindo, F., et al., (Eds.), Antarctic Climate Evolution, Second ed. Elsevier.
Spada, G., 2017. Glacial Isostatic Adjustment and Contemporary Sea Level Rise: An Overview.
Surveys in Geophysics 38 (1), 153 185. Available from: https://doi.org/10.14379/iodp.
proc.379.2021.
Spada, G., Melini, D., 2019. SELEN 4 (SELEN version 4.0): A Fortran program for solving the
gravitationally and topographically self-consistent sea-level equation in glacial isostatic
adjustment modeling. Geoscientific Model Development 12 (12), 5055 5075. Available
from: https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-5055-2019.
Talarico, F., et al., 2021. The Antarctic Continent in Gondwana: A perspective from the Ross
Embayment and Potential Research Targets for Future Investigations. In: Florindo, F., et al.,
(Eds.), Antarctic Climate Evolution, Second ed. Elsevier.
Weber, M.E., Raymo, M.E., William, T., Expedition 382 Scientists, 2021. Iceberg Alley and
Subantarctic Ice and Ocean Dynamics. Proceedings of the International Ocean Discovery
Program, 382: College Station, TX (International Ocean Discovery Program). Available
from: https://doi.org/10.14379/iodp.proc.382.2021.
Wilson, D.J., et al., 2021. Pleistocene Antarctic Climate Variability: Ice Sheet Ocean
Climate Interactions. In: Florindo, F., et al., (Eds.), Antarctic Climate Evolution, Second ed.
Elsevier.
Chapter 2
Sixty years of coordination and

support for Antarctic science
the role of SCAR
Fabio Florindo1, Antonio Meloni1 and Martin Siegert2
1
National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, Rome, Italy, 2Grantham Institute and
Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College London, London,
United Kingdom
2.1 Introduction
International scientific collaboration in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean is
essential if we are to answer key questions on how the region is changing in
relation to anthropogenic warming and on the global impacts that will result,
as they can only be tackled seriously by sharing resources, logistics, skills,
experience and infrastructure across the region (e.g., Kennicutt et al., 2016).
Aside from its contribution to scientific research per se, the Scientific
Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) is widely accepted as the most
influential non-governmental organisation contributing to international
Antarctic governance through the provision of impartial expert scientific
advice (Walton, 2009). SCAR aims to aid international scientific collabora-
tion, while facilitating the science that occurs in the Antarctic region through
a variety of initiatives. One scheme that SCAR operates is its formal
Scientific Research Programmes (SRPs), which are bold, thematic, interdisci-
plinary, multi-year efforts to advance fundamental knowledge on specific
issues. Two SRPs that relate to past changes in Antarctica have been
Antarctic Climate Evolution (ACE) and its successor Past Antarctic Ice
Sheet dynamics (PAIS). The main achievements from ACE were summarised
in the first edition of this book (Florindo and Siegert, 2008). In 2013 SCAR
awarded funding to PAIS, which has led to a number of research achieve-
ments relating to constraining Antarctica’s contribution to sea level that
resulted from past changes in ice sheet mass loss, and its general impacts on
the environment, and atmospheric and oceanic circulation. In the following
Antarctic Climate Evolution. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-819109-5.00011-6

© 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 9
sections, we note how SCAR has achieved its goals, especially with regard
to understanding past climate, ocean and ice-sheet change.
2.2 Scientific value of research in Antarctica and the

Southern Ocean
Antarctica is the least explored continent on our planet. Similarly, its sur-
rounding ocean is poorly charted and understood. Because of its geographi-
cal position, and extreme physical characteristics, Antarctica is home to a
unique flora and fauna, whose study enlightens understanding of the complex
relationships between living organisms and the environment. Due to its dis-
tance from the main sources of pollution and, on land at least, the almost
total absence of anthropogenic disturbance, Antarctica provides us with the
opportunity to obtain knowledge about the function of the planet from a
remote, largely unpolluted observation point.
The thick ice sheet of Antarctica (over 4.5 km in some places) contains
records of snow precipitation over several hundred thousand years. Air bub-
bles trapped in the ice are time capsules of previous atmospheric composi-
tion, providing unique insights on past climate change and its drivers (e.g.,
Brook and Buizert, 2018). Because of its location with respect to the geo-
magnetic field, Antarctica (like the Arctic) enables us to study phenomena
ensuing from the interactions between the Sun and the Earth (Weller et al.,
1987). The transparency of the high-altitude Antarctic atmosphere makes it
ideal for astronomic observations and, consequently, for cosmological
research (e.g., Kim et al., 2018).
The harsh conditions and isolation of Antarctic research stations also make
the region ideal as a training field for future space missions. The uniqueness of
the Antarctic continent has driven scientists to become used to dealing with spe-
cific scientific problems with bespoke technological solutions and, often through
trial and error, perfecting the technologies necessary to complete and repeat
such science, like those necessary for deep-ice drilling (Talalay, 2020).
Antarctic scientists have been providing information about the state of
the continent and its surrounding seas since polar exploration began back in
the early 19th century and, increasingly, as that exploration became more
scientific and sophisticated in the latter part of the last century. Antarctic
research endeavour was galvanised in the International Geophysical Year
(IGY), also known as the third International Polar Year (IPY), which
spanned an 18-month period from 1 July 1957 to 31 December 1958 and
represented the first coordinated study to measure the continent of Antarctica
(Florindo et al., 2008; Summerhayes, 2008; Walton, 2009) (Fig. 2.1).
The IGY was one of the largest organised international scientific endeavours
of the 20th century and led to significant advances in meteorology, atmospheric
sciences and glaciology. World Data Centers were established in order for the
new measurements to be stored and shared. During the IGY, 12 nations
Sixty years of coordination and support for Antarctic science Chapter | 2 11
FIGURE 2.1 One of the many postage stamps issued for the International Geophysical Year
1957 1958. By Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Designed by Ervine Metzl. (Public domain),
via Wikimedia Commons.
FIGURE 2.2 Signature of the Antarctic Treaty on 1 December 1959 in Washington, DC, by
Ambassador Herman Phleger from the United States, who chaired the Conference on Antarctica
from 15 October to 1 December 1959 (Department of State, 1960). Courtesy of the Carleton
College Archives.
established Antarctic research stations including those at the South Pole

(Amundsen-Scott, USA), temporarily at the Pole of Inaccessibility (Polyus
Nedostupnosti, USSR) and, importantly for past climate studies, at Vostok
Station.
The IGY paved the way for an international agreement like no other the
Antarctic Treaty which reserves the entire continent for peace and science.
In Washington DC on the 1st of December 1959 (Fig. 2.2), government repre-
sentatives of Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, France, Japan, New
Zealand, Norway, South Africa, the then USSR, the UK and the USA became
the first signatories of the Antarctic Treaty (Berkman, 2011) (see Appendix).
The Treaty entered into force on 23 June 1961. Today, 54 nations have signed
the Treaty 29 of which have voting rights (see http://www.scar.org/policy/
antarctic-treaty-system/). The Antarctic Treaty contains 14 articles (see
Appendix), which enshrine the following three principles:
G Antarctica (meaning the entire region south of latitude 60 South) is to
be used for peaceful purposes only and military bases, manoeuvres and
weapons testing are prohibited. The prohibition also extends to nuclear
explosions and the disposal of nuclear waste.
G The promotion of scientific investigation and cooperation, with the
exchange of information, plans, results and personnel to be actively
encouraged. This also includes freedom of access for the purpose of sci-
entific investigation.
G Territorial claims are not recognised, disputed or established by the
Treaty, and no new claims are to be asserted.
Realising the importance of continuing international Antarctic collaboration at
the end of the IGY, it was decided that there was a need for further international
organisation of scientific activity in Antarctica and that a committee should be set
up for this purpose. The 4th Special Committee for the International Geophysical
Year (CSAGI) Antarctic Conference in Paris in June 1957 passed a resolution
recommending that the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) should
appoint a committee ad hoc with Professor C.-G. Rossby as convener (Fig. 2.3) to
FIGURE 2.3 Professor Carl-Gustaf Arvid Rossby (Stockholm, 28 December 1898 Stockholm, 19
August 1957). Harris & Ewing Collection (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.
examine the merits of further investigation in the Antarctic after the end of the
IGY, covering the entire field of science. The committee met at the ICSU Antarctic
meeting held in Stockholm between 9 and 11 September 1957, with members from
Argentina, Chile, France, Japan, Norway, UK, USA and USSR being present.
Later in September a Special Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR)
was established as an inter-disciplinary committee of ICSU to facilitate and
coordinate activities; twelve nations and four Unions (International Union of
Geodesy and Geophysics IUGG; International Geographical Union
IGU; International Union of Biological Sciences IUBS; and Union Radio
Scientifique International URSI) were invited to nominate delegates.
SCAR held its first meeting in the Administrative Office of ICSU in The
Hague (the Netherlands) on 3 6 February 1958; the 12 participating nations of
the IGY were invited to attend, as well as representatives from five scientific
unions (Fig. 2.4). Subsequently SCAR was renamed the ‘Scientific’ Committee
on Antarctic Research. In 1987 SCAR was appointed as an observer to the
Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM) to ensure political and gover-
nance decisions are informed by the best available science.
FIGURE 2.4 Participants at the first SCAR meeting in The Hague (the Netherlands) on 3 6
February 1958. (1) Dr. L.M. Gould, USA; (2) Dr. Ronald Fraser, ICSU; (3) Dr. N. Herlofson,
Convenor; (4) Col. E. Herbays, ICSU; (5) Prof. T. Rikitake, Japan; (6) Prof. Leiv Harang, Norway; (7)
Dr. Valter Schytt, IGU; (8) Dr. Anton F. Bruun, IUBS; (9) Mr. J.J. Taljaard, South Africa; (10) Capt.
F. Bastin, Belgium; (11) Capt. Luis de la Canal, Argentina; (12) Sir James Wordie, UK; (13) Prof. K.
E. Bullen, Australia; (14) Dr. H. Wexler, USA; (15) Ing. Gén. Georges Laclavère, IUGG; (16) Ing.
Gén. M.A. Gougenheim, France; (17) Mr. Luis Renard, Chile; (18) Dr. M.M. Somov, USSR; (19)
Prof. J. van Mieghen, Belgium. From Wolff, T., 2010. The Birth and First Years of the Scientific
Committee on Oceanic Research, SCOR History Report #1. Scientific Committee on Oceanic
Research, Newark, DE, photograph courtesy of the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research.
SCAR is responsible for initiating, developing and coordinating high-

quality international research in the Antarctic region within three scientific
standing groups: physical sciences, geosciences and life sciences. Its scien-
tific business is conducted in over 30 Science Groups including SRPs, stand-
ing committees, and action and expert groups. SCAR not only provides
objective, independent scientific advice to the ATCM but also to other orga-
nisations such as the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change) and the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change) on matters relating to the science and conservation affecting the
management of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, and on the role of the
Antarctic region in the wider connected and multi-process Earth system.
SCAR’s Standing Committee on the Antarctic Treaty System (SCATS) is
responsible for coordinating the advice presented to the ATCMs. This is
mainly done through: (1) the presentation of Information Papers and
Working Papers, most commonly involving contributions from scientists
from around the world helping to convey the up-to-date status of research in
any particular area; and (2) the Antarctic Environments Portal, which pro-
vides an important link between Antarctic science and Antarctic policy. The
portal makes science-based information available to the Antarctic Treaty
System’s Committee for Environmental Protection (CEP) and all the
Antarctic Treaty nations.
A modern view of ‘Antarctic Science’ comes not only from the knowl-
edge of the continent’s life, structure and history but also from an under-
standing of the wide-ranging regional and global changes taking place in
Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. SCAR’s scientific work is achieved
through the engagement and support of thousands of researchers from around
the world who together comprise the SCAR community, supported by
SCAR’s 44 national committees, which report to their respective academies
of science or equivalent bodies. SCAR adds value to national scientific activ-
ities by addressing topics covering the whole of Antarctica and/or the sur-
rounding Southern Ocean in ways impossible for any one nation to achieve
alone. SCAR’s governing body, ICSU, recently merged with the
International Social Science Council to form the International Science
Council (ISC). For this reason, amendments to the SCAR organisation and
website are in progress and the SCAR logo has been updated to reflect this
change of name (Fig. 2.5).
SCAR’s mission remains to be engaged, active and forward-looking in an
organisation that promotes, facilitates and delivers scientific excellence and
evidence-based policy advice on globally significant issues in and about
Antarctica. SCAR has also taken a leading role in supporting early career
scientists and in recognising the importance and value of inclusion and diver-
sity in fulfilling its mission. The 32 full members in SCAR’s family are as
follows: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile,
China, Ecuador, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Korea (Rep.
FIGURE 2.5 The SCAR logo. With permission from SCAR.
of), Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Poland,

Portugal, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, the
UK, Uruguay and the USA. Twelve associate members are: Austria, Belarus,
Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Iran, Monaco, Pakistan, Romania,
Thailand, Turkey and Venezuela. Nine ISC union members participate in the
work of SCAR: IUGG; IGU; IUBS; URSI; the International Astronomical
Union IAU; International Union for Quaternary Research INQUA;
International Union of Geological Sciences IUGS; International Union of
Physiological Sciences IUPS; and the International Union of Pure and
Applied Chemistry IUPAC.
SCAR is governed by its Memorandum of Association (the legal state-
ment agreed when the organisation became a registered company and char-
ity) and its Articles of Association (the legal rules about how the
organisation is run), and these two documents form SCAR’s Constitution.
More detailed rules about the duties and responsibilities of SCAR’s members
are laid out in SCAR’s Rules of Procedure, describing how SCAR’s working
groups are established and governed.
2.3 The international framework in which SCAR operates

Although SCAR is primarily focused on science, it has close connections to
the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS), which incorporates a whole complex of
arrangements made for the purpose of regulating relations among States
working in the Antarctic. The primary purpose of the Antarctic Treaty is to
ensure "in the interests 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". To this end, the ATS prohibits military
activity (except in direct support of science), prohibits nuclear explosions
and the disposal of nuclear waste, promotes scientific research and the
exchange of data, and holds all territorial claims in abeyance. The Treaty
applies to the area south of 60 South latitude, including all floating ice
shelves and islands.
The Treaty is augmented by recommendations adopted at Consultative
Meetings, by the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic
Treaty (Madrid, 1991), and by two separate conventions dealing with the
Conservation of Antarctic Seals (London, 1972) and the Conservation of
Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR, Canberra, 1980). The
Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resource Activities
(Wellington, 1988), negotiated between 1982 and 1988, has so far not
entered into force.
In October 2016 the world’s largest marine reserve was created in the
Ross Sea by a unanimous decision of CCAMLR’s 24 member states.
The Ross Sea Marine Protected Area (MPA) came into force in December
2017. The 598,000 square-mile MPA (more than twice the size of Texas)
consists of:
G A ‘no take’ General Protection Zone (a fully protected area where no
commercial fishing is permitted) split into three separate areas;
G A Special Research Zone which allows for limited research fishing for
krill and toothfish see below; and
G A Krill Research Zone which allows for controlled research fishing for
krill, in accordance with the objectives of the MPA.
The Antarctic’s nutrient-rich waters are highly productive, leading to
huge plankton and krill blooms that support vast numbers of fish, seals, pen-
guins and whales. Importantly, and inspite of whaling that nearly drove
extinction of some species, the Ross Sea is ‘the least altered marine ecosys-
tem on Earth’, containing intact communities of emperor and Adelie pen-
guins, crabeater seals, orcas and minke whales (that are recovering in
numbers).
2.4 The organisation of SCAR

SCAR’s three scientific groups (discussed earlier) are responsible for shar-
ing information on disciplinary scientific research, identifying research
areas or fields where current research is lacking, coordinating and stimulat-
ing proposals for future research, and establishing scientific Programme
Planning Groups (PPGs) to develop formal proposals on future work to the
Delegates, who meet every 2 years. At the heart of this coordination are
SCAR’s SRPs, which address major cutting-edge research questions. To
develop an SRP requires first a 2-year PPG. Proposals are fully peer-
reviewed and exist in the first instance for a 4-year term. Data management
policies and outreach plans are required to ensure there is a lasting legacy
of dissemination and knowledge exchange. In 2004 SCAR Delegates
approved the following SRPs:
FIGURE 2.6 Antarctic Climate Evolution (ACE) logo.
G Antarctica and the Global Climate System (AGCS);

G Antarctic Climate Evolution (ACE) (Fig. 2.6);
G Evolution and Biodiversity in the Antarctic (EBA);
G Subglacial Antarctic Lake Exploration (SALE); and
G Interhemispheric Conjugacy Effects in Solar-Terrestrial and Aeronomy
Research (ICESTAR).
The subsequent generation of SCAR SRPs (2013 2020) included
(Fig. 2.7):
G State of the Antarctic Ecosystem (AntEco), which aimed to increase the
scientific knowledge of biodiversity, from genes to ecosystems that, cou-
pled with increased knowledge of species biology, can be used for the
conservation and management of Antarctic ecosystems;
G Antarctic Ecosystems: Adaptations, Thresholds and Resilience (Ant-
ERA), which aimed to provide a platform for the exchange of knowledge
and for the support of research on biological processes at ecological time
scales especially related to environmental change;
G Solid Earth Responses and Influences on Cryospheric Evolution
(SERCE), which aimed to advance understanding of the interactions
between the solid earth and the cryosphere to better constrain ice mass
balance, ice dynamics and sea level change in a warming world;
G Antarctic Climate Change in the 21st Century (AntClim21), which aimed
to deliver improved regional projections of key elements of the Antarctic
atmosphere, ocean and cryosphere for the next 20 200 years and to under-
stand the responses of the physical and biological systems (through multi-
disciplinary collaboration) to natural and anthropogenic climate drivers;
G Astronomy and Astrophysics from Antarctica (AAA), which aimed to
coordinate astronomical activities in Antarctica in a way that ensures the
FIGURE 2.7 Organisation of SCAR. http://www.scar.org (retrieved February 2019).
FIGURE 2.8 Past Antarctic Ice Sheet Dynamics (PAIS) logo.
best possible outcomes from international investment in Antarctic astron-

omy and maximises the opportunities for productive interaction with
other disciplines; and
G Past Antarctic Ice Sheet dynamics (PAIS), which built on the ACE legacy
in constraining Antarctica’s contribution to sea level, resulting from past
changes in ice sheet mass loss and its impacts on the environment, and
atmospheric and oceanic circulation (Fig. 2.8).
Based on the analysis of Antarctica’s past, PAIS aimed to bound esti-
mates of future ice loss in key areas of the Antarctic margin with a multi-
disciplinary approach and by integrating geological data with computer
models. PAIS research has been influential in the IPCC’s fifth assessment
report (AR5) and its current sixth cycle climate assessments (AR6).
Extensive PAIS-facilitated fieldwork on land and at sea has been carried
out within the framework of national and multi-national projects,
including the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) expeditions

374 in 2018, and 389 and 382 in 2019.
The IODP is among the main organisations external to SCAR, in addition
to National Antarctic Programs, providing enormous support for the PAIS
drilling expeditions in Antarctica, both in terms of offshore and shore-based
science, education and communication-outreach programmes and for pre-
cruise work and meetings. A recent paper highlighting progress made in
the past 45 years between the SCAR geoscience paleoclimate projects
and IODP has been published in the special issue on Scientific Ocean
Drilling ‘Keeping an Eye on Antarctic Ice Sheet Stability’ (Escutia
et al., 2019).
Importantly, numerical ice sheet modelling has developed significantly
since the first edition of the ACE book (Siegert and Golledge, 2021), and
these developments have led to important advances in our understanding of
how ice sheets have changed with past climate, and how they will likely
change in future under global warming.
In line with its predecessors ANTOSTRAT and ACE, PAIS fulfilled
an important role in informing and coordinating the scientific commu-
nity by organising scientific conferences, workshops, schools (Fig. 2.9),
facilitating the planning of new data-acquisition missions using emerg-
ing technologies, encouraging data sharing (e.g., the update and use of
FIGURE 2.9 The different activities carried out by the PAIS programme in support of scien-
tific advances, training, collaboration, knowledge exchange and data sharing.
the Antarctic Seismic Data Library System, see McKay et al., 2021)
and initiating/expanding cross-linkages among Antarctic research
communities.
All the SRPs ended in December 2020 and a new set of SCAR pro-
grammes have come into play for the next 8 years (https://www.scar.org/sci-
ence/srp/):
G Integrated Science to Inform Antarctic and Southern Ocean Conservation
(Ant-ICON), which aims to answer fundamental science questions (as
identified by the SCAR Horizon Scan, Kennicutt et al., 2015) relating to
the conservation and management of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean
with a focus on research to drive and inform international decision-
making and policy change;
G Near-term Variability and Prediction of the Antarctic Climate System
(AntClimnow) that aims to investigate the prediction of near-term condi-
tions in the Antarctic climate system on timescales of years to multiple
decades;
G INStabilities and Thresholds in ANTarctica (INSTANT) will address the
first-order question about Antarctica’s contribution to sea level. It encom-
passes geoscience, physical sciences and biological sciences, to investigate
the ways in which interactions between the ocean, atmosphere and cryo-
sphere have influenced ice sheets in the past, and how such interplay may
occur in the future, with a special focus on quantifying the contributions to
global sea level change. INSTANT builds on a white paper developed dur-
ing the PAIS conference held in Italy in 2017, involving over 200 scientists
from 18 nations and spanning different disciplines and with representatives
from the other SCAR SRPs (see details in the PAIS web site http://www.
scar-pais.org/index.php/highlights/past-antarctic-ice-sheet-dynamics-pais-con-
ference-2017-trieste-italy). The white paper recognised the importance of a
transdisciplinary approach in understanding and quantifying the Antarctic ice
sheet contribution to past and future global sea-level change, from improved
understanding of climate, ocean and solid Earth interactions and feedbacks
with the ice. The white paper also acknowledged the importance of under-
standing the global consequences and impacts of Antarctic change so that
decision-makers can better anticipate and assess the risk of sea level rise in
order to evaluate adaptation and mitigation pathways.
2.5 Sixty years of significant Antarctic science discoveries

Antarctic scientists working with SCAR have been involved in many leading
scientific discoveries, such as:
G The discovery of the ozone hole and elucidation of its chemistry;
G The history of the ice sheet and its implications for changing sea level;
G The circulation of the Southern Ocean and its role in the storage and
emission of CO2 and heat;
G The fossilised flora of Antarctica, which was covered by flourishing veg-
etation 100 million years ago, and of Antarctic dinosaurs;
G The 600 million years journey of Antarctica from North Pole to South
Pole, under the influence of plate tectonics;
G The sub-ice topography, including the existence of subglacial lakes and
rivers;
G The amazing circum-Antarctic land-free travel of albatrosses;
G The extraordinary diversity of marine life;
G The detection of neutrinos originating in outer space; and
G Antarctica as an analogue for extra-terrestrial life and other aspects of
planetary exploration.
Assemblies of Delegates and Open Science Conferences are key events in
the life of SCAR. The last two were POLAR2018 and SCAR 2020 Online.
The former took place in Davos, Switzerland (15 26 June 2018), and was
also home to the XXXV SCAR Biennial Meeting, the Arctic Science Summit
Week (ASSW) and a joint SCAR/IASC Open Science Conference. The SCAR
meetings, the ASSW and the Open Science Conference were hosted by the
Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) under
the patronage of the Swiss Committee on Polar and High-Altitude Research.
Over 2500 attendees presented B1600 posters and B1000 oral papers as
well as plenary sessions, panel discussions, side meetings and social events. At
POLAR2018 SCAR agreed to support the following action groups: Earth
Observation (Physical Sciences), ANGWIN ANtarctic Gravity Wave
Instrument Network (Physical Sciences), AntArchitecture (Geosciences and
Physical Sciences), IMPACT Input Pathways of Persistent Organic
Pollutants to Antarctica (Life Sciences), SKAG SCAR Krill action group
(Life Sciences) and Plastic in Polar Environment (Life Sciences). At the
Delegates Meeting, three new PPGs were proposed in order to develop future
SRPs: Integrated science to support Antarctic and Southern Ocean conservation
(ANT-ICON); Near-term Variability and Prediction of the Antarctic Climate
System (AntClimnow); and INSTANT (initially called AISSL, e.g., Fig. 2.7).
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the SCAR-OSC 2020 was held online
and remotely (03 07 August 2020). The registration was free, and there
were over 2700 people in attendance. The SCAR-OSC 2020 Portal will
remain open indefinitely, so everyone who registers will be able to view ses-
sions and also plenaries, workshops and mini-symposia recordings at any
time and browse the Contributing Authors Gallery (almost 600 virtual dis-
plays). All videos uploaded to the event portal are available on the SCAR
2020 Online YouTube channel and event website scar2020.org, which that
will also remain open indefinitely.
Excellence in research and leadership has been recognised by prestigious

awards to ACE/PAIS leaders. Dr. Carlota Escutia, who successfully led the
PAIS programme, was awarded the SCAR 2020 Medal for International
Scientific Coordination, during the week of SCAR 2020 Online. Past ACE/
PAIS Co-Chief Officers Dr. Martin Seigert, Dr. Tim Naish, and Dr. Rob
DeConto have been awarded the prestigious Tinker-Muse Prize for their contri-
bution to Antarctic Science and Policy. In 2016, the SCAR Research Medal was
awarded to Dr Rob Dunbar who was an inaugural Co-Chief Officer of ACE.
2.6 Scientific Horizon Scan

In 2014 SCAR organised a formal Scientific Horizon Scanning exercise to deter-
mine the most pressing eighty scientific questions that require answers within the
next two decades. The Horizon Scan was conducted through a formal online pro-
cess involving the entire Antarctic research community, followed up by a residen-
tial retreat in Queenstown, New Zealand from 20 to 23 April 2014 (Kennicutt
et al., 2014, 2015). The questions were agreed under six main themes: (1) define
the global reach of the Antarctic atmosphere and Southern Ocean; (2) understand
how, where and why ice sheets lose mass; (3) reveal Antarctica’s history; (4) learn
how Antarctic life evolved and survived; (5) observe space and the Universe; and
(6) recognise and mitigate human influences. At least 17 of the 80 scientific ques-
tions relate to past changes in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean (see Table 2.1).
In 2016 COMNAP (the Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs)
responded to the results of the horizon scan in its Antarctic Roadmap Challenge
(22 24 August, Tromsø, Norway), by ascertaining the logistics and equipment
necessary to provide answers to the scientific questions (Kennicutt et al., 2016).
Again, a formal process was used involving scientists, managers and logistics agen-
cies from around the world. Most recently, 5 years since the Horizon Scan,
Kennicutt et al. (2019) explored the progress the SCAR community has made in
answering the scientific questions. While some key questions have received atten-
tion and progress, others especially those requiring new equipment or fieldwork
in remote regions require significant attention if the promise of the Horizon
Scan is to be fulfilled within its 20-year vision (Table 2.1). For research into past
conditions in the Antarctic, most questions score ‘2’, meaning that progress has
been limited. However, for a few questions, a score of 1 was awarded, indicating
that very little if any progress has been made in 5 years. Questions such as: How
did the climate and atmospheric composition vary prior to the oldest ice records?;
How will the sedimentary record beneath the ice sheet inform our knowledge of
the presence or absence of continental ice?; Do variations in geothermal heat flux
in Antarctica provide a diagnostic signature of sub-ice geology?; and How have
ecosystems in the Antarctic and the Southern Ocean responded to warmer climate
conditions in the past? make up some of the most important scientific questions
concerning past changes in Antarctica. These are now internationally-agreed as
essential scientific imperatives to which SCAR and its community hope to focus
TABLE 2.1 Table of SCAR horizon scan questions related to past

conditions in Antarctica.
Question Progress made since 2014

#3 How have teleconnections, feedbacks The absence of annually resolved
and thresholds in decadal and longer records limits progress on this question.
term climate variability affected ice sheet Rating 5 1 2
response since the Last Glacial
Maximum, and how can this inform
future climate projections?
#5 How did the climate and atmospheric More studies of the Pliocene in the
composition vary prior to the oldest ice Antarctic are needed, and collection of
records? sediment and rock records is required.
Rating 5 1 2
#8 Does past amplified warming of Research on this question is at its
Antarctica provide insight into the effects beginnings. Incorporating ozone
of future warming on climate and ice variability could improve seasonal
sheets? predictions. Rating 5 2
# 9 Are there CO2 equivalent thresholds It has been 3 million years Before
that foretell collapse of all or part of the Present since CO2 values reached those
Antarctic ice sheet? of the present day. Additional geological
records are needed. Rating 5 2
#17 How has Antarctic sea ice extent A multi-decadal trend of slow expansion
and volume varied over decadal to of Antarctic sea ice was interrupted by a
millennial timescales? sharp decline to record low levels in
2016 and has remained low, while
regional trends in sea ice extent have
been linked to well-known modes of
climate variability. Rating 5 2
#21 How did the Antarctic cryosphere There are new insights into the
and the Southern Ocean contribute to contribution of changes in Southern
glacial/inter-glacial cycles? Ocean overturning circulation to glacial/
inter-glacial cycles. Rating 5 3
#28 What are the thresholds that lead to The existence of various tipping points
irreversible loss of all or part of the has been proposed. Rating 5 2
Antarctic ice sheet?
#32 How fast has the Antarctic ice sheet Improved understanding of how the
changed in the past and what does that Antarctic Ice Sheet responded to forcings
tell us about the future? in the past is crucial to improving the
reliability of forecasts. Most studies to
date are for the last deglaciation.
Rating 5 2
(Continued )
TABLE 2.1 (Continued)

#33 How did marine-based Antarctic ice Information on past interglacial periods
sheets change during previous inter- is mainly based on sea-level records in
glacial periods? both the north and south. In these
records it is difficult to disentangle
contributions from the Greenland and
Antarctic ice sheets. Rating 5 2
#34 How will the sedimentary record Even if robust indicators of ice-free
beneath the ice sheet inform our conditions can be extracted from
knowledge of the presence or absence of sedimentary records, the difficulties of
continental ice? subglacial access means that only sparse
point data could be recovered, making
large-scale inferences about ice sheet
presence/absence challenging.
Rating 5 1
#35 How does the bedrock geology Machine learning approaches have not
under the Antarctic ice sheet inform our been adapted. Samples from the bed are
understanding of supercontinent key hence fast drill/Rapid Access Ice
assembly and break-up through Earth’s Drill are important technologies, but
history? little progress has been made in
perfecting these tools. Rating 5 2
#36 Do variations in geothermal heat Available geothermal maps differ from
flux in Antarctica provide a diagnostic each other making it difficult to resolve
signature of subice geology? geology. In situ samples are key.
Rating 5 1 2
#37 How does volcanism affect the Significant progress on this question but
evolution of the Antarctic lithosphere, gaps in knowledge persist. Major
ice sheet dynamics, and global climate? advances have been accomplished by
the Polar Observing Network
(POLENET). Detailed models exist for
lithospheric thickness and other
variables, but data are needed for
validations. Rating 5 2 3
#39 What are and have been the rates of There are ideas on how to do this, but
geomorphic change in different Antarctic they need to be expanded continent-
regions, and what are the ages of wide. Links to modelling need
preserved landscapes? improvements. Rating 5 2
#40 How do tectonics, dynamic Dynamic topography may be important.
topography, ice loading and isostatic Pore pressures may contribute to a better
adjustment affect the spatial pattern of understanding of aseismicity. Rating 5 2
sea level change on all timescales?
(Continued )
TABLE 2.1 (Continued)

#45 How have ecosystems in the There is progress regarding the last Mya
Antarctic and the Southern Ocean (glacial cycles of warming and cooling)
responded to warmer climate conditions with identification of refugia (both
in the past? marine and terrestrial habitats).
Knowledge is starting to be developed
for some marine and terrestrial systems,
but ecosystem responses remain largely
unknown. Rating 5 1
#46 How has life evolved in the 1, 2 or 3 depending on the adaptation
Antarctic in response to dramatic events and event. Significant adaptations are
in the Earth’s history? known in relation to cooling (antifreeze,
haemoglobin loss etc.) and in other areas
(e.g., refugia) good progress has been
made. Rating 5 1 3
The ratings are between 1 and 4; 1 being unaddressed, 4 being answered.

Source: Question numbers as in Kennicutt et al. (2014); progress report from Kennicutt et al.
(2019).
on for at least the next decade. Answers will increasingly depend on drilling on
land for the oldest ice (expected to be about 1.5 million years old), and deep ocean
drilling to explore the sedimentary record of the discharge of ice from the continent
and the thermal history of the Southern Ocean (from the physical and chemical
remains of fossil plankton).
2.7 Summary
Antarctic research is conducted with the assistance and support of SCAR, the
most important non-governmental body overseeing coordination and collabora-
tion of science in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. SCAR has been in exis-
tence since 1958 and has offered a unique forum through which international
dialogue, exchange and cooperation can take place regarding forming answers
to scientific questions relevant to understanding processes in the most remote
and extreme place on Earth. This approach was demonstrated in 1957 1958
as part of the IGY (which in effect was the third International Polar Year or
IPY), and in 2007 2009, when SCAR played a leading role in the fourth IPY.
SCAR has been instrumental in recent years in focusing resources on major
research priorities, and research into past environments has benefitted signifi-
cantly from this approach first through the ACE SRP and in the last few
years in the PAIS SRP. In 2014, a formal international Horizon Scan of
Antarctic research was undertaken, which led to the emergence of an agreed
set of the most important 80 scientific questions for understanding Antarctic

and Southern Ocean processes. At least 17 of these questions are directly ger-
mane to understanding past changes. A recent inspection of the progress made
on each question tells us that much work still remains to be done on most of
the Horizon Scan questions, and especially on those relating to the past.
Future drilling offshore and through the ice sheet is essential for further prog-
ress. Through SCAR, the work of ACE and PAIS has led to significant
improvements in our appreciation of past conditions in Antarctica and their
global significance, but much work remains to be done.
References
Berkman, P.A., 2011. President Eisenhower, the Antarctic Treaty and the origin of interna-
tional spaces. In: Berkman, P.A., Lang, M.A., Walton, D.W.H., Young, O.R. (Eds.),
Science Diplomacy. Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, Washington, DC,
pp. 17 27.
Brook, E.J., Buizert, C., 2018. Antarctic and global climate history viewed from ice cores.
Nature 558, 200 208. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0172-5.
Escutia, C., DeConto, R.M., Dunbar, R., De Santis, L., Shevenell, A., Naish, T., 2019. Keeping
an eye on Antarctic ice sheet stability. Oceanography 32 (1), 32 46.
Florindo, F., Siegert, M.J. (Eds.), 2008. Developments in Earth and Environmental Sciences,
Vol. 8: Antarctic Climate Evolution. Elsevier, Amsterdam.
Florindo, F., Meloni, A., Siegert, M., 2008. The international polar years: a history of develop-
ments in Antarctic climate evolution. In: Florindo, F., Siegert, M. (Eds.), Developments in
Earth and Environmental Sciences, Vol. 8: Antarctic Climate Evolution. Elsevier,
Amsterdam, pp. 13 31.
Kennicutt, M.C., Chown, S.L., Cassano, J.J., Liggett, D., Massom, R., Peck, L.S., et al., 2014.
Polar research: six priorities for Antarctic science. Nature 512, 23 25. Available from:
https://doi.org/10.1038/512023a.
Kennicutt, M.C., et al., 2015. A roadmap for Antarctic and Southern Ocean science for the next
two decades and beyond. Antarctic Science 27, 318. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1017/
S0954102014000674.
Kennicutt, M.C., Bromwich, D., Liggett, D., Njåstad, B., Peck, L., Rintoul, S.R., et al., 2019.
Sustained Antarctic research a 21st century imperative. One Earth 1, 95 113. Available
from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2019.08.014.
Kennicutt, M.C., Kim, Y., Finnemore-Rogan, M., Anandakrishnan, S., Chown, S.L.,
Colwell, S., et al., 2016. Delivering 21st century Antarctic and Southern Ocean sci-
ence. Antarctic Science 28, 407 423. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1017/
S0954102016000481.
Kim, J., Marrone, D.P., Beaudoin, C., Carlstrom, J.E., Doeleman, S.S., Folkers, T.W., et al.,
2018. A VLBI receiving system for the south pole telescope. Proceedings of the SPIE,
vol. 10708, Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for
Astronomy IX. p. 107082S. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2301005.
McKay, R., et al., 2021. Cenozoic History of Antarctic Glaciation and Climate from Onshore
and Offshore Studies. In: Florindo, F. (Ed.), et al., Antarctic Climate Evolution, second ed.
Elsevier.
Siegert, M.J., Golledge, N.R., 2021. Advances in Numerical Modelling of the Antarctic Ice
Sheet. In: Florindo, F., et al. (Eds.), Antarctic Climate Evolution, Second ed. Elsevier.
Summerhayes, C.P., 2008. International collaboration in Antarctica: the international polar years,
the international geophysical year, and the scientific committee on Antarctic research. Polar
Record 44, 321 334.
Talalay, P.G., 2020. Thermal Ice Drilling Technology. Springer, Singapore. Available from:
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8848-4.
Walton, D.W.H., 2009. The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research and the Antarctic
Treaty, Science Diplomacy: Antarctic Treaty Summit, first ed. Smithsonian Institute,
Washington, DC.
Weller, G., Bentley, C.R., Elliot, D.H., Lanzerotti, L.J., Webber, P.J., 1987. Laboratory
Antarctica: contributions to global problems. Science 238, 1361 1368. Available from:
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.238.4832.1361.
Wolff, T., 2010. The Birth and First Years of the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research
(SCOR) History Report #1. Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research, Newark, DE.
Appendix
The Antarctic Treaty signed at Washington on 1 December 1959, by plenipo-
tentiaries of the United States of America and 11 other countries.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
valuable as exhibiting the kind of passion which love showed itself in
Wordsworth. Passion, in the proper meaning of the word—viz., deep, fiery,
intense, and all-embracing feeling, was certainly not Wordsworth’s. His
love was calm, intellectual, and emotional—but it was not passion. All his
love seems to have passed through his head before it touched his heart. And
yet he loved his wife, and lived, as I said before, very happily with her.
Mrs. Wordsworth, however, was a true household woman, and had not
acquired that faculty of walking which Wordsworth and his sister
possessed, in so eminent a degree. In about a year, therefore, after his
marriage—that is, August 14, 1803,—we find Wordsworth parting from his
wife, and making a tour into Scotland, with his sister and Coleridge, taking
Carlisle on the way. When they arrived at Longtown, they found a guide-
post pointing out two roads,—one to Edinburgh, the other to Glasgow. They
took the latter road, and entered Scotland by crossing the river Sark.
Edinburgh was no favourite place with Wordsworth, and for reasons which
are sufficiently obvious. The tourists then passed through Gretna Green to
Annan, leaving the Solway Frith, and the Cumberland hills to their left
hand. On Thursday the 18th August, they went to the churchyard where
Burns is buried; a bookseller accompanied them, of whom Miss
Wordsworth had bought some little books for Johnny, the poet’s first child.
He showed them first the outside of Burns’ house, where he had lived the
last three years of his life, and where he died. It had a mean appearance, and
was in a bye situation, white-washed, and dirty about the doors, as all
Scotch houses are; flowering plants in the windows. They went on to visit
his grave. He lies in a corner of the churchyard, and his second son, Francis
Wallace, is beside him. There was no stone to mark the spot. The greatest
bard that had sung in Britain for some centuries, lay buried there like a dog.
A hundred guineas, however, had been collected to build a monument over
his ashes. “There,” said the bookseller to the visitors, pointing to a pompous
monument, a few yards off, “there lies Mr. John Bushby, a remarkably
clever man; he was an attorney, and hardly ever lost a cause he undertook.
Burns made many a lampoon upon him; and there they rest as you see.”
Yes, indeed, there they rested; and that was the deep, sad moral of the story.
We shall all rest so at last. They then went to Burns’ house. Mrs. Burns was
not at home, but had gone to the sea-shore with her children. They saw the
print of “The Cotter’s Saturday Night,” which Burns mentioned in one of
his letters having received as a present. In the room above the parlour Burns
died, and his son after him; and of all who saw this parlour on this 18th of
August,—Wordsworth and his sister, Coleridge and the poor bookseller—
who survives? “There they rest, as you see.”
The tourists travelled subsequently through the Vale of the Nith, and
crossing the Frith, reached Brownhill, where they slept.
“I cannot take leave of this country,” says Miss Wordsworth, in her
Journal, “without mentioning that we saw the Cumberland mountains
within half a mile of Ellisland (Burns’ house) the last view we had of them.
Drayton has prettily described the connection which the neighbourhood has
with ours, when he makes Skiddaw say—
‘Scurfell from the sky,

That Annandale doth crown, with a most amorous eye,
Salutes me every day, or at my pride looks grim,
Oft threatening me with clouds, as I oft threatening him!’
These lines occurred to William’s memory; and while he and I were talking
of Burns, and the prospect he must have had, perhaps from his own door, of
Skiddaw and his companions, we indulged ourselves in fancying that we
might have been personally known to each other, and he have looked upon
those objects with more pleasure for our sakes. We talked of Coleridge’s
children and family, then at the foot of Skiddaw, and our own new-born
John, a few miles behind it; and the grave of Burns’ son, which we had just
seen, by the side of that of his father; and the stories we had heard at
Dumfries, respecting the dangers which his surviving children were
exposed to, filled us with melancholy concern, which had a kind of
connection with ourselves, and with thoughts, some of which were
afterwards expressed in the following supposed address to the sons of the
ill-fated poet:—
“Ye now are toiling up life’s hill,

’Tis twilight time of good and ill!”
During this Scotch tour the party walked through the vale of the Clyde,
visited Glengyle, the scene of some of Rob Roy’s exploits, Loch Lomond,
Inverary, Glencoe, Kenmore, and the Duke of Athol’s gardens; resting
whilst in this latter place on “the heather seat which Burns was so loth to
quit that moonlight evening when he first went to Blair Castle.” Then they
went to the Pass of Killicranky, respecting which Wordsworth wrote the
following sonnet.
“Six thousand veterans practis’d in war’s game,

Tried men, at Killicranky were arrayed
Against an equal host that wore the plaid,
Shepherds and herdsmen. Like a whirlwind came
The Highlanders; the slaughter spread like flame;
And Garry, thundering down his mountain road,
Was stopped, and could not breathe beneath the load
Of the dead bodies! ’Twas a day of shame
For them whom precept, and the pedantry
Of cold mechanic battle do enslave.
Oh for a single hour of that Dundee,
Who on that day the word of onset gave!
Like conquest might the men of England see!
And their foes find a like inglorious grave.
In the year 1803, when this sonnet was written, an invasion was hourly
looked for; and Miss Wordsworth and her brother (for Coleridge had left
them, worried by the “evil chance,” and something worse perhaps at Loch
Lomond) could not but think with some regret of the times when from the
now depopulated Highlands, forty or fifty thousand men might have been
poured down for the defence of the country, under such leaders as the
Marquis of Montrose, or the brave man who had so distinguished himself
upon the ground where they were standing.
The tourists returned by way of Edinburgh, visiting Peebles and Melrose
Abbey. Sir Walter, then Mr. Scott, was, at the time of their visit to the
abbey, travelling as Sheriff of Selkirk to the assizes at Jedburgh. They dined
together at the Melrose Inn. Sir Walter was their guide to the abbey, taking
them into Mr. Riddel’s gardens and orchard, where they had a sweet view of
it through trees, the town being quite excluded. Sir Walter was of course at
home in the history and tradition of these noble ruins, and pointed out to his
visitors many things which would otherwise have escaped their notice.
Beautiful pieces of sculpture in obscure corners, flowers, leaves, and other
ornaments, which being cut in the durable pale red stone of which the abbey
is built, were quite perfect. What destroyed, however, the effect of the
abbey, was the barbarous taste of the good Scotch people who had built an
ugly, damp charnel house within the ruins, which they called a church!
Quitting Melrose, they crossed the Teviot by a stone bridge, and visited
Jedburgh. It rained all the way, and they arrived at the inn just before the
judges were expected out of court to dinner, very wet and cold. There was
no private room but the judges’ sitting-room, and they had to get private
lodgings in the town. Scott sat with them an hour in the evening, and
repeated a part of his “Lay of the Last Minstrel.” Their landlady was a very
remarkable woman; and Wordsworth wrote some verses expressive of the
feelings with which she inspired him. Here is the burden.
“Aye! twine thy brows with fresh spring flowers,

And call a train of laughing hours,
And bid them dance, and bid them sing,
And thou, too, mingle in the ring.”
Miss Wordsworth gives the following sweet picture of the home at

Grasmere on their return:—
“September 25th.—A beautiful autumnal day. Breakfasted at a public-
house by the road-side; dined at Threlkeld; and arrived there between eight
and nine o’clock, where we found Mary in perfect health. Joanna
Hutchinson with her, and little John asleep in the clothes-basket by the
fire.”
At the ferry-house, and waterfall of Loch Lomond, Wordsworth had
been struck with the beauty and kindness of two girls whom they met there,
and on his return to Grasmere he wrote the following lines upon one of
them:—
“Sweet Highland girl, a very shower
Of beauty is thy earthly dower!
Twice seven consenting years have shed
Their utmost bounty on thy head:
And these grey rocks; this household lawn;
These trees, a veil just half withdrawn;
This fall of water that doth make
A murmur near the silent lake;
This little bay, a quiet road,
That holds in shelter thy abode;
In truth together ye do seem
Like something fashioned in a dream;
Such forms as from their covert peep
When earthly cares are laid asleep.
Yet dream and vision as thou art,
I bless thee with a human heart:
God shield thee to thy latest years!
I neither know thee, nor thy peers;
And yet my eyes are filled with tears.”
This Scottish tour was a little episode in the quiet history of the poet’s
residence at Grasmere. The truth is, that Wordsworth could not at this time
rest long, even in his beautiful Grasmere, without the excitement of
pedestrian travel and adventure. It was likewise a part of his education as a
poet; the knowledge which he thus acquired of men, manners, and scenery.
He had devoted himself to poetry; and every thing that tended to feed the
divine faculty, he grasped at with an avidity equally as intense as that with
which your mere canine man grasps at food for his perishing body. Nothing
comes amiss to him; high and low, great and small; from the daffodil to
Skiddaw—from Skiddaw to heaven and its hosts of glorious stars,—all are
seized by this omnivorous poet, fused in his mind, and reproduced by him
in song. His limited means are no barrier to his wanderings; he and his
sister can live upon black bread and water, so far as rations are concerned;
but setting aside the necessity of the case, this economy is for a sacred
purpose,—viz.:—that they may enjoy the communion of Nature, and
partake of her spiritual banquets. The gods, however, had determined to pet
Wordsworth, and recompense him for his religious devotion to their doings
through early life; and, to say nothing of the bequest of Raisley Calvert, the
second Lord Lonsdale, just as the poet needed a wife, and larger means,
paid the debt which his predecessor owed to Wordsworth’s father,
amounting to £1,800, as the share of each member of the family. This was a
most fortunate circumstance to Wordsworth and his sister; though it
mattered little to the rest, because they were well appointed in life. De
Quincy says that, a regular succession of similar, but superior, God-sends
fell upon Wordsworth, to enable him to sustain his expenditure duly, as it
grew with the growing claims upon his purse; and after enumerating the
three items of “good luck,” mentioned above, he adds:—and “fourthly,
some worthy uncle of Mrs. Wordsworth’s was pleased to betake himself to
a better world; leaving to various nieces, and especially to Mrs. W.,
something or other, I forget what, but it was expressed by thousands of
pounds. At this moment Wordsworth’s family had begun to increase; and
the worthy old uncle, like every body else in Wordsworth’s case (I wish I
could say the same in my own), finding his property clearly ‘wanted,’ and
as people would tell him ‘bespoke,’ felt how very indelicate it would look
for him to stay any longer, and so he moved off. But Wordsworth’s family,
and the wants of that family, still continued to increase; and the next person,
being the fifth, who stood in the way, and must, therefore, have considered
himself rapidly growing into a nuisance, was the Stamp-Distributor for the
county of Westmorland. About March, 1814, I think it was, that this very
comfortable situation was vacated. Probably it took a month for the news to
reach him; because in April, and not before, feeling that he had received a
proper notice to quit, he, good man—this Stamp-Distributor—like all the
rest, distributed himself and his offices into two different places,—the latter
falling of course into the hands of Wordsworth.
“This office, which it was Wordsworth’s pleasure to speak of as a little
one, yielded, I believe, somewhere about £500 a year. Gradually even that,
with all former sources of income, became insufficient; which ought not to
surprise anybody; for a son at Oxford, as a gentleman-commoner, could
spend at least £300 per annum; and there were other children. Still it is
wrong to say, that it had become insufficient; as usual it had not come to
that; but, on the first symptoms arising that it would soon come to that,
somebody, of course, had notice to consider himself a sort of nuisance elect,
—and in this case it was the Distributor of Stamps for the county of
Cumberland.” And in this strain of good-humoured banter—stimulated no
doubt by his own precarious circumstances, in a measure, circumstances
which ought not in his case to be precarious,—De Quincy relates how
another £400 a year was added to the poet’s income from the increase of his
district as Stamp-Distributor.
In 1842, since De Quincy wrote the above, Wordsworth resigned this
office, and it was bestowed upon his son,—whilst he (the poet,) was put
down upon the Civil-list for £300 a year, and finally made Poet Laureate.
To return, however, to the more even tenor of these Memoirs:—A
circumstance occurred in the year 1803, shortly after the Scottish tour,
which will further illustrate the “good luck” of Wordsworth, although in this
instance he did not avail himself of it. Sir George Beaumont, the painter,
out of pure sympathy with the poet,—and before he had seen or written to
him,—purchased a beautiful little estate at Applethwaite, near Keswick, and
presented it to him, in order that he (Wordsworth) and Coleridge, who was
then residing at Greta Hall, might have the pleasure of a nearer and more
permanent intercourse. A fragment of Sir George’s letter (good Sir George,
who could recognise genius, and was noble and generous enough to prove
his recognition in a most practical form) is printed in Dr. Wordsworth’s
“Memoirs,” and it shews what a fine heart he had, God bless him! It is
dated October 24, 1803, and runs thus:—
“I had a most ardent desire to bring you and Coleridge together. I
thought with pleasure on the increase of enjoyment you would receive from
the beauties of Nature, by being able to communicate more frequently your
sensations to each other, and that this would be the means of contributing to
the pleasure and improvement of the world, by stimulating you both to
poetic exertions.” The benevolent project of this excellent baronet was
defeated, partly because Coleridge soon after left Greta Hall for a warmer
climate, being impelled to this course by ill health, and partly from private
considerations respecting Wordsworth and his family, which, however, do
not transpire in the “Memoirs.” A curious fact in connection with this gift
of Sir George is, that Wordsworth neglected to thank the donor, or to take
the slightest notice of it, for eight weeks after the writings were placed in
his hands. In a letter addressed to the baronet, dated Grasmere, October
14th, 1803, Wordsworth apologises for this apparent neglect, and attributes
it partly to the overpowering feelings with which the gift inspired him, and
partly to a nervous dread of writing, and a fear lest he should acknowledge
the honour that had been done him in an unworthy manner. “This feeling,”
he says, “was indeed so very strong in me, as to make me look upon the act
of writing to you, not as the work of a moment, but as a thing not to be
done, but in my best, my purest, my happiest moments.” Thus strangely
began one of the few friendships which Wordsworth cultivated with men,
and one which lasted through the life of the noble-hearted baronet, who, in
dying, in the year 1827 (on the 7th of February), left Wordsworth an
annuity of £100 to defray the expenses of an annual tour. (Another instance
of the poet’s “good luck!”) It is right to add, that Wordsworth was deeply
affected by his friend’s death, and that he has left, in his “Elegiac Musings,”
some noble lines to his memory.
Amongst the occasional visitors at Grasmere between the years 1800 and
1804, was Captain John Wordsworth, the poet’s second brother, who was
eventually lost in the Abergaveny East Indiaman, on the 5th of February,
1804. His brother was a man of fine taste and discernment, and prophesied
in various letters and at various times, the ultimate success of Wordsworth’s
poetry. Wordsworth felt severely the untimely death of his brother, whom
he loved with that devoted family fondness, which was characteristic of
him. Writing to Sir George Beaumont upon this event, he says: “February
11th, 1808. This calamitous news we received at two o’clock to-day; and I
write to you from a house of mourning. My poor sister, and my wife, who
loved him almost as we did (for he was one of the most amiable of men) are
in miserable affliction, which I do all in my power to alleviate; but, Heaven
knows, I want consolation myself. I can say nothing higher of my ever dear
brother than that he was worthy of his sister, who is now weeping beside
me, and of the friendship of Coleridge; meek, affectionate, silently
enthusiastic, loving all quiet things, and a poet in everything but words.”
The lyre of the poet sounded his praises in three poems. The first is entitled
“Elegiac Stanzas suggested by a picture of Peel Castle in a storm, painted
by Sir George Beaumont.” The next is “To a Daisy,” which suggests his
brother’s love of quiet and peaceful things, and closes with the tragedy of
his death, and the discovery and final burial of the body in the country
churchyard of Wythe, a village near Weymouth.
“And thou, sweet flower, shalt sleep and wake,

Upon his senseless grave,”
he concludes, returning thus finely to the simple flower which suggested the
melancholy train of thought that runs through the poem. The third of these
sad lyrical verses refers to the scene where the poet bade his brother
farewell, on the mountains from Grasmere to Patterdale. The verses upon
the “Picture of Peel Castle,” is the best of all these pieces; and as a fitting
conclusion to this brief memorial of the poet’s brother, I will transcribe it.
“I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged pile!

Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee:
I saw thee every day; and all the while
Thy form was sleeping on a glassy sea.
So pure thy sky, so quiet was the air!

So like, so very like, was day to day!
Where’er I looked, thy image still was there;
It trembled, but it never passed away.
How perfect was the calm! it seemed no sleep;

No mood, which season takes away or brings:
I could have fancied that the mighty deep
Was even the gentlest of all gentle things.
Ah! then, if mine had been the painter’s hand,

To express what then I saw; and add the gleam,
The light that never was on sea, or land,
The consecration, and the poet’s dream;
I would have planted thee, thou hoary pile!

Amid a world how different from this!
Beside a sea that could not cease to smile
On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss.
A picture had it been of lasting ease,

Elysian quiet, without toil or strife;
No motion but the moving tide, a breeze,
Or merely silent Nature’s breathing life.
Such, in the fond illusion of my heart,

Such picture would I at that time have made;
And seen the soul of truth in every part,
A steadfast peace that might not be betrayed.
So once it would have been—‘tis so no more;

I have submitted to a new control;
A power is gone, which nothing can restore;
A deep distress hath humanised my soul.
Not for a moment could I now behold
A smiling sea, and be what I have been;
The feeling of my loss will ne’er be old;
This, which I know, I speak with mind serene.
Then, Beaumont, friend! who would have been the friend,

If he had lived, of him whom I deplore,
This work of thine I blame not, but commend;
This sea in anger, and that dismal shore.
O ’tis a passionate work!—yet wise and well;

Well chosen is the spirit that is here;
That hulk, which labours in the deadly swell,
This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear!
And this huge castle, standing here sublime,

I love to see the look with which it braves,
Cased in the unfeeling armour of old time,
The lightning, the fierce wind, and trampling waves.
Farewell, farewell, the heart that lives alone,

Housed in a dream, at distance from the kind!
Such happiness, wherever it be known,
Is to be pitied, for ’tis surely blind.
But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer,

And frequent sights of what is to be borne!
Such sights, or worse, as are before me here.—
Not without hope we suffer, and we mourn.”
—1805.
About a month after his brother’s death, Wordsworth concluded his

“Prelude,” upon which he had been employed for upwards of six years. In
allusion to this poem, Coleridge, in the “Table Talk,” says: “I cannot help
regretting that Wordsworth did not first publish his thirteen books (there are
fourteen of them,) “On the growth of an individual mind,”—superior, as I
used to think, on the whole, to the “Excursion!” ... Then the plan laid out,
and I believe partly suggested by me was, that Wordsworth should assume
the station of a man in mental repose, one whose principles were made up,
and so prepared to deliver upon authority a system of philosophy. He was to
treat man as man, a subject of eye, ear, touch and taste, in contact with
external nature, and inferring the senses from the mind, and not
compounding a mind out of the senses; then he was to describe the pastoral
and other states of society, assuming something of the Juvenalian spirit as
he approached the high civilization of cities and towns, and opening a
melancholy picture of the present state of degeneracy and vice; thence he
was to infer and reveal the proof of, and necessity for, the whole state of
man and society being subject to, and illustrative of, a redemptive process
in operation, showing how this idea reconciled all the anomalies, and
promised future glory and restoration.”
Wordsworth himself unfolds his own plan of the poem to Sir George
Beaumont, in a letter dated December 25th, 1804. It was to consist, first of
all, of a poem to be called “The Recluse,” wherein the poet was to express
in verse, his own feelings concerning Man, Nature, and Society—and,
secondly, a poem on his earlier life or the growth of his own mind. This
latter poem was “The Prelude,” two thousand verses of which, he says, in
the same letter, he had written during the last ten weeks. “The Prelude,”
therefore, which was not published till after the poet’s death, was first
written, and “The Recluse,” subsequently. Only a part of this poem,
however—viz., “The Excursion,” except, of course, “The Prelude,” is
published; “The Recluse” Proper, being still in MS.
Besides these larger works, Wordsworth threw off—not without care and
meditation,—for no man ever wrote with more method and purpose—many
minor poems, and amongst them was “The Waggoner,” dedicated to
Charles Lamb, but not published until 1819. It was in this year (1805) that
Wordsworth, Sir Walter Scott, and Sir Humphry Davy ascended Helvellyn
together; and learned the sad story of poor Charles Gough, who perished in
attempting to cross over Helvellyn to Grasmere, by slipping from a steep
part of the rock, where the ice was not thawed, and beside whose remains
his faithful dog was found many days afterwards, almost starved to death.
This affecting incident afforded a theme for both poets—viz., Sir Walter
and Wordsworth, and each wrote upon it without knowing that the other
was similarly engaged. Scott’s poem is entitled “Helvellyn,” and
Wordsworth’s “Fidelity.”
In 1807, Wordsworth issued two new volumes of poetry, in 12mo.,
which contained some of his best pieces; but which, like all his poems, did
not gain immediate popularity. It is true that a fourth edition of the “Lyrical
Ballads” had been called for, and that this indicated a growing taste in the
public mind for Wordsworth’s effusions; but the critics assailed him with
the bitterest animosity, and on the whole without much reason. With no
reason, in short, so far as the poetic principles—the canon of his poetry—
was concerned, and only with some show of reason in the instance of his
peculiar mannerism. For although he was often misled by his craving after
simplicity, and uttered what might be called without any violation of truth
or desecration of the poet’s name and memory—drivel—still he had
published poems of a very high order, such as had not been published in the
lifetime of any man then living. The critics, however, could not let him
alone, could not see the manifest beauties of his poetry, or would not see
them, but denounced the whole without reserve or mercy. In the meanwhile
Coleridge cheered him on, and on his return to England, in the summer of
1806, Wordsworth read “The Prelude” to him in the gardens of Coleorton,
near Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, where the poet was then residing at
the invitation of Sir George Beaumont; and the high commendations which
Coleridge poured upon this poem animated Wordsworth to increased
exertion and perseverance. During his residence at this beautiful house, he
composed the noble “Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle,”—the finest
thing of the kind in our language; and he left behind him as usual, many
records of his feelings at Coleorton. The poet’s letters to Sir George
Beaumont and an occasional one to Sir Walter Scott, are amongst the most
interesting transcripts we have of his mind at this period.
It was in the beginning of the winter, 1807, that De Quincy paid his first
visit to Wordsworth; and I find great fault with Dr. Wordsworth that he
makes no allusion to De Quincy in all his memoirs of the poet. This is the
more unpardonable, inasmuch as De Quincy is a man of the highest calibre
—of the most refined taste,—of the profoundest scholarship, and possessing
the widest acquaintance with general literature—to say nothing of his
transcendant genius—of any man who has lived in this generation.
Unpardonable, likewise, because De Quincy was a devout lover, and a
chivalrous defender of Wordsworth, when it was not fashionable to speak
well of him, and when a man who praised him stood a fair chance of being
estimated, if not called, a madman. Neither can I ever forgive the poet
himself for his cold neglect of the great Opium Eater. Such a man as De
Quincy is not to be treated with contumely and despite, even by such a man
as Wordsworth; for assuredly, in point of genius, both men stood pretty
much upon the same level, and Wordsworth was far inferior to De Quincy
in the other important matters specified above. De Quincy’s demon did not
inspire him to write verses, but to write essays—and what essays! I do not
know the writer who has ever taken so wide a range of subjects, and written
upon them in such grand and noble English. De Quincy was a prose
architect, Wordsworth a poetic one; and this is all the difference between
them. In genius they were equal. Some day, perhaps, De Quincy will be
better appreciated. We are indebted to De Quincy for the best account
existing of the poet, his family, and home at Grasmere and Rydal; and no
one would go to Dr. Wordsworth for information when he could go to De
Quincy. Not that I have anything to say against Dr. Wordsworth personally,
but I dislike his studied exclusiveness. The men who for long years were in
constant intercourse with the poet, and on terms of friendship with him—
Wilson, for example, as well as De Quincy—cannot be shut out from his
biography without manifest injustice both to them and to the poet; and yet
this is systematically done. Perhaps the good doctor has a clerical horror of
his great-uncle being associated with loose Men of Letters; men, too, of not
quite an orthodox cast in their opinions; genial, jovial, and full of all good
fellowship besides. But of what avail could such horror so manifested be?
The world will know the truth at last; and it is right they should; and one
thing is certain enough, that Wordsworth will suffer no dishonour in the
companionship of De Quincy and Wilson.
When I first read No. 1, of the “Lake Reminiscences,” by De Quincy, in
“Tait’s Magazine,” I could scarcely believe what I read; and nothing would
have convinced me of its truth, short of the authority which announced it. I
had looked upon Wordsworth as a kind-hearted, generous, and unselfish
man; noble, friendly, and without the vanity which has so often blurred the
fair page of a great man’s nature. I was sorry to find that I was mistaken in
this estimate of the poet; and that he, like me, and all the rest of us, had
faults and failings manifold. De Quincy’s own account of his first visit to
Wordsworth, the deep reverence with which he regarded him, and the
overwhelming feelings which beset him on the occasion, is very affecting;
and contrasted with the poet’s subsequent treatment of him, his wanton
throwing away of that noble and affectionate heart, and his total disregard
of the high intellectual homage which De Quincy offered to him, is still
more affecting, and full, likewise, of pain and sorrow. Whilst he was a
student at Oxford, De Quincy twice visited the Lake Country, on purpose to
pay his respects to Wordsworth; and once, he says, he went forward from
Coniston to the very gorge of Hammerscar, “from which the whole vale of
Grasmere suddenly breaks upon the view in a style of almost theatrical
surprise, with its lovely valley stretching in the distance, the lake lying
immediately below, with its solemn boat-like island, of five acres in size,
seemingly floating on its surface; its exquisite outline on the opposite shore,
revealing all its little bays, and wild sylvan margin, feathered to the edge
with wild flowers and ferns!
“In one quarter a little wood, stretching for about half a mile towards the
outlet of the lake, more directly in opposition to the spectator; a few green
fields: and beyond them, just two bow-shots from the water, a little white
cottage gleaming from the midst of trees, with a vast and seemingly never-
ending series of ascents, rising above it to the height of more than three
thousand feet. That little cottage was Wordsworth’s, from the time of his
marriage, until 1808. Afterwards, for many a year, it was mine. Catching
one glimpse of this loveliest of landscapes, I retreated, like a guilty thing,
for fear I might be surprised by Wordsworth, and then returned faint-hearted
to Coniston, and so to Oxford, re infecta.—This was in 1806. And thus,
from mere excess of nervous distrust in my own powers for sustaining a
conversation with Wordsworth, I had for nearly five years shrunk from a
meeting for which, beyond all things under heaven, I longed.”
This nervous distrust yielded in after life to a sober confidence, and a
matchless power of unfolding his thoughts colloquially. In the meanwhile,
that is to say, in 1807, Coleridge returned from Malta, and De Quincy was
introduced to him first of all at Bridgewater, and met him again at the Hot-
wells, near Bristol,—when, upon discovering that he was anxious to put his
wife and children under some friendly escort, on their return homewards to
Keswick, De Quincy offered to unite with Mrs. Coleridge in a post-chaise
to the north. Accordingly they set out. Hartley Coleridge was then nine
years old, Derwent about seven, and the beautiful little daughter about five.
In such companionship, then, did De Quincy pay his first visit to
Wordsworth, at Grasmere,—a most interesting and artistic account of which
he has written in “Tait’s Magazine,” and to which I have been frequently
indebted in the compilation of these Memoirs. The cottage has already been
described, and the reader who has followed the course of this imperfect
history, will remember the portraits of its illustrious inmates. Let us now see
how it fared with De Quincy, when he met the mighty man of his heart. He
was “stunned,” when Wordsworth shook him cordially by the hand, and
went mechanically towards the house, leaving Mrs. Coleridge in the chaise
at the door. The re-appearance of the poet, however, after exercising due
hospitality to his lady guest, gave him courage, and he found that the said
poet was, after all, but a man. His reverence for him, however, continued
unabated, and for twenty-five years, during which time De Quincy lived at
the lakes, in constant communion with Wordsworth, his reverence for the
poet’s genius remained the same, and still remains, although he has long
since ceased to respect him in so highly as a man; not, however, because
Wordsworth was not of unimpeachable character, and estimable in so many
ways, but because he had not that generous love for his friends which
friendship demands. De Quincy confesses his estrangement from the poet
with sorrow, and some bitterness of heart; and the following extract will
throw all the light upon this subject which can be thrown at present:—
“I imagine a case such as this which follows,” says De Quincy, in
alluding to the estrangement spoken of above—“the case of a man who for
many years has connected himself with the domestic griefs and joys of
another, over and above his primary service of giving to him the strength
and the encouragement of a profound literary sympathy, at a time of
universal scorning from the world; suppose this man to fall into a situation,
in which, from want of natural connections, and from his state of insulation
in life, it might be most important to his feelings that some support should
be lent to him by a friend having a known place and acceptation, and what
may be called a root in the country, by means of connections, descent, and
long settlement. To look for this might be a most humble demand on the
part of one who had testified his devotion in the way supposed. To miss it
might—— But enough. I murmur not; complaint is weak at all times; and
the hour is passed irrevocably, and by many a year, in which an act of
friendship so natural, and costing so little (in both senses so priceless),
could have been availing. The ear is deaf that should have been solaced by
the sound of welcome. Call, but you will not be heard; shout aloud, but your
‘ave!’ and ‘all hail!’ will now tell only as an echo of departed days,
proclaiming the hollowness of human hopes. I, for my part, have long
learned the lesson of suffering in silence; and also I have learned to know
that, wheresoever female prejudices are concerned, there it will be a trial,
more than Herculean, of a man’s wisdom, if he can walk with an even step,
and swerve neither to the right nor to the left.”
Leaving this sad subject, however, let us return to De Quincy at
Grasmere in 1807. Mrs. Coleridge, on leaving the poet’s family for
Keswick, invited De Quincy to visit her and Southey, and it was arranged
that Wordsworth and the Opium Eater should go together. Accordingly they
set off in a farmer’s cart to Ambleside, and from thence mounted the ascent
of Kirkstone. Descending towards Brothers’ Water—“a lake which lies
immediately below; and about three miles further, through endless woods,
and under the shade of mighty fells, immediate dependencies and processes
of the still more mighty Helvellyn” they approached the vale of Patterdale,
and reached the inn, by moonlight. “All I remember,” says De Quincy is
—“that through those romantic woods and rocks of Stybarren—through
those silent glens of Glencoin and Glenridding—through that most romantic
of parks then belonging to the Duke of Norfolk—viz., Gobarrow Park—we
saw alternately for four miles, the most grotesque and the most awful
spectacles—
——“Abbey windows
And Moorish temples of the Hindoos,”
all fantastic, all as unreal and shadowy as the moon-light which created
them; whilst at every angle of the road, broad gleams came upwards of
Ullswater, stretching for nine miles northward, but fortunately for its effect,
broken into three watery channels of about equal length, and rarely visible
at once.”
The party, (for Miss Wordsworth and the poet’s children were present on
this occasion,) passed the night in a house called Ewsmere, and in the
morning, leaving his family at this inn, the poet set out, with De Quincy, for
a ramble through the woods of Lowther. These are the woods concerning
which the poet, in a letter to Sir George Beaumont, dated October 17, 1805,
says:—“I believe a more delightful spot is not under the sun. Last summer I
had a charming walk along the river, for which I was indebted to this man
[alluding to a good quaker, who was Lord Lowther’s arbiter elegantiarum,
or master of the grounds, and who was making improvements in them, by
virtue of his office], whose intention is to carry the walk along the river side
till it joins the great road at Lowther Bridge, which you will recollect, just
under Brougham, about a mile from Penrith. This, to my great sorrow! for
the manufactured walk, which was absolutely necessary in many places,
will, in one place, pass through a few hundred yards of forest-ground, and
will there efface the most beautiful specimen of forest pathway ever seen by
human eyes, and which I have paced many an hour when I was a youth,
with one of those I best loved. There is a continued opening between the
trees, a narrow slip of green turf, besprinkled with flowers, chiefly daisies;
and here it is that this pretty path plays its pranks, weaving among the turf
and flowers at its pleasure.” And it was in these woods, just five days after
their introduction to each other, that Wordsworth and De Quincy spent a
whole glorious morning in wild ramblings and in conversation. They dined
together, towards evening, at Emont Bridge, and then walked on to the
house of Captain Wordsworth, at Penrith. The family was absent, and the
poet had business which occupied him all the next day; so De Quincy took
a walk, sauntering along the road, about seventeen miles, to Keswick,
where he enquired for Greta Hall, the residence of the poet Southey. “It
stands out of the town a few hundred yards, upon a little eminence,
overhanging the river Greta.” Mrs. Coleridge and Southey came to the door
to welcome their visitor. “Southey was in person somewhat taller than
Wordsworth being about five feet eleven in height, or a trifle more, whilst
Wordsworth was about five feet ten; and partly from having slenderer
limbs, partly from being more symmetrically formed about the shoulders,
than Wordsworth, he struck me as a better and lighter figure, to the effect of
which his dress contributed; for he wore, pretty constantly, a short jacket
and pantaloons, and had much the air of a Tyrolese mountaineer.... His hair
was black, and yet his complexion was fair; his eyes, I believe, hazel, and
large, but I will not vouch for that fact; his nose aquiline; and he had a
remarkable habit of looking up into the air, as if looking at abstraction. The
expression of his face was that of a very acute, and an aspiring man. So far
it was even noble, as it conveyed a feeling of serene and gentle pride,
habitually familiar with elevating subjects of contemplation. And yet it was
impossible that this pride could have been offensive to anybody, chastened
as it was by the most unaffected modesty; and this modesty made evident
and prominent, by the constant expression of reverence for the great men of
the age (when he happened to esteem them such), and for all the great
patriarchs of our literature. The point in which Southey, however, failed
most in conciliating regard was, in all which related to the external
expression of friendliness. No man could be more sincerely hospitable, no
man more completely disposed to give up, even his time (the possession
which he most valued), to the service of his friends; but, there was an air of
reserve and distance about him—the reserve of a lofty, self-respecting mind,
but, perhaps, a little too freezing,—in his treatment of all persons who were
not amongst the corps of his ancient fireside friends. Still, even towards the
veriest strangers, it is but justice to notice his extreme courtesy, in
sacrificing his literary employments for the day, whatever they might be, to
the duty (for such he made it,) of doing the honors of the lake, and the
adjacent mountains.”
De Quincy says that the habits of the poet Southey were exceedingly
regular, and that all his literary business was conducted upon a systematic
plan. He had his task before breakfast, which, however, must have been an
inconsiderable nothing, for it occupied him only an hour, and rarely that, for
he never rose until eight, and always breakfasted at nine o’clock. He went
to bed precisely at half-past ten, and no sleep short of nine hours, refreshed
him, and enabled him to do his work. He usually dined between five and
six, and his chief labour was done between breakfast and dinner. If he had
visitors, he would sit over his wine, and talk; if not, he retired to his library,
until eight, when he was summoned to tea. At ten he read the London
papers; “and it was perfectly astonishing,” says De Quincy, “to men of less
methodical habits, to find how much he got through of elaborate business,
by his unvarying system of arrangement in the distribution of his time.” All
his letters were answered on the same day that they arrived. Even his poetry
was written by forced efforts, or rather, perhaps, by what De Quincy calls,
“a predetermined rule.” It was by writing prose, however, that Southey got
his living—made “his pot boil,” as he says; and his chief source of regular
income was derived from “The Quarterly Review.” At one time, however,
he received £400 a year for writing the historical part of “The Edinburgh
Annual Register.” This, however, he gave up, because the publisher
proposed to dock £100 from the salary which he had previously paid him.—
Southey, however, could afford to lose this large income, because he had an
annuity which had been settled upon him by his friend, Charles Wynne,
“the brother of Sir Watkin, the great autocrat of Wales.” This annuity,
however, when his friend married, Southey voluntarily gave up; and the
Granvilles, to whom Wynne was related by his marriage, placed Southey on
the civil list, for the sacrifice which he thus made.
Such, then, were the circumstances of Southey at the time of De
Quincy’s visit, and it must be owned that they were very comfortable, for a
poet. Wordsworth came on the day after De Quincy’s arrival, and it was
evident that the two poets were not on the most friendly terms; not that
there was any outward sign of this,—on the contrary, there were all the
exteriors of hospitality and good feeling on both sides; but De Quincy saw
that the spiritual link between them was not complete, but broken; that,
indeed, they did not understand, or fully sympathise with each other. Their
minds and habits were different—I had almost said totally different.
Wordsworth lived on the mountain top, composed there, and drew his
inspiration direct from Nature; Southey lived in his magnificent library, and
was inspired more by books than by natural objects.—Wordsworth’s library
consisted of two or three hundred volumes, mostly torn and dilapidated;
many were odd volumes; they were ill bound—not bound—or put in
boards. Leaves were often wanting, and their place supplied occasionally by
manuscript. These books “occupied a little homely book-case, fixed into
one of two hollow recesses, formed on each side of the fireplace by the
projection of the chimney into the little solitary room up stairs, which he
had already described as his ‘half kitchen, half parlour.’.... Southey’s
collection occupied a separate room—the largest, and every way the most
agreeable in the house.”
Wordsworth’s poetry was subjective—referred chiefly to the inner life of
man; and his dealings with Nature had a special reference to this inner life,
his imagery being the mere vehicle of his thought. Southey’s poetry, on the
contrary, was essentially objective,—a reflex of the outward nature,
heightened by the fiery colouring of his imagination. Wordsworth had a
contempt for books, or, at all events, for most books,—whilst Southey’s
library, as De Quincy says, was his estate. Wordsworth would toss books
about like tennis balls; and to let him into your library, quoth Southey, “is
like letting a bear into a tulip-garden.” De Quincy relates, that Wordsworth
being one morning at breakfast with him at Grasmere, took a handsome
volume of Burke’s from his book-case, and began very leisurely to cut the
leaves with a knife smeared all over with butter. Now tastes and habits such
as those which marked the two poets could not unite them very closely
together; at all events, not at this time; although they were subsequently,
and in later years, upon terms of close intimacy and friendship. Upon the
present occasion, however,—that is to say, during De Quincy’s visit to
Southey—the two poets managed very well together, and the evening was
passed agreeably enough. Next morning they discussed politics, and to the
horror of De Quincy, who was then a young man, and took no interest in the
passing movements of nations, and had always heard the French
Revolution, and its barbaric excesses, stigmatised as infernal,—who was,
moreover a loyal person according to the tradition of his fathers, and a lover
of Mr. Pitt—to his horror, the two poets uttered the most disloyal
sentiments, denouncing all monarchial forms of government, and proposed
to send the royal family to Botany Bay! This proposal, which Southey
immediately threw into extempore verse, was so comical, that the whole
party laughed outright, and outrageously; they then set off towards
Grasmere.
De Quincy speaks in the highest terms of Southey, and in the comparison
which he institutes between Southey and Wordsworth, the latter certainly
sustains loss. I refer the reader to the “Lake Reminiscences” for this, and
other most interesting particulars relating to these poets. Still I cannot bid
adieu to these “Reminiscences,” without using them once more, as
materials for an account of Greta Hall and its occupants.

Antarctic Climate Evolution 2Nd Edition Fabio Florindo Full Chapter PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

Antarctic Climate Evolution 2Nd Edition Fabio Florindo Full Chapter PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Antarctic Climate Evolution 2Nd Edition Fabio Florindo Full Chapter PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Antarctic Climate Evolution, 2nd

Edition Fabio Florindo

European Economic Governance: Theories, Historical

Evolution 2nd Edition, (Ebook PDF)

Genetics and Evolution of Infectious Diseases 2nd

Global Climate Change and Human Health 2nd Edition Jay

Effects of Climate Change on Birds 2nd Edition Peter O.

The Economics of John Maynard Keynes Fabio Terra

The Domestic Dog: Its Evolution, Behavior and

Thorp and Covich's Freshwater Invertebrates: Keys to

For Information on all Elsevier publications

Publisher: Candice Janco

List of contributors xiii

1. Antarctic Climate Evolution second edition 1

2. Sixty years of coordination and support for Antarctic

3. Cenozoic history of Antarctic glaciation and climate

4. Water masses, circulation and change in the modern

5. Advances in numerical modelling of the Antarctic ice

6. The Antarctic Continent in Gondwana: a perspective

6.7.3 Antarctica after Gondwana fragmentation 267

7. The Eocene-Oligocene boundary climate transition:

8.3 Conundrums revisited 371

9. Antarctic environmental change and ice sheet

10. Pleistocene Antarctic climate variability: ice sheet,

10.7.2 IODP Expedition 374: Ross Sea West Antarctic Ice

11. Antarctic Ice Sheet changes since the Last Glacial

12. Past Antarctic ice sheet dynamics (PAIS) and

12.2 Importance of evolving topography, bathymetry, erosion

13. The future evolution of Antarctic climate: conclusions

Michael J. Bentley Department of Geography, Durham University, Durham, United

Alan Kennedy-Asser BRIDGE, School of Geographical Sciences, University of

Laura De Santis National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics,

In July 2008, we published the first edition of Antarctic Climate Evolution;

Fabio Florindo1, Martin J. Siegert2, Laura De Santis3 and Tim R. Naish4

Antarctic Climate Evolution

Antarctic Climate Evolution. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-819109-5.00007-4

sanctioned by SCAR in 1990 to reconstruct the Cenozoic palaeoclimatic and

Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (IPCC, 2019)

1.2 Structure and content of the book

Chapte r 13 Chapte r 13 Chapte r 13 Chapte r 13

las t 1000 0 las t 150 300 years

Stage years years into the future

0.0 12 Eocene/Oligocene Miocene Las t Glacial 12

Climat e Optimum Middle-Pliocene Maximum

Million Years Before Present) kyr Before Present Year

the modern oceanography to provide a physical basis for realistic reconstructions

Sixty years of coordination and

Antarctic Climate Evolution. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-819109-5.00011-6

2.2 Scientific value of research in Antarctica and the

established Antarctic research stations including those at the South Pole

SCAR is responsible for initiating, developing and coordinating high-

FIGURE 2.5 The SCAR logo. With permission from SCAR.

of), Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Poland,

2.3 The international framework in which SCAR operates

2.4 The organisation of SCAR

FIGURE 2.6 Antarctic Climate Evolution (ACE) logo.

G Antarctica and the Global Climate System (AGCS);

FIGURE 2.7 Organisation of SCAR. http://www.scar.org (retrieved February 2019).