COLDEST CONDITIONS EXPERIENCED BY MAN

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28742, 13 November 1958, Page 23

COLDEST CONDITIONS EXPERIENCED BY MAN

Six scientists have now been living for seven months in conditions colder than men have ever lived in before. Manning the Soviet Antarctic research station at Sovetskaya. near the point in the sou.hern continent most remote from the sea, they found on August It that the temperature had fallen to the record low level of —86.7 degrees C. (188 degrees F. of frost), reports the “Soviet Weekly.” At that temperature paraffin is frozen solid, and steel is almost as brittle as glass. The research team, headed by Vitaly Babarykin, regard 40 degrees below zero (which is the same on both Fahrenheit and Centigrade scales) as “warm.” Indeed there has not been a day since the end of March when the tempo mature was not lower than 40 below—the “warmest” day since then showing —42.9 degrees C. (which is over 75 degrees of frost on the Fahrenheit scale. On June 19. the mercury fell to 81.2 degrees C. below zero

(over 178 degrees F. of frost), but Vitaly Babarykin reported “on that day, aerologist Mayevsky. radio-technician Malikov, and Dr. Konstantinov sent up a radio weather balloon and lite observations.” Vostak Station ) Conditions are almostoas tough at Vostok station, also deep in the heart of Antarctica, where July 24 brought a record low temperature of —71.4 degrees C. (160.5 degrees of frost). Soviet polar medical experts have warned the explorers that temperatures below —76 degrees F. are very harmful to health and that they should not expose themselves for more than 15 or 20 minutes to the very low temperatures now being experienced. Six of the 24 scientific stations in the Antarctic have been set up by the Soviet Union. Four of these are among the seven set up in the interior of the continent. No final answer has been obtained so far to the question whether the Antarctic is a continent or an archipelago. Only one thing is certain: if the continent does exist its size and shape differs considerably from that of the ice sheet covering it. It will be much smaller than the area given in existing geographical works. Rise of Ocean Levels At the beginning of the twentieth century. Professor David, one of the oldest Antarctic investigators, wrote that if the entire ice sheet—the average thickness of which was then estimated at 1750 ft —were to melt, the level of the oceans throughout the world would rise by nearly 50ft. Now this figure can probably be trebled at least. More than 100 species of lichen, moss and water plant have been found, showing that plant life is more widespread than had been believed. In spite of extreme dryness of the air, strong winds and lowtemperatures. the plants grow successfully on cliffs, rock beds, sand and in lakes. Their dark colour helps them to accumulate a greater amount of warmth and energy.