Desarrollo de la Antártica

Takesi Nagata I THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ••• lected by the IAMRC immediately result in compilations of the sou– them hemisphere synoptic weather maps as well as the Antarctic synoptic weather maps for various different altitudes. The particu– lar situation of Antarctica in controlling the world glohal weat:her specifically the southern hemisphere, has already been pointed out in § 3. ~his particular influence of Atnarctica upon the weather is due to the strong albedo of the Antarctic ice-sheet for the solar ra– diation, causing a manked negative value of the net heat balance, and also to its continental topography of about 4,000 km in mean dia– meter, which prohibits the ocean currents to work for compensatiog the extremeIy coId Antarctic weather. The weather forecasting OT the weather monitoring slhouId be the primary basis for the modern schemes for developing the civilization. The present meteorological station networks in Antarct~ca and the existing scheme for utilizing their data must therefore be maintained at least for 1Jhe southem he– misphere. b) Antarctic Ice It seems now that the tremendous amount oí ice over Antarctica, about 2.4 x 10 7 km 3 in voIume and 2 xIOHl tons in weight, is ,beco– ming the great resource of fresh water, even tlhough the economical utilization may be still premature at presento Jf the tramportation of a large amount of Antarctic ice from the Antarctic to densely po– pulated parts of the world couId 'become economically possible in sorne ingenious way in the future, we may be able to utilize about 2 X l(}12 tons. (2.4 x 10 3 ikm 3 in volume) of Antarctic ice C'Very year without losing 1Jhe permanent stock of ice over Antarctica. As sum· marized in 4, the huge Antarctic ice sheet is approximate1y keeping its mass balance between the snow accumulation of 2 x 10 12 tons! year over there and the ice outflow of the same or less amount froro its outer edge. ,It :has been often suggested, on the other hand, that the Antarctic ice sheet couId be a great ice-box. The utilization of Antarctic ice in this way also depends on the convenience of transpoifation faci– lities for stooked materials. It seem, however, that this idea will become not a daydream any more in the future. c) Mineral ResoUTces It is described in 6 that tlhe East Antarctic shield, Transantartic mountain zone (Ross orogen) and ''EI1sworth inountain zone were parts of Gondwana Land in the geologic pasto As illustrated in Fig. '121