V - Historic Antarctic Quest

[David Morris]

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/28/science/social/28POLA.html

August 28, 2001

Bad Luck and the Ill-Fated Antarctic Expedition of 1912
By KENNETH CHANG

In March 1912, two months after reaching the South Pole, Capt. Robert F. 
Scott froze to death in a tent just 11 miles from a depot of food and 
heating oil.

His arrival at the pole, with four of his men, had been a bitter 
disappointment, for they were not the first to make it there. A Norwegian 
team led by Roald Amundsen had beaten them by a month.

Scott set out to return to base camp on Antarctica's coast, but the 900-mile 
journey proved too harsh for him and the other men, Lt. Henry Bowers, Seaman 
Edgar Evans, Capt. Lawrence Oates and Dr. Edward Wilson.

When word of their deaths reached England, Scott was hailed as a hero, an 
exemplar of English gentlemanly pluck in the face of dire adversity. In 
recent decades, however, history's view has turned to less flattering 
second-guessing.

In a new book, Dr. Susan Solomon, a senior scientist at the National Oceanic 
and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colo., revisits Scott's 
unfortunate expedition, looking for insights that modern climate data can 
offer on what went wrong and why.

She concludes that the crucial factor was not bungling by Scott, but an 
unusually frigid Antarctic autumn.



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