On the Role of the Weather in the Deaths of R. F. Scott and His Companions

• Published in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 1999-11, Vol.96 (23), p.13012-13016
• Main Authors: Solomon, Susan, Stearns, Charles R.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Climate models; Coasts; Explorers; Fatalities; Geology; Ice; Mathematical minima; Meteorology; Physical Sciences; Physics; Scott, Robert Falcon; Surface temperature; Temperature; Thermometers; Weather; Weather stations
• ISSN: 0027-8424; 1091-6490
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.96.23.13012

Robert Falcon Scott and his companions reached the South Pole in January of 1912, only to die on their return journey at a remote site on the Ross Ice Shelf, about 170 miles from their base camp on the coast. Numerous contributing causes for their deaths have been proposed, but it has been assumed that the cold temperatures they reported encountering on the Ross Ice Shelf, near 82-80 degrees S during their northward trek toward safety, were not unusual. The weather in the region where they perished on their unassisted trek by foot from the Pole remained undocumented for more than half a century, but it has now been monitored by multiple automated weather stations for more than a decade. The data recorded by Scott and his men from late February to March 19, 1912, display daily temperature minima that were on average 10 to 20 degrees F below those obtained in the same region and season since routine modern observations began in 1985. Only 1 year in the available 15 years of measurements from the location where Scott and his men perished displays persistent cold temperatures at this time of year close to those reported in 1912. These remarkably cold temperatures likely contributed substantially to the exhaustion and frost-bite Scott and his companions endured, and their deaths were therefore due, at least in part, to the unusual weather conditions they endured during their cold march across the Ross Ice Shelf of Antarctica.