Science and exploration in the high interior of East Antarctica in the twentieth century

摘要

The highest part of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet,more than 4000 m above sea level,has been an area that has seen a considerable scientific research effort undertaken by the Chinese National Antarctic Research Expedition,and its international collaborators,since January 2005.That includes the establishment of the most remote of the Chinese Antarctic stations,Kunlun,at Dome A in 2009.However,the exploration and mapping of this region had been commenced many decades earlier,most notably by inland traverses of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the 1957-1958 International Geophysical Year (IGY) and later;and the extensive surveys of Antarctic surface and sub-ice topography by airborne radio-echo sounding made by the US National Science Foundation-Scott Polar Research Institute-Technical University of Denmark (NSF-SPRI-TUD) in the late-1960s and the 1970s.Here we provide a history of the activities and achievements of these earlier programs.Recent topographic maps of the ice sheet surface in the Dome A region,produced using Chinese GPS data and satellite altimetry,have shown the maps compiled from the earlier data were remarkably accurate.