Innehållsförteckning för Spring 2022 från The Explorers Journal

ICE LOSS ON EVEREST GLACIER CORES PORTEND DISASTER “The South Col Glacier—which, at 8,020 meters, is the highest glacier on Earth—has lost some 2,000 years’ worth of ice over the past three decades. This alarming rate of loss is driven by warming temperatures and portends disaster for the region,” says Paul Mayewski, director of the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute and leader of the 2019 National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition, which extracted the revelatory ice cores from the world’s highest peak. “Despite the mountain’s iconic status—having been climbed more than 7,000 times—Everest’s highest reaches have, until now, been poorly understood in terms of weather, climate, and glacier health,” explains Mayewski, adding that the multifaceted expedition was undertaken to fill in some of those gaps. Glaciers around…

“Endurance is a Holy Grail of lost ships, but the challenge has always been that she lies in 3,000 meters of water beneath the perennial ice of the Weddell Sea, a place that Sir Ernest Shackleton himself described as ‘the worst portion of the worst sea in the world,’” marine archaeologist Mensun Bound told The Explorers Journal, when he spoke to us last summer after the loss of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) brought a quick end to his 2019 search for the ship. The three-masted barquentine—which had carried Shackleton’s 27-man crew from Plymouth to Buenos Aires, where the explorer joined his shipmates before heading south on the now-legendary Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition—sank after being crushed by pack ice on November 21, 1915. After surviving for nearly five months in a…

It has been more than a decade since Juno launched from Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral on August 5, 2011, on what was to have been a six-and-a-half-year mission to explore Jupiter—to determine the nature of the Jovian giant, find out whether its core was solid, and ascertain the source of its formidable magnetic field. Given the planet’s enormous size and the fact that it was likely the first in our solar system to coalesce, Jupiter is thought to have profoundly influenced the formation and evolution of the other bodies that orbit our star, including Earth. After a five-year journey, Juno entered Jupiter’s orbit on July 4, 2016, where it embarked on a series of 53-day orbits, at an altitude of 4,100 kilometers. The original plan called for the craft…

Who among us has not feared or worried about snakebite at some time in our travels? And with good reason—some 75 percent of the world’s population lives within an hour of endemic venomous snakes. Matthew Lewin—an MD, PhD, Explorers Club fellow, and member of the WHO Snakebite Envenoming Working Group—has worked extensively on snakebites and modernization of treatment. He is an emergency medicine physician and cofounder and chief scientific officer of Ophirex, Inc., the developer of a novel and exciting potential game changer for snakebite treatment. MICHAEL J. MANYAK: Snakes elicit such a primal, visceral fear among humans and many animals because of potential envenomation. What is the extent of snake envenomation worldwide and in the United States? MATTHEW LEWIN: Globally, there are about 500,000 permanent limb injuries each year,…

FOUNDED IN 1904 BY A GROUP OF AMERICA’S LEADING EXPLORERS, THE EXPLORERS CLUB IS A MULTI-DISCIPLINARY PROFESSIONAL SOCIETY DEDICATED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF FIELD RESEARCH, SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATION, AND THE IDEAL THAT IT IS VITAL TO PRESERVE THE INSTINCT TO EXPLORE. THE CLUB’S STEADFAST MISSION HAS BEEN TO ENCOURAGE AND PROMOTE SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATION OF LAND, SEA, AIR, AND SPACE, WITH AN EMPHASIS ON THE PHYSICAL AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES. AS A PRIMARY AND PRESTIGIOUS CENTER FOR EXPLORATION AND EXPEDITION PLANNING, THE CLUB IS A FOCAL POINT AND UNIFYING FORCE FOR EXPLORERS AND SCIENTISTS WORLDWIDE, WITH 34 CHAPTERS SPANNING THE GLOBE. For information regarding categories of membership—Fellow, Member, Friend, Term, and Student—and the process of election to The Explorers Club, visit us at www.explorers.org. The downloadable application sets forth qualifications for all levels…

A MEMBER OF THE EXPLORERS CLUB SINCE 2004, AMOS NACHOUM IS AN INTERNATIONALLY ACCLAIMED PHOTOGRAPHER WHO HAS DEDICATED HIS LIFE TO DOCUMENTING EARTH’S LARGEST AND MOST FEARED CREATURES IN THEIR NATURAL HABITATS. HE IS THE COAUTHOR—WITH MARKO DIMITRIJEVIC—OF THE RECENTLY RELEASED VOLUME BIG. FOR MORE ON HIS WORK, VISIT: WWW.BIGANIMALS.COM. I have been drawn to the ocean ever since I was a child growing up by the sea in Israel. With a profound sense of wonderment, I marveled at the shells and bits of marine life I encountered on my daily forays to the beach. I also remember that halcyon day when, at the age of 12, I discovered my father’s camera, a relic of the Second World War, which I began using to document the natural world around me.…

In 2019, British adventurer James Ketchell completed the first around-the-world gyroplane flight ratified by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. In recognition of that feat and others leading up to it, he was named the 2021 recipient of the Royal Automobile Club’s Segrave Trophy, one of the most prestigious awards for adventure endeavor that the United Kingdom has to offer, recognizing “outstanding skill, courage, and initiative on land, water, and the air.” But to see his name ranked alongside previous winners—which include the likes of explorer John Blashford-Snell, aeronaut Richard Branson, and aviator Amy Johnson—leaves him humble: “I can’t quite believe it to be honest.” the challenge wasn’t an ocean or a mountain, but rather the obstacles James Ketchell put in his own mind… If he’s too modest to make claims about…

JOIN THE “EXPLORERS IMMORTALS” AND ENGRAVE YOUR NAME OR DEDICATION IN STONE ON NEW PAVERS FOR THE LEFRAK TERRACE AT EXPLORERS CLUB HEADQUARTERS. ADORN OUR LANDMARK OUTDOOR SPACE AND HELP PAY FOR URGENT WORK FOR PHASE II RENOVATIONS BY MAKING A TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATION OF $3,750 PER DEDICATED PAVER TO OUR LOWELL THOMAS BUILDING FUND. THE EXPLORERS CLUB WOULD LIKE TO THANK THE FOLLOWING WHO HAVE PURCHASED A PAVER: Mark Allio, Joanna Allman, James H. Alexander, John G. Alexander, Darlene T. Anderson, Jeanne D. Andlinger, Barbara Annan, Robert J. Aresty, Robert Ashton, Atlanta Chapter, Robert J. Atwater, Robin Wheeler Azqueta, Norman L. Baker, George Basch, Andreas Bender, Josh Bernstein, John Bierley, Bruce Blanchard, John R. Bockstoce, Brian M. Boom, John R. Boreske, Jr., Jill Botway, Gary W. Bowersox, Lawson W. Brigham,…

MATTHE WAYRE, FRCGS, IS A HISTORICAL CLIMATOLOGIST AT THE ARCTIC INSTITUTE OF NORTH AMERICA, UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY. ORIGINALLY FROM NEWCASTLE, ENGLAND, HE OBTAINED HIS PHD IN 2016 FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF SUNDERLAND AND CONTINUES TO FOCUS ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY HISTORY, HERITAGE, AND LEGACY OF THE BRITISH ARCTIC WHALING TRADE. It was March 2018, and I was deep in my study of ships’ logs from the British Arctic whaling trade, transcribing the extraordinary daily environmental observations they contain as part of my post-doctoral research, when I came upon a brief passage that piqued my curiosity and set in motion a new trajectory for my research. It was from the log of the Dundee whaler Diana—which chronicled a 1902 voyage to Baffin Bay—and it read: “One of the Nova…