CASE FILE: Tragedy at The Pole
THE SCENE: Antarctica
LEAD DETECTIVE: Dr. Susan Solomon
In November 1911, Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his British team of explorers began a trek across the ice of Antarctica, trying to be the first to reach the South Pole. They arrived at their destination in January 1912, only to discover that a Norwegian expedition, led by Roald Amundsen, had beaten them by a month. Devastated, Scott’s crew embarked on the return leg of their expedition. Months later, their bodies were found just 11 miles from a depot of food and heating oil. In the 90 years since the failed expedition, critics have come to think of Scott as a tragic incompetent whose death was the result of his own ill-conceived decisions. Why did he bring four men with him to the Pole, when he had originally planned on three? Why did they continue to lug 35 pounds of rock samples, even after their strength had waned? Why were they so unprepared for the frigid weather conditions? Such questions haunted Dr. Susan Solomon, a Boulder-based scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Baffled by the disconnection between Scott’s expertise and the outcome of his mission, Solomon launched a re-investigation into the case: Was it possible the explorers were blind-sided by conditions they could never have anticipated?
