IGY Bulletin, Number 2, August 1957 - Antarctic Notes

The last article in the second issue of the IGY Bulletin (August, 1958) was just a page of preliminary results from the Antarctic.

Weather at the South Pole

Some interesting early results:

1. A new world record for lowest temperature on the Earth's surface was measured as -100.4°F (-73.5°C) at the U.S. South Pole Station on May 11, 1957. (As of the present day, the lowest natural temperature ever directly recorded on the Earth's surface is  −128.6 °F (−89.2 °C) at the Soviet Vostok Station in Antarctica on 21 July 21, 1983.)

2. A few hundred feet above the surface at the Admundsen-Scott South Pole Station, the temperature increases as much as 50°F, then decreases at higher heights to the top of the troposphere.

3. Record high winds for Antarctica were also recorded at the South Pole, up to 47 knots.

For your interest, Wikipedia has a comprehensive list of weather records. 

Neutron Monitor Studies

A "neutron pile monitor" designed and built by John A. Simpson of the University of Chicago was installed on the icebreaker USS Arneb and operated during Operation Deep Freeze I and II from 1955-57.

A helpful note from Wikipedia: "A neutron monitor is a ground-based detector designed to measure the number of high-energy charged particles striking the Earth's atmosphere from outer space. For historical reasons the incoming particles are called "cosmic rays", but in fact they are particles, predominantly protons and Helium nuclei. Most of the time, a neutron monitor records galactic cosmic rays... Occasionally the Sun emits cosmic rays of sufficient energy and intensity to raise radiation levels on Earth's surface to the degree that they are readily detected by neutron monitors. They are termed 'ground level enhancements' (GLE)."

I mentioned the USS Arneb and an associated postmarked cover in an earlier post. 

Finally, the article notes that on Feb. 23, 1956, solar cosmic rays were measured in association with a solar flare, for only the 5th time. This was one of the notable historic solar storms. The Arneb, which measured solar cosmic rays at various latitudes as it sailed the seas,  detected particles from this flare while in the harbor at Wellington, New Zealand.

I have a book from the former library of John Simpson of the Enrico Fermi Institute for Nuclear Studies at the University of Chicago. The inscription inside the book is below.

The book was published in 1956 by the American Geophysical Union as Geophysical Monograph Number 1 (there are now 264 volumes in this series) with articles from a symposium on Antarctica in the International Geophysical Year:

The contents list an article by John Simpson himself on "Cosmic-ray experiments derived from recent U.S. Antarctic expeditions", and additional articles by noted scientists and IGY luminaries: