Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 03/30/2011 - 19:21
 Hello Mr. Botella.  my name is Kyle L. and i'm in Mr. Woods per. 3 class.  Like the other zillion kids from Talbert Middle school, I have a few interesting questions that, hopefully, won't bore you to death.
   First off, have you seen any raising in water levels from the time you started your voyage to the present time?  Because it seems that our Polar Caps are melting and raising the water levels.
    Also, has there been any unusual data you've picked up?  Like a rise in co2?  Or the temperature is a  little higher than average? 

    Hopefully these questions are interesting to you and are not about how many penguins you saw or what a whale looks like.  I think it's truly spectacular for someone to step up and spend three months on a boat in Antarctica to improve our forecasting abilities.  You are a role-model to other people.   Thank you.
                                                                                                                                                            - From Kyle, a kid in an heated house while you're in a cold boat.

P.S. I hope you have a happy rest of the voyage. :)

Juan Botella

Hi Kyle, thanks for sending your questions. It seems to me you are concerned with
climate change and global warming. It is true that sea level rises as ice
caps melt, but they do so in a much bigger time period. It is hard to see
the sea level rising without the use of instruments. We would also need to
be on land to see how the water keeps covering more land. We would not
notice the change on the boat even if the sea level were to rise rapidly,
as the ship will keep floating above it with no other reference point.
I am hoping scientists on board will give a talk about what they have
learned form the cruise so far. Most of the interpretation of the data will
happen when we get on land, but I am sure they have cool things to share. I
will let you know when I get more details on the preliminary results.
We have seen less ice coverage than expected, but we can not rush to
conclusions by one year's data. Weather is given by the atmospheric and
oceanic conditions at one time. Climate is the average of those conditions
over a large period of time. So even if a year is warmer, we need to look
at the average of the temperatures over 10 years at least. There is
evidence that the temperatures have been getting higher on 10 year averages
all over the world. I hope I answered you questions. Let me know if I did
not and will try again.
Thanks for writing,
Juan.