Government shutdown impacts climate studies in Antarctica

(The Boston Globe, November 24, 2013)

John Priscu's team from the Montana State University is doing research in Antarctica. They were the first to find bacteria living in shallow lakes beneath a half-mile of ice, a discovery that could help scientists understand how life might survive in the dark and cold of other planets. But when the government shut down in October, the researchers lost an entire, critical season in the field — and a year of data collection — because they can’t get into Antarctica. Contracts for support personnel were canceled by the shutdown, and it is too late now to get the project teams back into Antarctica for the brief summer, when the weather is warm enough to allow field research. For climate researchers, the shutdown continues to reverberate, long after most people have moved on.