Back from a thrilling mission to Antarctica, Dr. Meloth is excited to talk about the icy continent. Ice-core studies, he believes, are no less exciting than any other branch of science. And India has been making solid and steady advances in research in it.

A scientist at the National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research in Goa, Dr. Meloth is ebullient.

He has been proud working at the ultra-clean lab of the centre, the only one in South Asia dedicated to ice-core research.

Although he had visited Antarctica earlier, the recent visit has been more fruitful. Working in temperatures between 10-20 degrees Celsius below zero is no child’s play.

“For ice-core research, we often don’t have the comfort of the station,” Dr. Meloth says.

India’s polar station Maitri has earned a name of its own and the country is planning to set up a new base on the Larsemann Hills.

Dr. Meloth’s research team had a different date with polar ice. “Ice research is hard,” says the scientist from Kasaragod.

The team dug for ice core only at night because their drills faced the risk of getting stuck in the ice melting during the day. “It is challenging and thrilling as well,” he says.

When blizzards made them always vigilant, the innumerable microbes and nanobes found in the ice core gave them reason for excitement.

The team collected two ice cores from the ice shelf region north of the Schirmacher Oasis.

The first ice core recovered was 75 metres long and the other from a nearby location 60 metres. Studies on these will help to decipher past global climatic fluctuations, which will, in turn, help to understand the future of the earth’s climate vis-À-vis present global warming.

Dr. Meloth says Antarctic ice-core research is crucial in climatic studies for the country because the Antarctic Ocean, as the Indian Ocean, plays a significant role in controlling the region’s climate. “Retreat of Antarctic ice is evidently a matter of serious concern for us,” he says. Every year, it retreats by almost a metre.

Dr. Meloth says Antarctica has the most fragile eco-system in the world. “We are not supposed to touch even the penguin, which is unique to Antarctica,” he says.

There is no clash of continents or nations in Antarctica. Scientific research and a rare camaraderie of humans outweigh any parochial interest. “No chances are taken there. If anything goes wrong, you are responsible,” he says.

Dr. Meloth says the khondolite rock found in the Eastern Ghat regions in the country are found in Antarctica too, though geologically they are poles apart. He says solar energy is highly reflected in Antarctica, the largest cryosphere in the world.

Dr. Meloth topped the Cochin University of Science and Technology’s M.Sc. marine geology batch in 1992.

He did his B.Sc. geology from the Government College, Kasaragod.

A Ph.D. holder from the National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, Dr. Meloth has had several scholarships.

After post-doctoral studies in 2000, he had a brief stint as a lecturer at the Government College, Kasaragod. He joined the Goa centre in 2002.

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