Global Earth Day broadcast to feature South Pole

Air quality research and ozone monitoring at the US National Science Foundation's Amundsen-Scott South Pole station will be showcased as part of a global Earth Day telecast scheduled for April 20, 2007, on various ABC network news programs.

Stephen Padin, the South Pole station science leader, will be featured on the network's broadcast Planet Earth 2007: Seven Ways to Help Save the World. Padin is spending the southern winter at the world's most remote scientific observatory.

Padin is expected to discuss what it is like to spend eight months of darkness at the Pole and what scientists are doing there. He will also talk about long-range scientific research to track levels of carbon-dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere since men first wintered at the Pole 50 years ago. The condition of the Earth's protective ozone layer also is monitored at the Pole.
The various reports in the daylong broadcast will air on Good Morning America, World News with Charles Gibson," an hour-long 20/20 anchored by Diane Sawyer and Nightline.

The South Pole has the most pristine air on the Earth and the record of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere derived from measurements at the Pole, which has shown steady growth for 50 years, is one of the oldest and most comprehensive in existence.

Padin lives in an elevated station that replaced one built in 1975. He oversees the operation of the South Pole telescope, a 75-foot tall, 280-ton device that will allow scientists to study the evolution of the universe.

The broadcast also airs shortly after the March 2007 launch of International Polar year (IPY), a concentrated, global campaign of research in the polar regions. NSF, which manages the U.S. Antarctic Program and chairs the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee, is the lead U.S. agency for IPY.

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