1) Climate Monitoring (permafrost monitoring):

The dynamics of the earth's atmosphere and oceans are largely controlled by
meridional temperature gradients, which in turn are controlled by processes
in the tropics and polar areas.  In addition, the 3 global-scale modes of
climate variability (ENSO, Northern Hemisphere Annular Mode - NAM, Southern
Hemisphere Annular Mode - SAM) are controlled by processes in the tropics
and polar regions.  Unfortunately, climate data (from which our
understanding is derived) have been historically sparse from these critical
areas, leading to some uncertainty in the processes there.  To improve our
understanding of the climate system, it is crucial to improve our climate
monitoring capabilities, particularly in the data-sparse polar regions.
Antarctica currently represents a large hole in the Global Climate
Observing System.  To improve this situation, the installation of
well-designed climate monitoring networks (including GTN-P) in Antarctica
is strongly recommended.

2) Access to Sub-Glacial Permafrost:

There is a technology (CTD) that theoretically could be used to validate
where permafrost does and does not exist beneath the ice sheets.  In
addition, this technology could be used to acquire sub-glacial permafrost
samples if desired (10 million year old organisms?). Fully steerable CTDs
(coiled tubing drills) have been successfully used in northern Alaska,
Canada and elsewhere for a over a decade now.  In fact, over 70% of the
drilling in the Prudhoe Bay oil field is now done with CTDs.  Thus, there
is a great deal of commercial experience.  Using largely off-the-shelf
equipment, a CTD could be built specifically for drilling through the
Antarctic ice sheet (the proposed "FastDrill").  We estimate such a drill
could drill through 3 km of polar ice in just a few days.  Shallow rock
(permafrost) cores could then be obtained to answer a variety of questions.