The continent of Antarctica is as unpredictable as it is vast. It is a zone of unusually large geophysical disturbances, where warm-water holes hundreds of miles wide open suddenly; where strange halos and configurations of light, produced by the sun's reflection and the unrelieved whiteness of the terrain, play against the sky; and where powerful natural phenomena beguile the most sophisticated monitoring instruments.

Then there is the cold. Antarctica is surrounded by terrifically fierce winds that sweep almost unhindered around the pole. These winds, caused by the sharp thermal contrast between the frigid 10,000-foot-thick Antarctic ice mass and the relatively warm waters of the Antarctic Ocean, create a vortex, an enclosed weather system that clamps shut over Antarctica during the winter, causing such intense cold that it affects local temperatures thousands of miles away.