CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand (Reuters) - President Clinton released Cold War spy satellite images of Antarctica Wednesday to help scientists gauge the effects of the depleted ozone layer and global warming on the polar cap.
Visiting Christchurch, the main staging post for Antarctic expeditions, Clinton made a plea for the world to grapple with the threat of global warming and the fragility of the South Pole, where a hole in the ozone layer appears each spring.
``Unless we change course, most scientists believe the seas will rise so high they will swallow whole islands and coastal areas,'' Clinton told several hundred people including Sir Edmund Hillary at New Zealand's International Antarctic Center. ``Storms, like hurricanes, and droughts, both will intensify.''
The president spoke as he prepared to rush back to the United States after a five-day stay in New Zealand because of Hurricane Floyd, which is bearing down on the U.S. East Coast with winds of 145 mph and is one of the strongest storms ever recorded in the Atlantic.
Clinton announced that the U.S. National Imagery and Mapping Agency was releasing seven previously classified Cold War images of the Dry Valleys region of Antarctica, a vast terrain shrouded in total darkness for much of the year.
The digital images, taken in the mid-1970s and early 1980s, provide detailed snapshots of about 7,500 square miles of land where annual precipitation, if melted, amounts to less than two inches.
The fine-resolution images will complement a set of 59 Arctic photographs released by the United States last month.
The U.S. National Science Foundation hailed the decision to declassify the images of the Dry Valleys, an area of perennially ice-covered lakes, ephemeral streams and exposed soil that supports bacteria, plankton and lichen but not higher life forms.
``This is fantastic because it gives us an opportunity to see the whole area where we're doing research instead of just pieces of it,'' said National Science Foundation Director Rita Colwell. ``We can now look at what's happening today (and compare it) with what it was like in 1975 and in 1980.''
Clinton, ending a visit that included a three-day regional summit in Auckland and a day in Queenstown in the shadow of the Remarkables Mountains, said he spent ``five absolutely glorious days in one of the most beautiful places on earth.''
His one regret was not to visit Antarctica in person.
``The only disappointment I have about this trip is that I didn't stage an expedition from here,'' Clinton joked. ``I want you to know, I expect that you will let me come back.''
After a meeting with New Zealand Prime Minister Jenny Shipley, a joint news conference and a state dinner, Clinton was to fly home to the United States via Hawaii.
The president had initially planned to spend about eight hours in Hawaii playing golf, but he had cancelled that and will simply refuel before flying on to Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, arriving early Thursday.
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