Frozen Planet.S1.E8 ∙ The Epic Journey
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Antarctica, a vast, ice-locked continent, larger than the United States and Mexico combined.
00:14This is the coldest, windiest, most lifeless place on Earth, first explored by humans just
00:20100 years ago.
00:24Today, this vast wilderness has become a giant laboratory for the most important and cutting-edge
00:30science on our planet.
00:45Landing at the geographical South Pole, the southernmost place on Earth, feels like visiting
00:52another planet.
00:58Ahead lies the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, one of the most sophisticated scientific research
01:04facilities ever built.
01:12Despite sitting on top of the ice cap at an altitude of almost 10,000 feet, the station
01:17is maintained at a comfortable 20 degrees centigrade throughout the year.
01:29It hosts scientists from a whole range of disciplines, and is home to two of the most
01:34powerful telescopes on Earth.
01:40As well as housing a high-tech kit, the base provides a life-support system for people
01:45to rest, work and play in relative comfort.
01:49This astonishing building is a triumph of technology and engineering, and is as close
01:55to a space station as you can find anywhere on Earth.
02:04But a station this big needs support.
02:09Each summer, a convoy of tractors brings in supplies travelling along a snow road nicknamed
02:15the McMurdo-South Pole Highway, a journey that takes more than four weeks.
02:22The goods they bring will help sustain the base for the next six months.
02:28Not long after the convoy departs, the sun sets for the last time.
02:38The Antarctic winter has begun.
02:42A long, dark night that will last for months.
02:51It's in the polar winter that the comfort and safety of the South Pole Station really
02:56comes into its own.
02:59Though the peak of research activity is in the summer, the station functions all the
03:04year round with a skeleton crew of 50 people who spend the whole winter here.
03:12They have risen to the challenge of making a habitable environment in one of the most
03:17inhospitable places on Earth with a surprising installation – a greenhouse.
03:23Here, fresh fruit and vegetables are grown under artificial lights while the rest of
03:28the continent is in darkness.
03:32Regulations prevent soil from being imported to the Antarctic, so the vegetables are grown
03:37using a system of hydroponics.
03:39Their roots are held directly in contact with water loaded with nutrients.
03:46Inside here, it's a comfortable greenhouse.
03:50Inside here, it's a comfortable 25 degrees Celsius.
03:54Relative humidity is about 55 percent.
03:58Outside, the temperature will be at least negative 30 degrees Celsius, and as the winter
04:03really starts to get going, it'll get as far down as negative 80 degrees Celsius.
04:09So it's pretty cold outside.
04:12And this will be the brightest environment one can find in Antarctica, I believe.
04:17This greenhouse is so high-tech that the team can control the amount of food and light
04:22the plants receive from the comfort of their office in the University of Arizona.
04:36But to really appreciate the achievements of modern science at the South Pole, one must
04:40go back 100 years, to when science was still in its infancy.
04:45100 years to when science and exploration began here.
04:51In 1911, Robert Falcon Scott and his team built this hut as a supply base from which
04:57they would set off on their quest to be the first humans to reach the South Pole.
05:04Little has changed. It's as if they only left yesterday.
05:10Unlike modern visitors to the South Pole, these men had to bring everything they would
05:14need with them.
05:17Their crates of supplies came by ship, containing materials to build the hut, as well as food
05:23and clothes for the men.
05:2610,000 of these items still remain.
05:36All their food came in tins, which still line the shelves today, while the bunks that this
05:4225-man team slept in during their first winter still look much as they did a century ago.
05:56While Scott and his men prepared for their race to the Pole, the team carried out a variety
06:01of scientific experiments. They'd brought with them equipment for studying meteorology,
06:06geology and collecting specimens.
06:10Over the years, the hut fell into disrepair, until recently a team began work on the world's
06:17most remote restoration project.
06:23Their mission is to save the hut from being destroyed by the ice, as well as to discover
06:28more about early science and survival in Antarctica.
06:33The expedition was very well equipped with equipment and technology, and there was also
06:38telephone, which they ran across the sea ice and linked various different places together.
06:44There's quite an elaborate system of switches and lights, interior, exterior electric light
06:50bulbs, which would have been very cutting edge indeed, and an enormous amount of scientific
06:58equipment as well, of all manner and all sorts.
07:01We're very fortunate that it's survived in the condition it has. I mean, the hut was
07:05only intended to last for two, three years at most, and here we are a century on.
07:10So we have this fabulous opportunity now, if we act quickly, to preserve what's here
07:16for future generations.
07:21Scott and his men left the hut on the 1st of November 1911 to begin their journey on
07:27foot to the South Pole.
07:32Ahead of them lay 800 miles of the most challenging terrain on the planet.
07:42The route they chose through the transantarctic mountains took them up the mighty Beardmoor
07:48glacier. Slowly they traversed its appalling surface, until finally they reached the ice
07:55plateau.
07:57They still faced a further 300-mile trek.
08:03The achievement of finally reaching the pole was tainted by the fact that the Norwegian,
08:09Roald Amundsen, had got there first.
08:15Scott and four others perished on the return journey.
08:19Sixteen kilos of rocks and fossils, specimens that they had dragged back with them, were
08:24discovered close to where they died.
08:32Nobody stood at the pole again for 44 years, until 1956, when the first scientific base
08:39was established here.
08:41A small party from the United States Navy landed supplies by plane so they could build
08:46the first Amundsen-Scott South Pole station.
08:50Six wooden huts in the midst of the barren ice cap.
08:55That same year, a science party overwintered, the first humans ever to experience the longest,
09:02darkest winter on Earth.
09:04The old wooden huts were replaced in the 1970s with this gigantic dome.
09:10But this, too, has been superseded. Its panels dismantled and removed without trace in 2010,
09:17as every man-made item must be in Antarctica.
09:23The most recent South Pole station is the South Pole station.
09:27Every man-made item must be in Antarctica.
09:31The most recent South Pole station is designed to withstand extremes.
09:36Its curved sides funnel the wind and it stands on stilts that can be raised to accommodate
09:42the build-up of snow, which accumulates at a rate of 20 centimetres every year.
09:49All this is a far cry from the bleak white emptiness that confronted Amundsen and Scott.
09:55They would be truly amazed to see what exists here today.
10:04Science has come a long way in the last century, yet the goals of those who come here
10:09are, in many ways, still the same.
10:16This is a place where scientists look to the skies, releasing weather balloons twice a day
10:22to collect vital data about the level of ozone in our atmosphere.
10:32The South Pole is also said to have the cleanest air on Earth,
10:36which has been sampled here at the Atmospheric Research Observatory for the last 50 years,
10:42giving a long-term baseline for gases such as carbon dioxide or CO2,
10:48data that is crucial to modern climate science.
10:53Climate change is a really hot topic right now,
10:56and it's really important that we monitor the levels of CO2.
11:01Basically, we want to know how much it's increasing or how much it's decreasing.
11:06This long-term record really displays that very well.
11:10Especially down here, we get a really good global average because there's no local influences.
11:16We can tell what the level is without being right next to a city.
11:23And it's not just the current climate which can be studied here.
11:33The ice at the South Pole is the perfect place to investigate our past.
11:40This is the IceCube facility,
11:43the powerhouse for an enormous underground system of solar energy.
11:48This is the IceCube facility, the powerhouse for an enormous underground system of sensors
11:53that uses the pristine Antarctic ice as a natural laboratory
11:57in which to study the beginning of the whole universe.
12:02IceCube covers a cubic kilometre, but is buried deep below the surface.
12:09A heated drill is used to melt holes one and a half miles down into the ice cap,
12:15a process that takes about 48 hours.
12:26Into the holes are lowered chains of photodetectors,
12:29which look for tiny ghost-like particles passing through the ice.
12:35The particles are called neutrino,
12:37formed billions of years ago after the birth of the universe.
12:42Neutrinos are extremely difficult to detect,
12:45but as they pass through the Earth and enter the pure transparent ice,
12:49they occasionally crash into atoms,
12:52sparking tiny flashes of blue light that reveal their existence.
12:58IceCube is a neutrino telescope, so it's like a regular telescope.
13:02We're trying to make an image of the universe,
13:04but instead of using light, we're using particles.
13:08What they learn from mapping the direction of these particles
13:11will provide a fascinating insight into the cosmos and the very beginning of time.
13:27While Antarctica's ice can help us understand our past,
13:31it also holds information which is very relevant to the present.
13:37ANTARCTICA
13:54This long-range DC-3 plane was built in 1942,
13:59but has been fitted with very modern ground-penetrating radar,
14:03which can effectively see through the ice.
14:08The plane is a mobile lab,
14:11from which scientists can map the miles of unexplored landscape,
14:15not just at the surface, but deep below, where the ice meets rock.
14:24This airplane is called an aerogeophysical platform,
14:28and a platform like this allows you to combine multiple data sets.
14:35In this case, we have 14 instruments operating simultaneously,
14:39and each of them has a role in characterising the geology and the glaciology
14:46in the Antarctic region that we're flying in right now.
14:49Much of the ice that covers Antarctica is over 2.5 miles thick.
14:54It cloaks mountain ranges, volcanoes and lakes,
14:58and in places, its weight depresses the land far below sea level.
15:02It's just incredible, the things that are down there
15:05that you would just never know without these instruments.
15:08When you look out the window, all you see is ice as far as the eye can see,
15:13and you very well may be flying over a mountain range the size of the Rockies.
15:21Being in Antarctica is just a very special experience.
15:25It's an honour to be a part of a program
15:29that is acquiring such important data for building an understanding
15:34of our natural environment that's hard to reach.
15:39Far from being static, Antarctica's ice is on the move,
15:43flowing out from the thickest part of the ice sheet towards the coast.
15:49What's more, the ice is changing fast.
15:52It's hard to imagine, but if all this ice melted,
15:55it would contribute more than 60 metres to our global sea levels.
16:05Scientific programs like this one are vital.
16:08We need to know the volume of this ice and better understand how it behaves
16:13before we can predict the long-term future of this ice cap
16:17and what that, in turn, means for the rest of us.
16:26The place where change is happening most rapidly
16:30is around the edges of the ice sheet, where the ice flows out over the sea.
16:37And that is where much scientific attention is now being focused.
16:44Well, I've been working down here for 25 years,
16:47but I've never been to Antarctica.
16:51Well, I've been working down here for 25 years,
16:55but I have never felt such a sense of urgency
16:58as I do with this particular project.
17:01We know that sea level is rising right now.
17:04It has been rising for the last century,
17:07but it's rising faster now than it was before,
17:10and we expect that acceleration to continue.
17:13To understand what the ocean is doing to the ice,
17:16we have to get into the ocean.
17:18And the path to get to the ocean is through that ice shelf.
17:22So we use a hot-water drill to make a hole,
17:25just melt a hole, all the way through the ice shelf.
17:28And through that hole, then, we can deploy our ocean profiler.
17:33This ocean profiler is a specially designed recording device
17:38which is dropped through the ice sheet to the ocean below.
17:42It's a unique and expensive piece of equipment.
17:46It's about as tense a deployment as I've ever made.
17:51There's no spares of this thing.
17:53So far, so good.
17:55But you never really know how it's all going to work out
17:58until you're out here in the field doing it.
18:00Over the coming months, the ocean profiler
18:03will transmit information about what's happening below this ice shelf
18:07back to a lab in Monterey.
18:10It's going to be telling us the type of water
18:12that's coming in underneath the ice
18:14and the type of water that leaves the ice.
18:16And from that difference, we know what it's done to the ice,
18:20how much ice has been melted,
18:22because it's that melting of ice that thins the ice shelf.
18:26And that ice shelf, a thinner ice shelf,
18:28can't hold the ice sheet back as well.
18:30So once the ice shelf thins, that glacier accelerates.
18:34What we're doing down here is so important
18:37because sea level all around the world
18:40will be affected as Antarctica shrinks.
18:43And almost half of the world's population lives close to the coast
18:47and is affected by changes in sea level.
18:50Antarctica may feel like the other end of the planet,
18:54but anything that happens here affects us all.
18:57We may think of this continent as being frozen in time,
19:01but in fact, the ice has a life of its own.
19:05And nowhere is that more clearly illustrated
19:08than at the South Pole itself,
19:10which, before and since mankind visited it,
19:13has continued to be on the move.
19:17All right, first and foremost,
19:19I'd like to thank each and every one of you for showing up here today.
19:22It's fantastic to see such a large turnout
19:25for these traditions of the South Pole.
19:27What we're here today for
19:30is the annual remarking of the geographic South Pole.
19:33Now, as you all know, the South Pole Station, our home,
19:38sits on top of a 3,000-metre-deep polar ice cap.
19:42And that ice cap moves at about a rate of 10 metres every year,
19:46or if you prefer, probably about 2.7 centimetres every day.
19:51It is my honour to present to you guys,
19:54on behalf of the Winter Overcrew of 2009,
19:58the geographic South Pole marker for 2010.
20:03Whoa!
20:05CHEERING
20:07It carries the inscription of the name
20:09of every member of the Winter Overcrew.
20:12With this, I would like to invite all of you
20:15to participate in relocating this marker,
20:19the new, accurately placed geographic South Pole.
20:23CHEERING
20:25The ceremonial marker and Antarctic Treaty state flags
20:29serve as a reminder that Antarctica belongs to no-one,
20:33but is reserved for the interests of science
20:36and the progress of all mankind.
20:59CHEERING