Ice
Staff Picks: Chasing Narwhals
University of Washington biologist Kristin Laidre travels to the Arctic to study animals many of us have only seen in pictures. She has successfully tracked down the elusive narwhal and been up close and personal with a polar bear seeking to understand how the loss of sea ice and the effects of climate change are altering Arctic ecosystems.
Read MoreE25 – Antarctica’s Oldest Ice
Drilling engineer and ice core scientist Robert Mulvaney has driven thousands of kilometers over Antarctica in the past few years in a snow tractor, creeping slowly over one of the highest points of the ice sheet, near a location known as Dome C. He’s looking for the perfect place to drill one and a half million years into the past.
Read MoreCE12 – A Nuclear Legacy Buried in Ice
Earlier this year, scientists reported that radioactive fallout from nuclear accidents and weapons testing is present in ice sediments on the surface of glaciers in the Arctic, Iceland, the Alps, the Caucasus, British Columbia and Antarctica.
Read MoreSpecial Release: Deviations from the Norm
One of the most alluring parts of Earth and space science is that much of the key research takes place in the field, in some of the most incredible – and inhospitable – environments on the planet: on treacherous polar ice sheets, aboard sea tossed ships, at the mouths of active volcanoes, beneath turbid ocean…
Read MoreCentennial E6 – A Tale of Two Journeys
In 1911, two competing groups of explorers attempted to be the first to reach the South Pole. In this episode, atmospheric scientist Ryan Fogt recounts the journeys of Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen and discusses how extraordinary weather that year affected the two polar parties in vastly different ways.
Read MoreE17 – Bonus Clip: Memories of the North
Check out this clip that didn’t make it into our recent episode, Science Turns to Search and Rescue, about some of the wildlife that’s found in the Arctic.
Read MoreE17 – Science Turns to Search and Rescue
The Arctic Ocean is topped with a layer of frozen sea water – sea ice – that grows every winter and shrinks every summer. To study the ice in detail, researchers hop aboard an icebreaker ship that can plow through the sharp, cold ice floes without being damaged.
Read MoreCentennial E4 – Toxic City Under the Ice
In 1959, the United States built an unusual military base under the surface of the Greenland ice Sheet. Camp Century was a hub for scientific research, but it also doubled as a top-secret site for testing the feasibility of deploying nuclear missiles from the Arctic. When Camp Century was decommissioned in 1967, its infrastructure and waste were abandoned under the assumption they would be forever entombed beneath the colossal sheet of ice.
Read MoreThird Pod Live: James Balog, Climate Activist
In part three of this three-part series, we were fortunate to be able to sit down with James Balog to talk about how his work and experiences have shaped him into the climate activist he is now.
Read MoreThird Pod Live: James Balog, Adventurer
In part two of this three-part series, we were fortunate to be able to sit down with James Balog to talk about some of his most memorable (and dangerous) moments in the field.
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