15-Ice: Birds foretelling climate change

Anant Pande is an Indian polar researcher who studies snow petrels –  shy pelagic (sea-faring) birds who nest on rock crevices in Antarctica. These endemic birds prefer to nest near less icy waters. Climate change has melted polar oceans and perhaps made it less energy intensive — as they have to fly shorter distances to find non-frozen oceans.

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5-True story: A prop plane, a bucket, and a trip to Antarctica

Pacifica Sommers is an ecologist and explorer. From the deserts of Arizona to the Antarctic tundra, Pacifica has looked at how organisms from tardigrades to pocket mice live in extreme environments. We talked with her about some of the most beautiful places on Earth, the diversity of folks who can be scientists,  and what exactly that bucket is for on the flight to Antarctica.

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E25 – 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.

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CE12 – 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.

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E23 – Bonus Clip: Meteorite Hunting in Antarctica

Nina Lanza is a member of a research team hunts for meteorites in Antarctica. In this bonus clip from Episode 23, Between a Varnished Rock and a Hard Place, Nina describes the remote location where they set up camp, being holed up while the howling katabatic winds battered her tent and her brain, and explains the strategies…

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