S4 Ep8: Drilling into the ice rift - with the RiPIce expedition to the Larsen C Ice Shelf
Every iceberg starts life attached to an ice shelf - until a crack travels deep through the ice and it breaks away. Predicting the way ice shelves will crack is still a major uncertainty in climate models. Cue an epic fieldwork project to the Larsen C Ice Shelf - featuring 'suture ice', hot water drilling, and some clever use of fibre optic cables. What's it like to camp out in the middle of the icy wilderness? How do you deal with dietary requirements when you're eating field rations? What's it like to abseil into an ice shelf? When does the toilet tent start presenting logistical problems? And what, exactly, is a drilling 'blubber'? Nadia Frontier and Matt Hughes chat to the RiPIce team (Rift Propagation for Ice Sheet Models) about their fieldwork - Katie Miles from Aberystwyth University, Sarah Thompson from University of Tasmania representing the Australian Antarctic Programme, and Adrian Luckman from Swansea University. --- Welcome to Antarctica. What's it like living and working in one of the most extreme environments in the world? From polar scientists to plumbers, ICEWORLD is a series of interviews with ordinary people who are doing extraordinary jobs in Antarctica. The team talk climate science, extreme living, expeditions and becoming a community. A podcast from British Antarctic Survey, hosted and recorded by marine biologist Nadia Frontier. Produced in partnership with Boffin Media. Photography by Sam Hunt.