Lonnie describes his life's mission to retrieve the climate record in tropical glaciers from the world's highest mountains before they melt.
Dan Dixon, PhD student, describes his first flight in to join Paul Mayewski's team at the start of their 800 km over-snow ice-coring traverse from the head of the Byrd Glacier to the South Pole.
Paul and Dan talk about the challenges of a 3 month over-snow traverse for both vehicles and people at elevations at times exceeding 3000 m and temperatures below -30ºC.
Nancy Bertler and team dig a 4-m-deep snow pit for sampling layers of snow that represent the last 40 years or so. This is how they link modern instrumental observations with the record of past climate in the ice.
Paul and Dan explain the drilling process for recovering ice cores. At each station they core down ~200 m, recording climate back ~1000 years. Laboratory results indicate climate here is already changing.
Nancy introduces us to an ice core facility and shows how ice cores are sampled centimetre by centimetre for chemical and isotopic analyses for past temperature, wind, sea ice extent, snow source and other variables.
Lionel and Mike reflect on both the excitement and challenges in going to sea. They also talk about the main goals of their work, along with James Rae.
Lionel and Liz explain the CTD (conductivity-temperature-depth) instrument with bottles attached for collecting water at various depths. Niki shows us the temperature profile after the CTD is hauled up.
James and Lionel explain in a simple way what drives ocean circulation. Craig and Mike make some key points on ocean heat capacity and how it influences the pace of climate change.
Wally and Lionel talk about the density-driven Thermohaline Circulation, and Craig introduces us to Antarctic sea ice, which helps drive it. Anders links the THC to changes in climate.