WEBVTT - Bonus Episode 4: Live from Greenland

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<v Speaker 1>The Quest for the North Pole is a production of

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<v Speaker 1>I Heart radio and mental floss. I'm seven hundred and

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<v Speaker 1>fifty miles above the Arctic Circle at the very place

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<v Speaker 1>where explorers had launched their quests for the North Pole

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<v Speaker 1>more than a century ago. Before me lies the huge

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<v Speaker 1>Greenland Ice Sheet, the world's second biggest expanse of ice

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<v Speaker 1>after Antarctica. It's covered in a layer of spotless snow

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<v Speaker 1>and rises from where I stand up to the horizon,

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<v Speaker 1>where it meets a bank of clouds. Behind me, the

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<v Speaker 1>bare terrain slopes for several miles to the sea, where

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<v Speaker 1>I spot teeny little icebergs dotting the waters. The only

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<v Speaker 1>signs of civilization are a couple of shacks and a

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<v Speaker 1>gravel road that leads to the U. S. Military's Tully

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<v Speaker 1>Air Base, hidden behind some hills, about eighteen miles away

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<v Speaker 1>from my vantage point. It's easy to imagine that not

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<v Speaker 1>much has changed since the explorer's time, but climate records

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<v Speaker 1>show that it has changed dramatically. The Greenland Ice Sheet

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<v Speaker 1>is losing two hundred and eighty gigatons of ice a

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<v Speaker 1>year due to the warming climate. A metric gigaton is

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<v Speaker 1>one billion tons, two hundred and eighty billion tons is

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<v Speaker 1>equivalent to more than five million Titanics. It's hard to

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<v Speaker 1>see an impact so massive, but that's why I'm here.

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<v Speaker 1>I've come with two scientists from the Geological Survey of

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<v Speaker 1>Denmark and Greenland, or gay Use, who have invited me

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<v Speaker 1>to see how they gather the data that reveals the

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<v Speaker 1>future of the ice sheet, and by extension, US. Glaciologist

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<v Speaker 1>William Colgan and electrical engineer Christopher Shields are harnessing themselves

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<v Speaker 1>to a pair of sleds filled with sensors, tools, and

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<v Speaker 1>boxes of lead batteries that each way more than I do.

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<v Speaker 1>Despite the six inches of fluffy snow, we still wear

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<v Speaker 1>crampons over our waterproof boots. Our destination is an ice

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<v Speaker 1>sheet monitoring station fift undred meters away, all uphill. I

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<v Speaker 1>have the easiest job, just bringing up the rear while

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<v Speaker 1>the guys man hall the sledges in true nineteenth century

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<v Speaker 1>explorer fashion. But I still find myself huffing and puffing

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<v Speaker 1>in the cold, dry air and terrain as slippery as

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<v Speaker 1>a sand dune. More than one years ago, explorers like

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<v Speaker 1>fritch Off Nonsen and Robert Perry traversed this Greenland ice

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<v Speaker 1>their expeditions tested the boundaries of geography and human endurance.

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<v Speaker 1>As I flounder of the icy slope and Chris's sled tracks,

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<v Speaker 1>I begin to understand the extreme physical challenge is they

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<v Speaker 1>faced in their quests. Our mission may be less strenuous,

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<v Speaker 1>but perhaps more important. Leam and Chris will replace environmental

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<v Speaker 1>sensors on the monitoring station and download two years worth

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<v Speaker 1>of ice sheet data. This information is key towards understanding

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<v Speaker 1>how the ice sheets doing now and what kind of

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<v Speaker 1>catastrophes might occur in the future if we do nothing

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<v Speaker 1>to halt climate change. From Mental Floss and I Heart Radio,

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<v Speaker 1>you're listening to the Quest for the North Pole. I'm

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<v Speaker 1>your host Cat Long, Science editor at Mental Floss and

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<v Speaker 1>this is our final bonus episode live from Greenland. Just

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<v Speaker 1>getting to this remote part of Greenland was an adventure.

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<v Speaker 1>After flying from New York to Copenhagen by way of

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<v Speaker 1>Raikiavik and racking up three negative COVID tests, I met

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<v Speaker 1>up with Liam and Chris the following morning at the airport.

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<v Speaker 1>We boarded an Air Greenland flight to Kangarloo, Sack, Greenland's

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<v Speaker 1>major international hub. Then we transferred to a much smaller

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<v Speaker 1>plane for our flight to Tuli air Base, about nine

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<v Speaker 1>hundred and fifty miles from the North Pole. The base

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<v Speaker 1>would be our research headquarters for the week. From the plane,

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<v Speaker 1>the barren terrain of western Greenland spread out below my window.

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<v Speaker 1>In the southwest of the country, Countless lakes speckled the

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<v Speaker 1>glacier scoured rock. A bit farther north, we flew past

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<v Speaker 1>the Jakobshavn Icefield, one of the world's fastest moving aschers,

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<v Speaker 1>which appeared to litter the sea with icebergs. The terrain

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<v Speaker 1>shifted from weathered rock to snow covered hills, and then

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<v Speaker 1>finally the Greenland ice sheet, which covered the land except

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<v Speaker 1>for a narrow level strip at the coastline. That's where

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<v Speaker 1>we were headed. Canude Rasmussen, a Danish Greenlandic explorer honored

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<v Speaker 1>with a bronze bust at the Kangarloosoak Airport, connected this

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<v Speaker 1>area to the ancient legends of Tuli when he set

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<v Speaker 1>up a trading post here in long before that, this

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<v Speaker 1>area served as a crossroads of people and ideas. Waves

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<v Speaker 1>of Arctic settlers migrated the short distance across Baffin Bay

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<v Speaker 1>from present day Canada to Greenland, between b C and

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<v Speaker 1>twelve hundred C. They found a treeless land rich in

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<v Speaker 1>food sources. Thanks to the confluence of Arctic, Atlantic and

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<v Speaker 1>glacial waters. The seas support a vast web of marine life,

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<v Speaker 1>from the tiniest fish to the fattest walruses, as well

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<v Speaker 1>as Arctic foxes and musk ox, which were common sights

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<v Speaker 1>during my visit. The plentiful game supported a village in

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<v Speaker 1>the shadow of a tall, flat topped mesa, both of

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<v Speaker 1>which were named Umanac, which means heart shaped. In earlier

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<v Speaker 1>episodes of The Quest for the North Pole, we mentioned

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<v Speaker 1>how John Ross and William Edward Perry were the first

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<v Speaker 1>European explorers to meet the in white here in eighteen eighteen.

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<v Speaker 1>In the century following that meeting, more explorers and whalers

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<v Speaker 1>dropped their anchors at the foot of Umanac. In eighteen

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<v Speaker 1>forty nine, HMS north Star was on a mission to

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<v Speaker 1>resupply ships searching for the missing Franklin expedition. The North

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<v Speaker 1>Star got iced in and its crew was forced to

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<v Speaker 1>spend the winter just offshore, which gave its captain, James Saunders,

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<v Speaker 1>plenty of time to bestow British names on all of

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<v Speaker 1>the surroundings. On a map today, you'll find north Star Bay,

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<v Speaker 1>Saunders Island, and Mount Dundas, the British name for the MESA.

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<v Speaker 1>Robert Peery made the area his headquarters for his attempts

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<v Speaker 1>to reach the North Pole, though his main camp at

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<v Speaker 1>Eta was about a hundred forty miles north of Umanac, Canud.

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<v Speaker 1>Rasmussen lived in Umanac while operating the training post and

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<v Speaker 1>conducting his seven TOOLI expeditions across the Polar Wilderness between

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<v Speaker 1>nineteen twelve and nineteen thirty three. His colleague Peter Ferkin's

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<v Speaker 1>house still stands among the small cluster of brightly painted

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<v Speaker 1>shacks on the edge of North Star Bay. When I

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<v Speaker 1>visited the village, now usually called Dundas, it was eerily quiet.

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<v Speaker 1>In fact, it was abandoned. The U. S military had

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<v Speaker 1>removed the twenty seven families who lived here in the

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<v Speaker 1>nineteen fifties to a new settlement sixty miles north because

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<v Speaker 1>the Americans were building a top secret air base on

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<v Speaker 1>the other side of the bay. It was called Operation

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<v Speaker 1>Blue Jay. We'll be right back. At the height of

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<v Speaker 1>the Cold War, the US invested heavily in building air

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<v Speaker 1>bases to create a network of defenses against the Soviet Union.

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<v Speaker 1>Because the Soviets could theoretically launch ballistic missiles the short

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<v Speaker 1>distance over the North Pole to the US, American military

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<v Speaker 1>leaders realized they needed an Arctic based system to detect

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<v Speaker 1>those missiles. After securing agreements with NATO and Denmark, which

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<v Speaker 1>administered Greenland, the U. S Army launched Operation Blue Jay

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<v Speaker 1>to construct totally base. In nine More than seven thousand

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<v Speaker 1>construction workers and engineers departed from Norfolk, Virginia to build

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<v Speaker 1>the base, but the mission was so secret they weren't

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<v Speaker 1>even told where they were going. The Tully airstrip opened

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<v Speaker 1>in September, followed by sleddog patrol units and a lot more.

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<v Speaker 1>The specially designed construction materials proved so sturdy that most

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<v Speaker 1>of the barracks and offices dubbed flattops at Tulli today

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<v Speaker 1>are the original nineteen fifties facilities. In nineteen fifty two,

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<v Speaker 1>the military went public with Operation Blue Jay. A few

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<v Speaker 1>years later, the US built camps nearby to experiment with

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<v Speaker 1>cold weather defense and nuclear technology. One was Camp Tuto,

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<v Speaker 1>an acronym for Tulli Takeoff. It served as a staging

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<v Speaker 1>area for transporting equipment to Camp century, a nuclear reactor

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<v Speaker 1>base dug inside the ice sheets. Inland there were red

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<v Speaker 1>plywood buildings with snow all around them. So someone would

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<v Speaker 1>be like a mess hall. Another would be the latrine,

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<v Speaker 1>another would would be the library, and the library was great.

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<v Speaker 1>That's Jim Finnel. He was trained as a weather observer

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<v Speaker 1>in the Army and served at Camp two to into

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<v Speaker 1>And what were your duties during your weather observations. There

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<v Speaker 1>was a standard sheet that you had to fill out

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<v Speaker 1>every hour, which was of course the temperature, wind speed, direction,

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<v Speaker 1>and then you go out and estimate that cloud heights

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<v Speaker 1>and the types and the and the visibility. All these

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<v Speaker 1>things were done, of course without any radar or any

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<v Speaker 1>thing is that people used today. Uh. The only mechanical

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<v Speaker 1>thing that we had where the wind speed and direction

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<v Speaker 1>a little looked like a little airplane that was spent

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<v Speaker 1>around and that would it out on a printer in

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<v Speaker 1>a in a weather station. I remember the one thing

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<v Speaker 1>that most stood out was I recorded a low temperature

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<v Speaker 1>for and that was minus sixty three of the Camp century.

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<v Speaker 1>That's minus sixty three degrees fahrenheit. By recording the weather

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<v Speaker 1>conditions at Camp Tuto and century, Jim became part of

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<v Speaker 1>the earliest organized climate research in this area of the Arctic.

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<v Speaker 1>To me, it was more of an adventure. I didn't

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<v Speaker 1>get to go to Germany, I didn't get to travel

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<v Speaker 1>in Europe, but I at least got a fight break

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<v Speaker 1>from staying in the US all the time. These camps

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<v Speaker 1>were abandoned roughly a decade after they were built. The

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<v Speaker 1>Army dismantled Camp Tuto's red buildings, but left the long

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<v Speaker 1>gravel access road from too Lea Air Base out to

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<v Speaker 1>the edge of the ice sheet. And that's where I

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<v Speaker 1>found myself in September, bouncing along in the back seat

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<v Speaker 1>of a red pickup with Liam at the seal, Chris

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<v Speaker 1>on the passenger side, and sea shanties blasting from the stereo.

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<v Speaker 1>The terrain, as far as I could see, had been

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<v Speaker 1>bulldozed to create material for the road. The light layer

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<v Speaker 1>of snow gave the plantless brown land a sugar dusted look.

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<v Speaker 1>As we neared the end of the road, the edge

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<v Speaker 1>of the ice sheet came into view. The smoothly sloping

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<v Speaker 1>mountain of ice broke off in a slushy lake on

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<v Speaker 1>one side of the road. On the other, I could

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<v Speaker 1>see that the ice had receded and left behind a

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<v Speaker 1>field of rounded boulders. The remains of the road leading

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<v Speaker 1>to Camp Century rose about a hundred fifty feet above

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<v Speaker 1>the surface of the ice sheet. Though it was no

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<v Speaker 1>longer safe to travel on, we used the old ramp

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<v Speaker 1>as a landmark on our slippery truck up to the

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<v Speaker 1>ice monitoring site. The station is not a building or

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<v Speaker 1>large structure. It's a tall steel tripod and T shaped

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<v Speaker 1>metal bar with sensors to measure wind speed and direction,

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<v Speaker 1>air temperature, solar radiation, and snow height to other sensor

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<v Speaker 1>arrays were installed within the ice to measure temperature and

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<v Speaker 1>pressure at different depths. They're all connected to a box,

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<v Speaker 1>which Chris described as a station's brain, that transmits the

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<v Speaker 1>data by satellite to the Internet. Anyone can view the

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<v Speaker 1>status of the Greenland ice sheet in real time. This

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<v Speaker 1>site is paired with another identical site higher up on

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<v Speaker 1>the ice sheet. The eight pairs of stations scattered around

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<v Speaker 1>Greenland make up gay Uses Program for monitoring the Greenland

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<v Speaker 1>Ice Sheet a k A pro mice. As Liam explains,

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<v Speaker 1>these stations one lower and one higher. Their goal is

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<v Speaker 1>to measure ice and climate parameters, and so that means

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<v Speaker 1>things that we need to know about how the ice

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<v Speaker 1>sheet is responding to climate change, and so we have

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<v Speaker 1>to measure all the things you might need in a

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<v Speaker 1>climate model, for example, we want to actually measure them,

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<v Speaker 1>as we say, in situ or out in the real world,

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<v Speaker 1>so we can compare what our climate models sees or

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<v Speaker 1>thinks is happening versus what is actually happening. No one

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<v Speaker 1>had visited this station since May. Thanks coronavirus, Liam and

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<v Speaker 1>Chris had to lay the whole station on its side

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<v Speaker 1>to replace the sensors, and that required digging the tripod

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<v Speaker 1>out of a year and a half of accumulated ice.

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<v Speaker 1>Then each sensor had to be unscrewed from its amount

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<v Speaker 1>and a new one screwed in. Knots of frozen wires

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<v Speaker 1>had to be untangled. Easier said than done when it's

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<v Speaker 1>about seventeen degrees and snowing sideways like it was during

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<v Speaker 1>our visit. This is why you get like frostbite on

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<v Speaker 1>your fingers because you're you're doing this really fine detailed work,

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<v Speaker 1>like splicing a wire in and then trying to like

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<v Speaker 1>close the cap back on and like doing these little screws,

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<v Speaker 1>and you know, something like that it'll take forty five

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<v Speaker 1>minutes to troubleshoot and solve. The pain is worth it.

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<v Speaker 1>Two Glaciologists like Liam because it leads to a better

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<v Speaker 1>understanding of the ice sheets mass balance, the measure of

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<v Speaker 1>how much mass the ice sheet is accumulating through snowfall

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<v Speaker 1>and how much it's losing through melting or icebergs breaking off.

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<v Speaker 1>The idea is if we can get a handle on

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<v Speaker 1>the mass balance, the inputs and the outputs through time

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<v Speaker 1>through space, then we can understand how the ice sheet

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<v Speaker 1>health is changing through time and space today or at

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<v Speaker 1>least in recent years. When we look into the climate

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<v Speaker 1>projections that the UN talks about, we can look at

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<v Speaker 1>the different climate pathways and try to say, hey, this

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<v Speaker 1>is what the ice sheet health is going to be

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<v Speaker 1>under each pathway based on our knowledge of these processes today,

0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:50.200
<v Speaker 1>and so what is the health today that you're looking at.

0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:56.000
<v Speaker 1>Um The ice sheet is in a state of persistent

0:15:56.280 --> 0:15:59.960
<v Speaker 1>decline or poor health today. It has a negative mass balance,

0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:04.800
<v Speaker 1>which means the output that is the melt water runoff

0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:08.400
<v Speaker 1>and the iceberg having the outputs are much greater than

0:16:08.440 --> 0:16:11.480
<v Speaker 1>the inputs. And as the climate warms, you know that

0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:14.720
<v Speaker 1>has a direct effect on how much the ice sheet melts.

0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:19.880
<v Speaker 1>Remember those five million titanic's worth of ice lost each

0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:22.600
<v Speaker 1>year that I mentioned at the beginning of our story.

0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:27.600
<v Speaker 1>That's equivalent to about eight or nine thousand metric tons

0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:31.480
<v Speaker 1>per second, which is also an almost inconceivably large number,

0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:34.840
<v Speaker 1>But maybe it also helps to contextualize it when you

0:16:34.880 --> 0:16:37.960
<v Speaker 1>just think of thousands of tons of mass loss per second,

0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:41.240
<v Speaker 1>you know that's that's the annual average. That's day in,

0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:45.400
<v Speaker 1>day out, around the clock, around the year. All of

0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:50.960
<v Speaker 1>this is actually changing gravity. Essentially, as Greenland loses ice,

0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:55.280
<v Speaker 1>it becomes lighter, which means it can exert less gravitational pull.

0:16:56.280 --> 0:16:59.400
<v Speaker 1>Because of that, it can't hold ocean waters as close

0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:03.200
<v Speaker 1>to it as four The waters are released to slosh

0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:07.760
<v Speaker 1>around the earth and collect elsewhere, meaning that places thousands

0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:11.360
<v Speaker 1>of kilometers away are more affected by melting ice than

0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:16.480
<v Speaker 1>places nearer to the poles. Another mind boggling effect of

0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:21.280
<v Speaker 1>Greenland's loss of ice is called post glacial rebound. For millennia,

0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:24.639
<v Speaker 1>Greenland's land has been pressed down under the weight of

0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:27.800
<v Speaker 1>the ice sheet, but as the ice sheet melts, it

0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:33.160
<v Speaker 1>gets lighter and the land below it springs upward at

0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:37.480
<v Speaker 1>a monitoring station near the fast moving Yakopshoven Glacier. The

0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:41.160
<v Speaker 1>bedrock is now ten ft higher above sea level than

0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:47.160
<v Speaker 1>in nine That's ten times the average. Other Greenland glaciers

0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:50.119
<v Speaker 1>have experienced one foot of rebound in that time period,

0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:55.120
<v Speaker 1>which is still a lot. Knowing how different Greenland looked

0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:57.919
<v Speaker 1>back then, I couldn't help but reflect on the many

0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:03.199
<v Speaker 1>ways the explorers experiences differed from mine. The glaciers and

0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:08.800
<v Speaker 1>icebergs and snowpack they witnessed no longer exist. The Greenland

0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:11.600
<v Speaker 1>ice sheet near the Tudor Road terminates in a lake

0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:16.440
<v Speaker 1>instead of land. Just the fact that I, a regular

0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:18.720
<v Speaker 1>New Yorker, could visit this part of the world, was

0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:22.719
<v Speaker 1>an indication that times had changed. Instead of sea boots

0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:26.280
<v Speaker 1>and woolen mittens, we wore layers of down and fleece.

0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:30.720
<v Speaker 1>Instead of hauling thousand pounds sledges over the ice, we

0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:33.240
<v Speaker 1>carried only the gear we needed for each day's work.

0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:38.159
<v Speaker 1>And instead of spending months or years in the Arctic wilderness,

0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:41.040
<v Speaker 1>we went back to the air Bass hotel each night.

0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:43.240
<v Speaker 1>We even had a beer at the top of the

0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:48.440
<v Speaker 1>World Club the local bar. Our. Days were hard, they

0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:51.560
<v Speaker 1>were tough, they were long, they were cold and windy,

0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:56.240
<v Speaker 1>But if you back up almost a hundred years, you know,

0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:59.800
<v Speaker 1>now we have you know, cortex and like goggles and stuff.

0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:03.480
<v Speaker 1>I can't imagine what it would be like to be

0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:08.119
<v Speaker 1>sledging across the ice sheet in anything colder than full

0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:12.240
<v Speaker 1>polar summer. You know, must have just been super tough.

0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:19.320
<v Speaker 1>I was encased in multiple layers at all times on

0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:27.119
<v Speaker 1>of my entire body for this entire week. So for

0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:31.880
<v Speaker 1>all the obsessing and reading and historical analysis I've done

0:19:31.960 --> 0:19:35.840
<v Speaker 1>of the Arctic, this was my first time actually going

0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:38.680
<v Speaker 1>there and I survived and that's okay. And I didn't

0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:41.600
<v Speaker 1>even have to eat any pemmican, So no, I mean,

0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:44.399
<v Speaker 1>by Arctic standards, this is the first week that the

0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:46.119
<v Speaker 1>snow has started to collect on the ice sheet, so

0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:48.960
<v Speaker 1>it was still Arctic summer here last week, and now

0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:52.240
<v Speaker 1>the snow is starting to collect, and we're in single

0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:57.720
<v Speaker 1>digits negative temperatures, so it's cool. I can't help but

0:19:57.800 --> 0:20:01.160
<v Speaker 1>notice that throughout the whole week in Greenland, you never

0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:09.520
<v Speaker 1>once wore a scarf. Can you discuss how this is possible? So, uh, well,

0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:12.080
<v Speaker 1>I didn't pack a scarf. It was colder than I expected,

0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:18.200
<v Speaker 1>but it wasn't It wasn't that bad to me. This

0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:21.000
<v Speaker 1>trip really capped off the story of the Quest for

0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:24.560
<v Speaker 1>the North Pole. I was able to see the dramatic

0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:27.800
<v Speaker 1>effects of climate change on a place that explorers believed

0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:32.159
<v Speaker 1>would be frozen forever. It drove home the idea that

0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:35.920
<v Speaker 1>what happens in the Arctic does not stay there. Its

0:20:36.000 --> 0:20:52.480
<v Speaker 1>future is our future too. The Quest for the North

0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:56.879
<v Speaker 1>Pole is hosted by me cat Long. This episode was

0:20:56.920 --> 0:20:59.800
<v Speaker 1>researched and written by Me, with fact checking by Austin

0:20:59.840 --> 0:21:04.480
<v Speaker 1>to Simson. The executive producers are Aaron McCarthy and Tyler Clang.

0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:09.200
<v Speaker 1>The supervising producer is Dylan Fagan. The show is edited

0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:13.679
<v Speaker 1>by Dylan Fagan. Thank you to Jim Fennel, Liam Colgan,

0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:18.480
<v Speaker 1>and Chris Shields for transcripts, a glossary, and to learn

0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:22.480
<v Speaker 1>more about this episode, visit Mental Flaws dot com slash podcast.

0:21:24.160 --> 0:21:26.199
<v Speaker 1>The Quest for the North Pole is a production of

0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:29.840
<v Speaker 1>I Heart Radio and Mental gloss For more podcasts from

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<v Speaker 1>my heart Radio, check out the I heart Radio app,

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