Nova (1974–…): Season 48, Episode 15 - Arctic Drift - full transcript
Scientists on a daring polar voyage to uncover the Arctic's climate secrets.
♪♪
The Arctic.
Its vast frozen ocean
cools our planet
and impacts weather
around the globe.
But the Arctic is changing...
Warming at least twice as fast
as the rest of the planet.
Exactly what's happening,
and how it will
affect life on Earth,
has not been fully explored.
♪♪
♪♪
But now,
a global team of scientists
is setting out
on the biggest polar expedition
ever attempted.
♪♪
We have hundreds of people
from 37 different nationalities
on board.
It's a massive operation
on a scale that we have never
seen in the Arctic before.
We're creating a benchmark
of measurements
that we may never be able
to repeat
in the future because there
won't
be sea ice for us to study.
The plan is a world first:
to take a high-tech
research icebreaker
and freeze it into
the Central Arctic ice
for an entire year.
We're taking
a whole new level of
sophistication with us.
All right? Onboard the ship
will be instruments
that have never been installed
in the Central Arctic.
Locked in place, they'll explore
every aspect of
the Central Arctic
as never before,
through the constant darkness
of a polar winter
and some of the harshest
conditions on Earth.
Their mission:
to investigate why the ice
is melting so fast
and help us better predict
how its rapid change
will impact the rest
of our planet.
It's about taking stock of what
we've done to the Earth...
and what we can still do.
"Arctic Drift,"
right now, on "NOVA."
♪♪
After more than ten years
of planning,
an international team
of scientists is heading north
on the journey of a lifetime.
♪♪
This mission is the modern
climate science
equivalent of going to the moon.
♪♪
If you asked me if
I'd ever imagined myself
working in the Arctic, going to
polar bear safety training,
handling a rifle,
I would have laughed at you.
I would have been, like,
"You're crazy, there's no way!"
Coming from a place where
people have never seen snow
or ice
for the past thousands of years,
Arctic, for me,
is something out of this world.
The expedition will definitely
give us a new perspective
about the changes happening
in the Arctic environment.
♪♪
Making scientific observations
in the Arctic is very difficult.
Relative to the rest
of the globe,
we have very few observations
of the Arctic system,
especially in the wintertime.
We're going into a frontier,
really.
I mean, the Arctic
is still a frontier.
♪♪
The mission, dubbed MOSAiC,
and led by
Germany's polar institute,
is heading deep into
the Arctic sea ice.
♪♪
A place like nowhere else
on Earth.
A vast, frozen world floating
on a deep ocean.
It's thin and treacherous
in summer,
and almost impenetrable
in winter.
It means the Central Arctic
remains
one of the least understood
places on the planet.
But now, the team plans
to establish a cutting-edge
research camp
by allowing their icebreaker,
the Polarstern, to become frozen
into the ice itself.
♪♪
This looks great, I think,
as far as size.
We're going into the sea ice
to try to find an ice floe.
An ice floe is
a discrete chunk of ice.
It's maybe a couple of
kilometers across.
Ideally, our floe will be
thick enough
so that it can support
all of our equipment
that we want to put out
on the ice.
And yeah, this stuff
that's right there
is the rotten layer
that’s underneath...
And this will be our home
for the next year.
So this is really
a crucial moment in
our whole expedition.
♪♪
The success of the mission
depends on taking advantage
of a natural phenomenon.
♪♪
The plan is to hitch a ride on
the Transpolar Drift,
a constantly moving belt of
sea ice
that's driven by prevailing
winds and ocean currents.
If they freeze-in near Russia,
it should carry them for
hundreds of miles...
Close to the North Pole,
then towards the Atlantic.
If we pick the right ice floe,
then we'll stay in the ice pack
for a full year.
If we pick the wrong ice floe,
it might drift out to the ice
edge faster than we anticipated.
It might break up.
And so we're walking
a thin line here.
So we are standing by.
Copy that, I will take off now.
Okay, door's closed.
♪♪
The team has spotted
several potential ice floes.
To find out if they're suitable,
they need to explore them
on foot.
Our dream would be an ice floe
that is
thicker than one meter 20.
Just a stable island of ice.
The team searches for days.
But the ice floes are
all too thin.
They're running out of options.
This, this is interesting.
This whole area here looks...
somewhat...
- Yeah.
- We'll look over here.
See what we can find.
Yup.
Eventually, they spot a floe
that looks like it could
be thicker.
So it first goes out
50 meters that way,
and then we go,
try to walk parallel
to Polarstern over there.
There are quite a few
potential hazards out there.
How thick is the ice?
Is it stable?
Is it safe?
Matt, this is Markus,
Matt, this is Markus.
Markus... Matt.
I think our, our thinnest ice
was 70 centimeters,
and we've seen some up
to multiple meters.
And there's quite an extensive
area of that thicker ice.
All right, Matt, thanks.
That sounds great.
After days of uncertainty,
it's an enormous relief.
♪♪
They've found their ice floe.
Now, as the ice starts
to freeze around the ship...
the real work can begin.
♪♪
The team needs to unload
around a hundred tons of
equipment
and set up bases out on the ice.
With just days remaining
before the perpetual darkness
of Arctic winter arrives,
the pressure's on.
Every day, we're looking
out the window
and light is diminishing.
And it's a race against time.
The plan is to build
five research stations
they call ice cities
up to a half-mile from the ship.
♪♪
The cities and their
cutting-edge equipment
will allow scientists to explore
every aspect
of the Central Arctic
at the same time,
and crucially, constantly
monitor how each piece
of this complex puzzle affects
all the others,
from high in the atmosphere
to the ice and
the deep oceans beneath.
A mile-and-a-half of data cables
and over three miles of
power lines
connect the cities to the
Polarstern.
Beyond is a network of more
distant science sites,
as well as almost 250
remote monitoring stations.
The entire operation
stretches across an area
of around
two-and-a-half thousand
square miles.
♪♪
While the scientists work,
others keep watch.
There's one thing
they're all concerned about.
I'm standing there on this
small hill at Met City,
on my very first polar bear
guard duty.
Bridge, bridge...
pack your stuff together.
You have to evacuate.
Suddenly, I hear from the bridge
two polar bears
are approaching us.
They are 1,000 meter away,
900 meter away,
and we all have to go
back immediately.
In that second,
I start to shout...
Stop doing what you're doing
and come to the Ski-Doo!
Polar bears, if they are hungry,
they would hunt for a person.
♪♪
These huge animals can reach
speeds of 40 kilometers
per hour,
and everybody has to have
that in mind.
Once a polar bear is close,
it can be at the person
in seconds.
I am the only person
who have a rifle,
and am I going to be able
to use it,
protecting all the people
around me?
And that's a lot of people
there.
Bridge, bridge... Matt.
We are actually really
full here.
We are going to try to load
everybody on these.
It's going to be really full,
but we'll try to make it out
with what we have here.
Guys, hurry up!
In my mind, I don't care
how small the sleds are...
Everybody has to fit.
We all have to go back now.
♪♪
♪♪
As we all got on board...
Bridge, bridge, this is Gaute,
over.
That was when I saw them.
This is bridge.
Polar bear are
at a hundred meters.
I will inform you when you have
the shot with the flare guns,
yeah?
Where is Trude?
She is right next to me.
The main goal is to have
everyone safe
and then scare
the polar bears away.
We are invading their space.
I don't want to harm them.
So it is
so nice when they understand
that we are making too much
noise for them.
The darkness
of Arctic winter arrives.
The team will not see
the sun again
for almost five months.
♪♪
It's an incredible experience
to live, exist, and work here
in the wintertime.
It looks unreal.
♪♪
It feels like we are somewhere
else in the universe,
this is not the Earth,
this is something
completely different.
♪♪
The darkness?
Working in the dark
for months on end,
not really being
able to see beyond
where your head lamp shines?
That's scary.
Yeah, that's pretty scary.
♪♪
After three weeks on the ice,
one of the most complex
research camps,
Met City, is up and running.
All systems green.
The tower is alive today.
Our tower here is about
11 meters tall,
and this can tell us about the
turbulent exchange of heat,
of energy,
of moisture at the surface.
Such detailed data
has never been
captured year-round
in the Central Arctic before.
We need to understand what the
sea ice
is experiencing and how that
affects
the melting of the sea ice or
the freezing of the sea ice.
The Arctic ice
is melting, it's retreating,
and we want to understand why
that ice is changing.
Today, sea ice in the summertime
covers only half the area
it did just 40 years ago,
and the decline is accelerating.
Only some of the reasons
are known.
♪♪
Decades ago, when there was more
extensive ice cover,
a lot of the sunlight that comes
in in the summertime
would just reflect back off that
really bright, white surface
and go back to space.
Now we have progressively less
and less sea ice,
and that exposes more ocean.
And that open ocean is dark.
It absorbs the sunlight,
and therefore warms up the ocean
and melts even more ice.
This feedback loop is
a major reason
why the Arctic is now warming
at least twice as fast
as the rest of the planet.
♪♪
But it's not the only factor.
Already,
Met City is shedding new light
on another potentially powerful
warming influence.
Clouds are a big player
in the Arctic system,
as they are in the
whole global system.
On the one hand,
they shade the surface
from the sun, right?
So they cool the surface.
On the other hand,
they serve as a blanket
and they trap the energy
at the Earth's surface.
And it gets really
interesting in the Arctic,
because during parts of the
year, there is no sun.
It's dark for
four months straight.
And so the clouds are
only serving as a blanket.
What we're seeing is that
in polar winter,
there's actually a lot more
thick cloud than I expected.
It's slowing the winter
sea ice growth.
That means less ice going
into spring and summer,
which in turn makes it more
vulnerable
to the melting season.
The clouds are one piece of
the complex puzzle
the expedition is trying
to put together.
♪♪
Another is the hidden world
under the ice.
It doesn't look like much,
I mean, right, at the surface?
You're, like, it's just snow,
it's quiet.
But actually, below the ice,
there's a flurry of activity.
I'm used to making
lab experiments
with a pipetter and...
Delicate work.
And here I am with a
60-centimeter-long chainsaw.
♪♪
Some of the big outstanding
questions are,
what are the activities
of organisms in polar night?
From the Central Arctic,
there are basically
no measurements whatsoever.
So this would be the first
chance in history
for us to do that work.
♪♪
This device can collect
water samples
at specific depths,
down to just above the
ocean floor...
two-and-a-half miles below.
♪♪
What?
At this place in the world,
at this time of year,
there's never been data
like this.
And that's incredible,
and so every time
we put a piece of equipment out
and we collect
a sample successfully,
we're the only people
that have been able to do it.
Okay, so Jien, you're done
for D.I.C. on one.
Uh, Haylun, that means you
can do salinity on number one.
What they're finding
is a huge surprise.
I think winter in general
is thought of
as a time of hibernation
or low metabolic activity.
But what we're seeing is that
organisms
have adapted over millennia
to this,
what we consider
an extreme environment.
♪♪
In one milliliter of seawater,
which is basically,
like, a teaspoon of seawater,
are one million bacterial cells.
And from there,
the diversity is extraordinary.
The team finds
that phytoplankton,
plant-like organisms that rely
on the sun for their energy,
are still present in winter,
primed and ready for spring.
They also discover tiny
zooplankton in their thousands...
Far more abundant
and active than they'd imagined.
♪♪
This thriving ecosystem
is vital for our planet.
Globally, phytoplankton
produce around half the oxygen
we breathe and absorb
vast amounts of carbon dioxide,
while the zooplankton
that feed on them
help lock that carbon away
in the depths.
It's partly why the oceans
absorb
around a quarter of the
CO2 produced
by the burning of fossil fuels.
For our climate, these tiny
creatures play
a crucial role.
Given that the Arctic is
experiencing so much change,
we need to understand
what impact
reductions in sea ice
and global warming is having
on these organisms
and how these components
of the climate interact.
Almost two months into
their yearlong mission,
the Transpolar Drift
has carried the Polarstern
over a hundred miles deeper
into the Arctic.
Bridge, bridge, Trude.
Trude, go ahead.
I'm in position, stern.
Thank you, enjoy your watch.
Do we have a ladder here?
Oh, my God.
The ice is moving a lot.
Bridge, bridge,
for your information,
the ice here has really started
to move.
We noticed by the sound and are
monitoring it now.
We managed to save the ladder,
which is now on our side.
It's so loud.
It sounds like a,
an engine as it starts.
It is like an earthquake
under your feet,
but there is nowhere to run.
You really feel
how fragile you are.
It's a frightening experience.
Let's hope we find a way over.
Oh, it's stopped.
Bridge, bridge, Trude.
Go ahead, Trude.
Ice has stopped moving
and it's completely silent here
in the Arctic again.
This is stress on the ice.
This is the winds
and the currents in the ocean
causing pressure in the ice, and
eventually,
the ice just lets go.
There's internal pressure
and it breaks.
And those stresses
are intensified
by the arrival of a violent
storm.
Cracks in the ice open up,
some big enough
to wreck the entire base.
There is one crack behind
Met City.
We've lost the power, huh?
Yeah.
It's knocked out
our power supply.
It's taken down our measurements
at Met City.
We have to get back out there.
We have to get the power hooked
up again, so that we can
continue making our
measurements.
Goal of operation, really,
is to rescue
the cables so that we don't
lose them.
So we prepare the kayak?
Yep.
All right!
- All good?
- Yeah.
Team Kayak?
The first thing they need to do
is find out if the cable
is still connected to the
ice cities.
All right,
the connectors have been
ripped off,
so the other half is probably
in the water.
We can't reach it,
we can't see it.
Copy that.
With the power cable hanging
deep into the ocean,
they'll need to retrieve it
by hauling it out with
a snowmobile.
Slowly, slowly!
Hey, stop, stop!
There is something else
hanging here.
Yeah.
Okay, we are very close.
Ah, this is the end.
This is the end.
Well done, guys!
Excellent.
With the cable saved,
the team can restore power
to the ice cities
and get the science
back up and running.
I don't know if I am
the first Indian to walk on
frozen ocean waters,
but, at least,
for this expedition,
I am the only Indian.
My name is Vishnu Nandan.
♪♪
Vishnu means
preserver of the planet,
and that's my goal.
I'm here to protect the planet.
To every, to protect everyone.
Let's pull it across.
We don't want to
block the way with this.
Okay, yeah, I mean,
we can at least
bring the cables this direction.
I've been going up to
the Arctic region
for almost 30 years now,
but it's always been
during daylight.
Doing it over winter,
yeah, that's
a really unique experience
that many people,
even if you're a scientist
working in the Arctic,
you don't get
to experience that.
And honestly, you feel like
you're walking on the moon.
That's amazing!
Hi, fox!
That is very cool.
My first polar fox.
That's exciting.
Yay.
Okay, check if
my instrument's working now.
Julienne and Vishnu are running
the Remote Sensing City.
They're here to answer
one of the most
fundamental questions of all:
Just how much ice
is in the Arctic Ocean?
♪♪
We have over 40 years of
satellite measurements
telling us how much of
the Arctic Ocean
is covered by sea ice,
but what we've really lacked
is knowing how thick the ice is.
The problem is that satellites
can't differentiate
between the ice
and what's
just snow on top of it.
By testing the same technology
at the surface,
where they
can compare the results
against physical measurements,
they hope to revolutionize
our ability
to monitor sea ice from space.
It would allow us to
actually map not just
the spatial extent of the ice,
but the actual ice volume in
the Arctic every single day.
As they begin to analyze
their results,
it confirms what they suspected:
satellites have been vastly
overestimating ice thickness.
It will take time
to turn their data into new,
more accurate predictions,
but it's a major breakthrough.
Collecting the data
is really key,
and will hopefully help
the public and policymakers
understand how quickly
the Arctic is transforming
and that we need to do something
before it's too late.
As a new year begins,
the team is less than 200 miles
from the North Pole.
♪♪
They're due to receive
vital supplies, equipment,
and a new team of scientists
before the ice becomes
too thick to reach them.
But the Russian icebreaker
entrusted with the task
is hundreds of miles away,
struggling through thick ice.
As soon as the icebreaker
started to move through the ice,
I got the sense of how remote
the area we're going to is.
I mean,
we're traveling for weeks
to get to this
miraculous haven in the north.
No icebreaker has ever tried
to venture so far north
in the middle of winter before.
♪♪
♪♪
If the supply ship
has to turn back,
the team here could
be stranded for months,
and they'll be dangerously low
on fuel for heat and power.
It's affecting the morale of
the scientists onboard.
We are kind of stuck here.
♪♪
There, there to the east.
Is that the Dranitsyn?
♪♪
After a grueling
month-long journey,
and with the first signs of
sun returning,
the supply ship, Dranitsyn,
finally makes it.
♪♪
Okay, team, we walk.
And we follow them.
At one point,
I didn't think we'd be here.
But it's happened.
It's incredible.
♪♪
With the new scientists
and supplies on board,
the mission is back on track.
♪♪
♪♪
As the sun returns,
the Arctic begins
to transform once again.
For the scientists,
it brings a whole new world
to explore.
♪♪
Welcome to the office.
♪♪
For me, snow tells a story.
We're trying to understand,
in this scale,
how it's changing,
and eventually link it
to the whole of
the Arctic snowpack.
We start
one snowflake at a time.
♪♪
So at the surface today,
we have -20 degrees.
But then just
17 centimeters below,
we have minus nine degrees.
So it has
a really big influence.
Oh!
The snow here is acting as
a major insulator,
trapping heat from
the warm ocean in the ice
and slowing its escape
to the atmosphere.
With scientists predicting
that a warming Arctic
will see more precipitation,
which means more snowfall,
understanding why it's
having such a dramatic effect
is crucial.
Using a CT scanner,
the team can study
the structure of Arctic snow
in minute detail.
So, at the top,
these are all really compact
and tightly together.
And then
as you move further down,
you come across these
large crystals.
I've never seen these
crystals quite so big before.
You can start
to see more and more air.
The blue would be an air gap.
♪♪
The scans reveal how during
winter and early spring,
large crystals in the snow
trap more air,
keeping the ice warm
and inhibiting
the growth of new ice.
This may seem strange,
but under certain conditions,
more snow can mean less sea ice.
The Arctic is now in
full transition.
With just over two weeks
between first sunrise
and 24-hour daylight,
every day
there's more opportunity
for one team
to take to the skies.
Let's do this.
Let's do it!
Three, two, one, go!
Hell, yeah!
Whooo!
Way to go, team drone.
We did it, whooo!
First flight, success!
The plane will spiral up
from near the surface
up to 1,000 meters.
And we're measuring
the state of the atmosphere,
so that's the temperature,
pressure, humidity, and wind.
It is flying really well.
I am so happy.
And right away,
there are exciting findings.
Here we have a plot of
the temperature,
and the wind speed.
Yeah.
And you can see that we have
a really strong inversion
in the temperature around 200
to 300 meters, or...
The first flight we did
had this real sharp
temperature inversion,
where the temperature
increases with height.
It's the opposite
of what we normally see
where we live.
This phenomenon,
characteristic of the poles,
is caused by the icy surface
cooling the air just above it.
What's interesting to me is that
the temperature inversions
are often associated with
this core of really fast winds
right near
the surface of the Earth,
where sea ice or ocean or snow
exchange energy and moisture
and different gases.
And so the wind is really a
critical part of understanding
how the atmosphere is coupled
to these other parts of the
climate system.
NARRATOR
Along with these crucial
surface winds,
there are other polar winds,
much higher,
that have a powerful effect
on the climate
far beyond the Arctic.
The jet stream is
a band of high-altitude wind
that whistles around our planet
at over 100 miles an hour,
influencing much of the weather
in the Northern Hemisphere.
It's driven by
the temperature difference
between the warm Equator
and cold Arctic.
Many scientists think
the faster-warming Arctic
may be weakening the jet stream,
causing it to become unstable.
It's a controversial theory,
but if true,
it could have
catastrophic results.
Cold air is able to escape
out of the Arctic
and cover parts of Europe
or North America
and give us
really cold winter weather.
Or if the jet stream
pushes very far north,
and you get these intrusions
of warm air up into the Arctic.
The weaker jet stream might also
be causing weather patterns
to get stuck over
the same area for longer,
prolonging droughts and floods.
It impacts everything we do.
It impacts farmers
and where they can grow crops,
where rain falls,
how often droughts occur,
how often heat waves occur,
how often blizzards occur...
I mean, all of the weather
that we experience.
In addition to altering
weather patterns
in the Northern Hemisphere,
the warming Arctic
is also speeding up
global warming,
which will affect
weather everywhere.
And as ice on land
also melts faster,
it accelerates
global sea level rise.
What happens in the
Arctic affects us all.
The Arctic is far away.
You know, 'cause you think,
"Oh, it's so far away,
who cares?"
But it has such a critical
impact
on the, the global environment
that we all have to care.
♪♪
Six months in,
the Transpolar Drift
is carrying the Polarstern
and its ice cities
around eight miles each day,
as the rest of the world
faces a pandemic.
The coronavirus is
the biggest threat this country
has faced for decades.
All over the world,
we are seeing
the devastating impact of
this invisible killer.
♪♪
The scientists may be
more isolated
than anyone else on Earth,
but as spring turns to summer,
they face their own challenges.
The thinning ice
is increasingly treacherous.
Large cracks form,
and huge ridges of
colliding ice bury equipment.
Both are made worse by
violent storms.
And as they drift ever closer
towards the edge of
the ice pack,
the favored hunting ground
for bears,
their work is
constantly interrupted.
By mid-June, much of the Arctic
is in the grip of
a record-breaking heat wave.
In July,
the ice is disappearing fast,
leading to the smallest area
of Arctic sea ice
ever recorded
for this time of year.
The question on everyone's mind
is, how long
will their ice floe last?
So this one, can you see it?
- It's kind of...
- Ooh, yeah, yeah.
There's a few, like, lines.
This is undergoing melting.
Yes, I see.
The water in the snow,
it's just trickling down
and pooling on the ice.
And the ice starts to become,
we call it rotten.
The processes and changes
have been really quick,
a lot quicker than I, I thought
they were gonna be.
So, how long have we got?
That's a good question.
While the floe is becoming
increasingly fragile,
the thinner ice is also
moving faster than expected.
The team had hoped to stay
locked in until September,
but by mid-July,
the Transpolar Drift
has already brought them
close to the ice edge,
where the waves
of the open ocean
will finally destroy their floe.
♪♪
It could be
a very dangerous situation,
where the ice floe
breaks into small pieces.
It could be any day now.
You know, sea ice,
it has a lifetime of its own,
and so we watched it grow
when we arrived,
and now we're watching it decay.
Good morning, everybody.
We are at a distance
of nine nautical miles
from the ice edge,
and that is the distance
where we need
to take things down.
It's time to say goodbye
to our research camp.
♪♪
We measured right up to the end,
and actually, that feels great.
♪♪
To me, this feels like
a huge accomplishment.
♪♪
So, I wake up,
and I go to the bridge...
and there's nothing.
Our floe is gone.
It's totally gone.
It's disintegrated
into a thousand pieces.
♪♪
Overnight, we went from having
a floe that we could work on,
that we were moving
heavy equipment on,
to literally shambles of ice.
It was incredible.
Soon after their ice floe
melts away into the ocean,
2020 is confirmed as having
the second-smallest extent
of summer sea ice on record.
Across the Arctic,
vast areas are ice-free.
♪♪
There are even patches of
open water
at the North Pole itself.
♪♪
We don't have that much
time left.
If the Arctic Ocean is going to
lose its summer sea ice,
that's a big climate shift.
The problem is that
climate change is
this gradual, creeping change.
I think eventually, we're
going to cross a, a threshold
where the weather and
the climate become so different
from what
we're able to deal with,
that it will become a crisis.
That it will become urgent,
like COVID has been for us.
Here's the question
I would like to pose:
why not act now?
♪♪
Humans are very resilient,
we're very innovative.
We can come up with ways
to solve this,
but we need to start working
together more than we are.
♪♪
MOSAiC is a symbol of
what we need to deal with,
the challenges we face.
It's a global problem.
And you solve global problems
by acting as a global community.
We're leaving the Arctic now
with a tremendous amount of
new knowledge,
and it's going to be available
for everyone around the world
to use.
What each team has found
has been really extraordinary.
The implications are huge.
♪♪
From thousands of feet
above the Arctic ice
to the ocean deep below it,
the team has gathered
more than 150 terabytes
of vital new data
and countless samples
still to be examined.
As scientists
around the world work together
to analyze
and combine the findings,
they'll piece together
a new picture
of our changing Arctic,
transforming
how we see our future
and what can be done about it.
♪♪
The world is changing,
and there is something
that we can do about it,
but it takes us
making better choices
about our everyday lives.
I hope that what you've seen
encourages you to believe that,
as we continue to
be curious about our world,
it will help us protect it.
♪♪
What is at stake?
Everything, I would say.
♪♪
The Arctic.
Its vast frozen ocean
cools our planet
and impacts weather
around the globe.
But the Arctic is changing...
Warming at least twice as fast
as the rest of the planet.
Exactly what's happening,
and how it will
affect life on Earth,
has not been fully explored.
♪♪
♪♪
But now,
a global team of scientists
is setting out
on the biggest polar expedition
ever attempted.
♪♪
We have hundreds of people
from 37 different nationalities
on board.
It's a massive operation
on a scale that we have never
seen in the Arctic before.
We're creating a benchmark
of measurements
that we may never be able
to repeat
in the future because there
won't
be sea ice for us to study.
The plan is a world first:
to take a high-tech
research icebreaker
and freeze it into
the Central Arctic ice
for an entire year.
We're taking
a whole new level of
sophistication with us.
All right? Onboard the ship
will be instruments
that have never been installed
in the Central Arctic.
Locked in place, they'll explore
every aspect of
the Central Arctic
as never before,
through the constant darkness
of a polar winter
and some of the harshest
conditions on Earth.
Their mission:
to investigate why the ice
is melting so fast
and help us better predict
how its rapid change
will impact the rest
of our planet.
It's about taking stock of what
we've done to the Earth...
and what we can still do.
"Arctic Drift,"
right now, on "NOVA."
♪♪
After more than ten years
of planning,
an international team
of scientists is heading north
on the journey of a lifetime.
♪♪
This mission is the modern
climate science
equivalent of going to the moon.
♪♪
If you asked me if
I'd ever imagined myself
working in the Arctic, going to
polar bear safety training,
handling a rifle,
I would have laughed at you.
I would have been, like,
"You're crazy, there's no way!"
Coming from a place where
people have never seen snow
or ice
for the past thousands of years,
Arctic, for me,
is something out of this world.
The expedition will definitely
give us a new perspective
about the changes happening
in the Arctic environment.
♪♪
Making scientific observations
in the Arctic is very difficult.
Relative to the rest
of the globe,
we have very few observations
of the Arctic system,
especially in the wintertime.
We're going into a frontier,
really.
I mean, the Arctic
is still a frontier.
♪♪
The mission, dubbed MOSAiC,
and led by
Germany's polar institute,
is heading deep into
the Arctic sea ice.
♪♪
A place like nowhere else
on Earth.
A vast, frozen world floating
on a deep ocean.
It's thin and treacherous
in summer,
and almost impenetrable
in winter.
It means the Central Arctic
remains
one of the least understood
places on the planet.
But now, the team plans
to establish a cutting-edge
research camp
by allowing their icebreaker,
the Polarstern, to become frozen
into the ice itself.
♪♪
This looks great, I think,
as far as size.
We're going into the sea ice
to try to find an ice floe.
An ice floe is
a discrete chunk of ice.
It's maybe a couple of
kilometers across.
Ideally, our floe will be
thick enough
so that it can support
all of our equipment
that we want to put out
on the ice.
And yeah, this stuff
that's right there
is the rotten layer
that’s underneath...
And this will be our home
for the next year.
So this is really
a crucial moment in
our whole expedition.
♪♪
The success of the mission
depends on taking advantage
of a natural phenomenon.
♪♪
The plan is to hitch a ride on
the Transpolar Drift,
a constantly moving belt of
sea ice
that's driven by prevailing
winds and ocean currents.
If they freeze-in near Russia,
it should carry them for
hundreds of miles...
Close to the North Pole,
then towards the Atlantic.
If we pick the right ice floe,
then we'll stay in the ice pack
for a full year.
If we pick the wrong ice floe,
it might drift out to the ice
edge faster than we anticipated.
It might break up.
And so we're walking
a thin line here.
So we are standing by.
Copy that, I will take off now.
Okay, door's closed.
♪♪
The team has spotted
several potential ice floes.
To find out if they're suitable,
they need to explore them
on foot.
Our dream would be an ice floe
that is
thicker than one meter 20.
Just a stable island of ice.
The team searches for days.
But the ice floes are
all too thin.
They're running out of options.
This, this is interesting.
This whole area here looks...
somewhat...
- Yeah.
- We'll look over here.
See what we can find.
Yup.
Eventually, they spot a floe
that looks like it could
be thicker.
So it first goes out
50 meters that way,
and then we go,
try to walk parallel
to Polarstern over there.
There are quite a few
potential hazards out there.
How thick is the ice?
Is it stable?
Is it safe?
Matt, this is Markus,
Matt, this is Markus.
Markus... Matt.
I think our, our thinnest ice
was 70 centimeters,
and we've seen some up
to multiple meters.
And there's quite an extensive
area of that thicker ice.
All right, Matt, thanks.
That sounds great.
After days of uncertainty,
it's an enormous relief.
♪♪
They've found their ice floe.
Now, as the ice starts
to freeze around the ship...
the real work can begin.
♪♪
The team needs to unload
around a hundred tons of
equipment
and set up bases out on the ice.
With just days remaining
before the perpetual darkness
of Arctic winter arrives,
the pressure's on.
Every day, we're looking
out the window
and light is diminishing.
And it's a race against time.
The plan is to build
five research stations
they call ice cities
up to a half-mile from the ship.
♪♪
The cities and their
cutting-edge equipment
will allow scientists to explore
every aspect
of the Central Arctic
at the same time,
and crucially, constantly
monitor how each piece
of this complex puzzle affects
all the others,
from high in the atmosphere
to the ice and
the deep oceans beneath.
A mile-and-a-half of data cables
and over three miles of
power lines
connect the cities to the
Polarstern.
Beyond is a network of more
distant science sites,
as well as almost 250
remote monitoring stations.
The entire operation
stretches across an area
of around
two-and-a-half thousand
square miles.
♪♪
While the scientists work,
others keep watch.
There's one thing
they're all concerned about.
I'm standing there on this
small hill at Met City,
on my very first polar bear
guard duty.
Bridge, bridge...
pack your stuff together.
You have to evacuate.
Suddenly, I hear from the bridge
two polar bears
are approaching us.
They are 1,000 meter away,
900 meter away,
and we all have to go
back immediately.
In that second,
I start to shout...
Stop doing what you're doing
and come to the Ski-Doo!
Polar bears, if they are hungry,
they would hunt for a person.
♪♪
These huge animals can reach
speeds of 40 kilometers
per hour,
and everybody has to have
that in mind.
Once a polar bear is close,
it can be at the person
in seconds.
I am the only person
who have a rifle,
and am I going to be able
to use it,
protecting all the people
around me?
And that's a lot of people
there.
Bridge, bridge... Matt.
We are actually really
full here.
We are going to try to load
everybody on these.
It's going to be really full,
but we'll try to make it out
with what we have here.
Guys, hurry up!
In my mind, I don't care
how small the sleds are...
Everybody has to fit.
We all have to go back now.
♪♪
♪♪
As we all got on board...
Bridge, bridge, this is Gaute,
over.
That was when I saw them.
This is bridge.
Polar bear are
at a hundred meters.
I will inform you when you have
the shot with the flare guns,
yeah?
Where is Trude?
She is right next to me.
The main goal is to have
everyone safe
and then scare
the polar bears away.
We are invading their space.
I don't want to harm them.
So it is
so nice when they understand
that we are making too much
noise for them.
The darkness
of Arctic winter arrives.
The team will not see
the sun again
for almost five months.
♪♪
It's an incredible experience
to live, exist, and work here
in the wintertime.
It looks unreal.
♪♪
It feels like we are somewhere
else in the universe,
this is not the Earth,
this is something
completely different.
♪♪
The darkness?
Working in the dark
for months on end,
not really being
able to see beyond
where your head lamp shines?
That's scary.
Yeah, that's pretty scary.
♪♪
After three weeks on the ice,
one of the most complex
research camps,
Met City, is up and running.
All systems green.
The tower is alive today.
Our tower here is about
11 meters tall,
and this can tell us about the
turbulent exchange of heat,
of energy,
of moisture at the surface.
Such detailed data
has never been
captured year-round
in the Central Arctic before.
We need to understand what the
sea ice
is experiencing and how that
affects
the melting of the sea ice or
the freezing of the sea ice.
The Arctic ice
is melting, it's retreating,
and we want to understand why
that ice is changing.
Today, sea ice in the summertime
covers only half the area
it did just 40 years ago,
and the decline is accelerating.
Only some of the reasons
are known.
♪♪
Decades ago, when there was more
extensive ice cover,
a lot of the sunlight that comes
in in the summertime
would just reflect back off that
really bright, white surface
and go back to space.
Now we have progressively less
and less sea ice,
and that exposes more ocean.
And that open ocean is dark.
It absorbs the sunlight,
and therefore warms up the ocean
and melts even more ice.
This feedback loop is
a major reason
why the Arctic is now warming
at least twice as fast
as the rest of the planet.
♪♪
But it's not the only factor.
Already,
Met City is shedding new light
on another potentially powerful
warming influence.
Clouds are a big player
in the Arctic system,
as they are in the
whole global system.
On the one hand,
they shade the surface
from the sun, right?
So they cool the surface.
On the other hand,
they serve as a blanket
and they trap the energy
at the Earth's surface.
And it gets really
interesting in the Arctic,
because during parts of the
year, there is no sun.
It's dark for
four months straight.
And so the clouds are
only serving as a blanket.
What we're seeing is that
in polar winter,
there's actually a lot more
thick cloud than I expected.
It's slowing the winter
sea ice growth.
That means less ice going
into spring and summer,
which in turn makes it more
vulnerable
to the melting season.
The clouds are one piece of
the complex puzzle
the expedition is trying
to put together.
♪♪
Another is the hidden world
under the ice.
It doesn't look like much,
I mean, right, at the surface?
You're, like, it's just snow,
it's quiet.
But actually, below the ice,
there's a flurry of activity.
I'm used to making
lab experiments
with a pipetter and...
Delicate work.
And here I am with a
60-centimeter-long chainsaw.
♪♪
Some of the big outstanding
questions are,
what are the activities
of organisms in polar night?
From the Central Arctic,
there are basically
no measurements whatsoever.
So this would be the first
chance in history
for us to do that work.
♪♪
This device can collect
water samples
at specific depths,
down to just above the
ocean floor...
two-and-a-half miles below.
♪♪
What?
At this place in the world,
at this time of year,
there's never been data
like this.
And that's incredible,
and so every time
we put a piece of equipment out
and we collect
a sample successfully,
we're the only people
that have been able to do it.
Okay, so Jien, you're done
for D.I.C. on one.
Uh, Haylun, that means you
can do salinity on number one.
What they're finding
is a huge surprise.
I think winter in general
is thought of
as a time of hibernation
or low metabolic activity.
But what we're seeing is that
organisms
have adapted over millennia
to this,
what we consider
an extreme environment.
♪♪
In one milliliter of seawater,
which is basically,
like, a teaspoon of seawater,
are one million bacterial cells.
And from there,
the diversity is extraordinary.
The team finds
that phytoplankton,
plant-like organisms that rely
on the sun for their energy,
are still present in winter,
primed and ready for spring.
They also discover tiny
zooplankton in their thousands...
Far more abundant
and active than they'd imagined.
♪♪
This thriving ecosystem
is vital for our planet.
Globally, phytoplankton
produce around half the oxygen
we breathe and absorb
vast amounts of carbon dioxide,
while the zooplankton
that feed on them
help lock that carbon away
in the depths.
It's partly why the oceans
absorb
around a quarter of the
CO2 produced
by the burning of fossil fuels.
For our climate, these tiny
creatures play
a crucial role.
Given that the Arctic is
experiencing so much change,
we need to understand
what impact
reductions in sea ice
and global warming is having
on these organisms
and how these components
of the climate interact.
Almost two months into
their yearlong mission,
the Transpolar Drift
has carried the Polarstern
over a hundred miles deeper
into the Arctic.
Bridge, bridge, Trude.
Trude, go ahead.
I'm in position, stern.
Thank you, enjoy your watch.
Do we have a ladder here?
Oh, my God.
The ice is moving a lot.
Bridge, bridge,
for your information,
the ice here has really started
to move.
We noticed by the sound and are
monitoring it now.
We managed to save the ladder,
which is now on our side.
It's so loud.
It sounds like a,
an engine as it starts.
It is like an earthquake
under your feet,
but there is nowhere to run.
You really feel
how fragile you are.
It's a frightening experience.
Let's hope we find a way over.
Oh, it's stopped.
Bridge, bridge, Trude.
Go ahead, Trude.
Ice has stopped moving
and it's completely silent here
in the Arctic again.
This is stress on the ice.
This is the winds
and the currents in the ocean
causing pressure in the ice, and
eventually,
the ice just lets go.
There's internal pressure
and it breaks.
And those stresses
are intensified
by the arrival of a violent
storm.
Cracks in the ice open up,
some big enough
to wreck the entire base.
There is one crack behind
Met City.
We've lost the power, huh?
Yeah.
It's knocked out
our power supply.
It's taken down our measurements
at Met City.
We have to get back out there.
We have to get the power hooked
up again, so that we can
continue making our
measurements.
Goal of operation, really,
is to rescue
the cables so that we don't
lose them.
So we prepare the kayak?
Yep.
All right!
- All good?
- Yeah.
Team Kayak?
The first thing they need to do
is find out if the cable
is still connected to the
ice cities.
All right,
the connectors have been
ripped off,
so the other half is probably
in the water.
We can't reach it,
we can't see it.
Copy that.
With the power cable hanging
deep into the ocean,
they'll need to retrieve it
by hauling it out with
a snowmobile.
Slowly, slowly!
Hey, stop, stop!
There is something else
hanging here.
Yeah.
Okay, we are very close.
Ah, this is the end.
This is the end.
Well done, guys!
Excellent.
With the cable saved,
the team can restore power
to the ice cities
and get the science
back up and running.
I don't know if I am
the first Indian to walk on
frozen ocean waters,
but, at least,
for this expedition,
I am the only Indian.
My name is Vishnu Nandan.
♪♪
Vishnu means
preserver of the planet,
and that's my goal.
I'm here to protect the planet.
To every, to protect everyone.
Let's pull it across.
We don't want to
block the way with this.
Okay, yeah, I mean,
we can at least
bring the cables this direction.
I've been going up to
the Arctic region
for almost 30 years now,
but it's always been
during daylight.
Doing it over winter,
yeah, that's
a really unique experience
that many people,
even if you're a scientist
working in the Arctic,
you don't get
to experience that.
And honestly, you feel like
you're walking on the moon.
That's amazing!
Hi, fox!
That is very cool.
My first polar fox.
That's exciting.
Yay.
Okay, check if
my instrument's working now.
Julienne and Vishnu are running
the Remote Sensing City.
They're here to answer
one of the most
fundamental questions of all:
Just how much ice
is in the Arctic Ocean?
♪♪
We have over 40 years of
satellite measurements
telling us how much of
the Arctic Ocean
is covered by sea ice,
but what we've really lacked
is knowing how thick the ice is.
The problem is that satellites
can't differentiate
between the ice
and what's
just snow on top of it.
By testing the same technology
at the surface,
where they
can compare the results
against physical measurements,
they hope to revolutionize
our ability
to monitor sea ice from space.
It would allow us to
actually map not just
the spatial extent of the ice,
but the actual ice volume in
the Arctic every single day.
As they begin to analyze
their results,
it confirms what they suspected:
satellites have been vastly
overestimating ice thickness.
It will take time
to turn their data into new,
more accurate predictions,
but it's a major breakthrough.
Collecting the data
is really key,
and will hopefully help
the public and policymakers
understand how quickly
the Arctic is transforming
and that we need to do something
before it's too late.
As a new year begins,
the team is less than 200 miles
from the North Pole.
♪♪
They're due to receive
vital supplies, equipment,
and a new team of scientists
before the ice becomes
too thick to reach them.
But the Russian icebreaker
entrusted with the task
is hundreds of miles away,
struggling through thick ice.
As soon as the icebreaker
started to move through the ice,
I got the sense of how remote
the area we're going to is.
I mean,
we're traveling for weeks
to get to this
miraculous haven in the north.
No icebreaker has ever tried
to venture so far north
in the middle of winter before.
♪♪
♪♪
If the supply ship
has to turn back,
the team here could
be stranded for months,
and they'll be dangerously low
on fuel for heat and power.
It's affecting the morale of
the scientists onboard.
We are kind of stuck here.
♪♪
There, there to the east.
Is that the Dranitsyn?
♪♪
After a grueling
month-long journey,
and with the first signs of
sun returning,
the supply ship, Dranitsyn,
finally makes it.
♪♪
Okay, team, we walk.
And we follow them.
At one point,
I didn't think we'd be here.
But it's happened.
It's incredible.
♪♪
With the new scientists
and supplies on board,
the mission is back on track.
♪♪
♪♪
As the sun returns,
the Arctic begins
to transform once again.
For the scientists,
it brings a whole new world
to explore.
♪♪
Welcome to the office.
♪♪
For me, snow tells a story.
We're trying to understand,
in this scale,
how it's changing,
and eventually link it
to the whole of
the Arctic snowpack.
We start
one snowflake at a time.
♪♪
So at the surface today,
we have -20 degrees.
But then just
17 centimeters below,
we have minus nine degrees.
So it has
a really big influence.
Oh!
The snow here is acting as
a major insulator,
trapping heat from
the warm ocean in the ice
and slowing its escape
to the atmosphere.
With scientists predicting
that a warming Arctic
will see more precipitation,
which means more snowfall,
understanding why it's
having such a dramatic effect
is crucial.
Using a CT scanner,
the team can study
the structure of Arctic snow
in minute detail.
So, at the top,
these are all really compact
and tightly together.
And then
as you move further down,
you come across these
large crystals.
I've never seen these
crystals quite so big before.
You can start
to see more and more air.
The blue would be an air gap.
♪♪
The scans reveal how during
winter and early spring,
large crystals in the snow
trap more air,
keeping the ice warm
and inhibiting
the growth of new ice.
This may seem strange,
but under certain conditions,
more snow can mean less sea ice.
The Arctic is now in
full transition.
With just over two weeks
between first sunrise
and 24-hour daylight,
every day
there's more opportunity
for one team
to take to the skies.
Let's do this.
Let's do it!
Three, two, one, go!
Hell, yeah!
Whooo!
Way to go, team drone.
We did it, whooo!
First flight, success!
The plane will spiral up
from near the surface
up to 1,000 meters.
And we're measuring
the state of the atmosphere,
so that's the temperature,
pressure, humidity, and wind.
It is flying really well.
I am so happy.
And right away,
there are exciting findings.
Here we have a plot of
the temperature,
and the wind speed.
Yeah.
And you can see that we have
a really strong inversion
in the temperature around 200
to 300 meters, or...
The first flight we did
had this real sharp
temperature inversion,
where the temperature
increases with height.
It's the opposite
of what we normally see
where we live.
This phenomenon,
characteristic of the poles,
is caused by the icy surface
cooling the air just above it.
What's interesting to me is that
the temperature inversions
are often associated with
this core of really fast winds
right near
the surface of the Earth,
where sea ice or ocean or snow
exchange energy and moisture
and different gases.
And so the wind is really a
critical part of understanding
how the atmosphere is coupled
to these other parts of the
climate system.
NARRATOR
Along with these crucial
surface winds,
there are other polar winds,
much higher,
that have a powerful effect
on the climate
far beyond the Arctic.
The jet stream is
a band of high-altitude wind
that whistles around our planet
at over 100 miles an hour,
influencing much of the weather
in the Northern Hemisphere.
It's driven by
the temperature difference
between the warm Equator
and cold Arctic.
Many scientists think
the faster-warming Arctic
may be weakening the jet stream,
causing it to become unstable.
It's a controversial theory,
but if true,
it could have
catastrophic results.
Cold air is able to escape
out of the Arctic
and cover parts of Europe
or North America
and give us
really cold winter weather.
Or if the jet stream
pushes very far north,
and you get these intrusions
of warm air up into the Arctic.
The weaker jet stream might also
be causing weather patterns
to get stuck over
the same area for longer,
prolonging droughts and floods.
It impacts everything we do.
It impacts farmers
and where they can grow crops,
where rain falls,
how often droughts occur,
how often heat waves occur,
how often blizzards occur...
I mean, all of the weather
that we experience.
In addition to altering
weather patterns
in the Northern Hemisphere,
the warming Arctic
is also speeding up
global warming,
which will affect
weather everywhere.
And as ice on land
also melts faster,
it accelerates
global sea level rise.
What happens in the
Arctic affects us all.
The Arctic is far away.
You know, 'cause you think,
"Oh, it's so far away,
who cares?"
But it has such a critical
impact
on the, the global environment
that we all have to care.
♪♪
Six months in,
the Transpolar Drift
is carrying the Polarstern
and its ice cities
around eight miles each day,
as the rest of the world
faces a pandemic.
The coronavirus is
the biggest threat this country
has faced for decades.
All over the world,
we are seeing
the devastating impact of
this invisible killer.
♪♪
The scientists may be
more isolated
than anyone else on Earth,
but as spring turns to summer,
they face their own challenges.
The thinning ice
is increasingly treacherous.
Large cracks form,
and huge ridges of
colliding ice bury equipment.
Both are made worse by
violent storms.
And as they drift ever closer
towards the edge of
the ice pack,
the favored hunting ground
for bears,
their work is
constantly interrupted.
By mid-June, much of the Arctic
is in the grip of
a record-breaking heat wave.
In July,
the ice is disappearing fast,
leading to the smallest area
of Arctic sea ice
ever recorded
for this time of year.
The question on everyone's mind
is, how long
will their ice floe last?
So this one, can you see it?
- It's kind of...
- Ooh, yeah, yeah.
There's a few, like, lines.
This is undergoing melting.
Yes, I see.
The water in the snow,
it's just trickling down
and pooling on the ice.
And the ice starts to become,
we call it rotten.
The processes and changes
have been really quick,
a lot quicker than I, I thought
they were gonna be.
So, how long have we got?
That's a good question.
While the floe is becoming
increasingly fragile,
the thinner ice is also
moving faster than expected.
The team had hoped to stay
locked in until September,
but by mid-July,
the Transpolar Drift
has already brought them
close to the ice edge,
where the waves
of the open ocean
will finally destroy their floe.
♪♪
It could be
a very dangerous situation,
where the ice floe
breaks into small pieces.
It could be any day now.
You know, sea ice,
it has a lifetime of its own,
and so we watched it grow
when we arrived,
and now we're watching it decay.
Good morning, everybody.
We are at a distance
of nine nautical miles
from the ice edge,
and that is the distance
where we need
to take things down.
It's time to say goodbye
to our research camp.
♪♪
We measured right up to the end,
and actually, that feels great.
♪♪
To me, this feels like
a huge accomplishment.
♪♪
So, I wake up,
and I go to the bridge...
and there's nothing.
Our floe is gone.
It's totally gone.
It's disintegrated
into a thousand pieces.
♪♪
Overnight, we went from having
a floe that we could work on,
that we were moving
heavy equipment on,
to literally shambles of ice.
It was incredible.
Soon after their ice floe
melts away into the ocean,
2020 is confirmed as having
the second-smallest extent
of summer sea ice on record.
Across the Arctic,
vast areas are ice-free.
♪♪
There are even patches of
open water
at the North Pole itself.
♪♪
We don't have that much
time left.
If the Arctic Ocean is going to
lose its summer sea ice,
that's a big climate shift.
The problem is that
climate change is
this gradual, creeping change.
I think eventually, we're
going to cross a, a threshold
where the weather and
the climate become so different
from what
we're able to deal with,
that it will become a crisis.
That it will become urgent,
like COVID has been for us.
Here's the question
I would like to pose:
why not act now?
♪♪
Humans are very resilient,
we're very innovative.
We can come up with ways
to solve this,
but we need to start working
together more than we are.
♪♪
MOSAiC is a symbol of
what we need to deal with,
the challenges we face.
It's a global problem.
And you solve global problems
by acting as a global community.
We're leaving the Arctic now
with a tremendous amount of
new knowledge,
and it's going to be available
for everyone around the world
to use.
What each team has found
has been really extraordinary.
The implications are huge.
♪♪
From thousands of feet
above the Arctic ice
to the ocean deep below it,
the team has gathered
more than 150 terabytes
of vital new data
and countless samples
still to be examined.
As scientists
around the world work together
to analyze
and combine the findings,
they'll piece together
a new picture
of our changing Arctic,
transforming
how we see our future
and what can be done about it.
♪♪
The world is changing,
and there is something
that we can do about it,
but it takes us
making better choices
about our everyday lives.
I hope that what you've seen
encourages you to believe that,
as we continue to
be curious about our world,
it will help us protect it.
♪♪
What is at stake?
Everything, I would say.
♪♪