The real scientists of Antarctica
National Geographic has teamed up with Antarctica NZ to produce a TV series mostly about Kiwi science on the ice. Will Harvie reports.
Antarctica is a dangerous place. It’s a ‘‘place and an environment where people should not be,’’ says a marine ecologist in a new science TV programme on the National Geographic channel called Continent 7: Antarctica.
Continent 7 is a dramatic portrayal of scientists who mostly work from Antarctica New Zealand’s Scott Base. To a lesser extent, it’s about their research. Refreshingly, it’s also about the mountaineers, mariners and Hagglund drivers who keep the scientists safe in the dangerous environments of Antarctica.
These guides haven’t always been visible in previous Antarctic coverage. They are the sherpas of the South, the folks who get the scientists to their research sites and home again. Safety first. So viewers see geophysicist Dr Graeme Hill lead a team to Mount Erebus to plant gravity and magnetic sensors at 132 locations.
The researchers want to map the internal plumbing of the active volcano to learn more about Erebus and other volcanoes. Where exactly is the magma mother lode? But before the crew can leave the helicopter, mountaineer Danny Uhlmann has to check there aren’t crevasses hidden under the snow and ice. He gingerly skis about, probing the snow for weaknesses.
Meanwhile the pilot keeps the rotors turning in case the surface under the helicopter gives way. In another project led by Dr Christina Hulbe of the University of Otago, a team heads on to the Ross Ice Shelf.
They are travelling by Hagglund and Antarctica NZ’S Tom Arnold has to ensure the convoy doesn’t accidentally drive into a crevasse. Perhaps for the cameras, a crevasse is found and Arnold probes its extent, and then finds a way around it.
This is television, so it’s produced with dramatic music and voice-overs, short summaries after the commercial breaks and some of the techniques of reality TV.
In the first two episodes, probably the most science is conveyed by whale research under way off the Antarctic Peninsula thousands of kilometres from Scott Base. Marine ecologist Dr Ari Friedlaender and colleagues scoot about in rubber ducky boats looking for humpback and minke whales.
Viewers get to watch these whales in their Antarctic grounds, which is always a pleasure. Friedlaender wields a long pole – reminiscent of a harpoon – but equipped with a suction tag. The trick is to slap the tag on to the humpback before it dives.
(Spoiler alert: This is achieved and data collectors on the tag presumably start recording motion, direction, depth, video and other information.)
Meanwhile, the Ross Ice Shelf convoy is halted by bad weather and has to hunker down in tents to ride out the storm. Antarctica’s climate is another star of the series, both in the sense that it’s damnably cold but also that it’s getting warmer due to climate change.
Almost all research Antarctica NZ accomplishes on the Ice touches climate change in some manner.
For television, there’s nothing like an Antarctic blizzard of the sort that killed Captain Scott and colleagues in 1912 to heighten the drama for the Ross Ice Shelf project. (They want to drill it.)
The series is a three-year, $1 million deal between the New Zealand Antarctic Research Institute, a charitable trust that raises funds for Antarctica NZ, and National Geographic.
In return for the cash, Nat Geo got unprecedented access to Scott Base, NZ scientists and those mountaineers, mariners and Hagglund drivers, plus the weather forecasters, cooks and maintenance people.
It’s not all New Zealanders, however.
Nat Geo got a cameraman aboard a United States Coast Guard icebreaker that has to cut a channel to Scott Base and the nearby US facility at Mcmurdo.
In previous years, icebreakers have used helicopters to help plot a course through ice flows and bergs, but this time they are trialling a $100,000 drone. You’ll have to watch to learn how that works out. It’s 2016, so the TV series is only part of the content produced. There are online-only videos and resources, maps, articles and other materials at nationalgeographic.com/ continent-7-antarctica.
The world premiere for the TV series was held last Tuesday at Christchurch Airport’s cinema and simultaneously at Scott Base. It then went on the road to universities across New Zealand.
The cameras have already returned to Scott Base to record season two of the series.