What happens when the ice melts and the sea levels rise? Scientists study Antarctica in an effort to understand possible climate change through geologists looking at ancient landscapes, paleobotany, drilling, and diving. Almost three miles of ice buries most of Antarctica, cloaking a continent half again as large as the United States. But when an Antarctic ice shelf the size of Manhattan collapsed in less than a month in 2002, it shocked scientists and raised the alarming possibility that Antarctica may be headed for a meltdown. Even a ten percent loss of Antarctica's ice would cause catastrophic flooding of coastal cities unlike any seen before in human history. What are the chances of a widespread melt? This documentary explores whether Antarctica's climate past can offer clues to what may happen. this documentary follows a state-of-the-art expedition that is drilling three-quarters of a mile into the Antarctic seafloor. The drill is recovering rock cores that reveal intimate details of climate and fauna from a time in the distant past when the Earth was just a few degrees warmer than it is today. As researchers grapple with the harshest conditions on the planet, they discover astonishing new clues about Antarctica's past—clues that carry ominous implications for coastal cities around the globe. Learn how Antarctica affects global climate through the University of Nebraska’s revolutionary drilling initiative, ANDRILL. In 2002, an immense, 200-meter-thick ice shelf the size of Manhattan collapsed into the ocean off the Antarctic Peninsula, shocking scientists and raising the alarming possibility that we may be heading toward an ice-free Antarctica, last seen a million years ago. That would raise world sea levels so high that New York City would be flooded up to the level of the Statue of Liberty's shoulders. But could this really happen? Is Antarctica's surprising past a reliable guide to what may happen. At the bottom of the Earth is a continent encased in ice, a place so remote and mysterious that it’s largely unknown to most people. Yet Antarctica holds secrets that affect our climate future. Antarctica’s secrets are not in the ice, but in the rocks beneath it. ANDRILL (Antarctic Drilling Project) is a scientific drilling project in Antarctica gathering information about past periods of global warming and cooling. The project involves scientists from Germany, Italy, New Zealand, and the United States. At two sites in 2006 and 2007, ANDRILL team members drilled through ice, seawater, sediment and rock to a depth over more than 1,200 m and recovered a virtually continuous core record from the present to nearly 20 million years ago. The project is based at McMurdo Station in Antarctica In studying the cores, ANDRILL scientists from various disciplines are gathering detailed information about past periods of global warming and cooling. A major goal of the project is to significantly improve the understanding of Antarctica's impact on the world's oceans currents and the atmosphere by reconstructing the behavior of Antarctic sea-ice, ice shelves, glaciers and sea currents over tens of millions of years. Initial results imply rapid changes and dramatically different climates at various times on the southernmost continent. The $30 million project has achieved its operational goal of retrieving a continuous core record of the last 17 million years, filling crucial gaps left by previous drilling projects. Making use of knowledge gained through prior Antarctic drilling projects, ANDRILL employed novel techniques to reach record depths at its two drilling sites. Among the innovations deployed were a hot-water drilling system that allowed for easier ice-boring and a flexible drill pipe that could accommodate tidal oscillations and strong currents. On December 16, 2006, ANDRILL broke the previous record of 999.1 m (3,277.9 ft) set in 2000 by the Ocean Drilling Program's drill ship, the Joides Resolution. The Antarctic-record 1,285 m (4,216 ft) of core ANDRILL went on to recover represents geologic time to about 13 million years ago. In 2007, drilling at the Southern McMurdo Sound, ANDRILL scientists recovered another 1138 meters (3733.6 ft) of core. One goal in 2006 was to look at a period of around 3 to 5 million years ago in the Pliocene, which scientists know to be warmer. The team’s sedimentologists identified more than 60 cycles in which ice sheets or glaciers advanced and retreated across McMurdo Sound.

• published: 25 Nov 2014
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