Antarctica is often thought of as a place of ice, numbing cold, and vast empty spaces. Antarctica is all that, but it’s also a great place to do science on the environment and space. Research in the Arctic and Antarctic is being highlighted during the International Polar Year of 2007-8, with thousands of scientists from 60 nations conducting research in physical biological and social science topics at both poles.

There’s good reason for this pulse of cutting-edge research at the ends of the Earth. A unique vantage point at the South Pole give cosmologists one of the clearest darkest views into deep space for studying the most mysterious phenomena to emerge in recent years: dark energy and dark matter. The continent’s unpolluted skies, pristine marine ecosystems, and thick ice sheets lets geologists, biologists, glaciologists and climate researchers study current changes in the atmosphere and ice sheets, responses to global warming by penguins and other organisms in the marine food web, and past global climate conditions recorded in ice and sediment cores dating back millions of years.

The Exploratorium is launching a series of live Webcasts and dispatches with scientists in Antarctica discussing their current field research and will continue the program next summer with Arctic scientists. The polar researchers will be scattered across the continent from cosmologists at the South Pole, analyzing initial data and tweaking their brand-new 10-meter telescope just completed last February, to geologists pulling up deep sediment cores from under the sea near McMurdo Station, the largest U.S. research station in Antarctica, to glaciologists camping on a remote glacier in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet who will study the vast network of lakes, streams, and rivers that flow under the ice. We’ll also hear from biologists at three different Adelie penguin colonies along the coastline of the pristine Ross Sea who are studying this resilient bird’s response to rapid environmental changes and from scientists on a research cruise off the Western Antarctic Peninsula, a teeming marine ecosystem that is experiencing some of the most dramatic warming anywhere on earth. Rounding out the program will be physicists at the South Pole building a unique telescope deep under the ice, called IceCube, to study elusive neutrinos from space and NASA scientists reporting on their research into high-energy cosmic rays using instruments mounted on huge balloons launched from near McMurdo to navigate the circumpolar currents above Antarctica.



Ice Stories Webcasts, Winter 2007/2008
Schedules and Descriptions


Wednesday, November 28th, 1 pm (ANDRILL)
Today’s program features an overview of the ANDRILL project. ANDRILL (ANtarctic geological DRILLing) is a multinational collaboration comprised of more than 200 scientists, students, and educators from five nations to recover sediment cores from under the ice and seas of Antarctica. The chief objective is to drill back in time to reconstruct the history of paleoenvironmental changes that will help scientists understand how fast, how large, and how frequent were glacial and interglacial changes in the Antarctica region.

Friday, November 30th, 1pm (ANDRILL)
In today’s program, we learn more about the ANDRILL project. We will talk to scientists and engineers at a sea-ice drill site on the ice. ANDRILL is a feat of engineering-how and why do they drill and retrieve sediment cores from under the ice and sea?

Sunday, December 2nd, 2pm (ANDRILL)
Learn more about the ANDRILL scientists, watch them examine a sediment core, find about new developments, and discover ancient diatoms with geologist Christina Riesselman!

Fridays, December 7th, 11am (South Pole Telescope)
Last winter we watched the assembly of the new South Pole Telescope.
Today we will have a recap of last season and the building of the South Pole Telescope. We will discover what they have learned so far, and find out from project leader John Carlstrom what work needs to happen this year. The scientists will be fine-tuning and making adjustments to this amazing new piece of technology.

Saturday, December 8th, 2pm
Join Exploratorium Senior Scientist Paul Doherty as he shows hands-on demos related to science going on in Antarctica.

Sunday, December 9th, 2pm (ANDRILL)
Today we wrap up our conversations with the ANDRILL scientists, and as a special treat we will be speaking with project leader and geologist Dave Harwood, who will give us an overview of the project and what they will looking towards for the future.


Friday, December 14th, 1pm (date and time subject to change)
In today’s program, we will be speaking with glaciologist Slawek Tulaczyk and his team who work in the fast-emerging field of ice sheet dynamics. No longer thought of as giant slabs of slow-moving frozen water, ice sheets are energized by a complex system of sub-glacial lakes, floods, streams and ice quakes. This group will have just returned from a month at a remote camp on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and will have lots to tell about their icy adventures.

Sunday, December 16th, 2pm
David Ainley has been studying four colonies of Adelie penguins in the Ross Sea of Antarctica for over 20 years. Join us for a conversation with David and find out all about the population dynamics of penguins and how they’ve responded to environmental and climate change over time.

Wednesday, December 19th, 2pm
Join Exploratorium Senior Scientist Paul Doherty as he shows hands-on demos related to science going on in Antarctica.


Thursday, December 20th, 2pm
Join Exploratorium Senior Scientist Paul Doherty as he shows hands-on demos related to science going on in Antarctica.

Friday, December 21st, 10 am
Join us in conversation with the scientists working on the South Pole Telescope.
In today’s program, we will examine all the various projects and teams of people that make up the South Pole Telescope-how they work together, and how they analyze the data they are receiving.

Friday, December 28th, 8 am
During the holiday break, we’ll be connecting with scientists and engineers at the South Pole who are hard at work drilling holes in the ice for a unique telescope called Ice Cube. This telescope, when completed, will be take up a cubic kilometer of the ice sheet and consist of dozens of strings each containing 60 detectors suspended in crystal clear ice more than 1500 meters below the surface.


Friday, January 4th, 1pm
We’ll be connecting with scientists at Palmer Research Station in the Western Antarctic Peninsula. This is one of the most rapidly warming places on earth and the site of a Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Project. The scientists are getting ready for a month-long research cruise off the shores of Western Antarctica studying how this rich marine ecosystem is responding to melting sea ice and global climate change.

Friday, January 11th, 1 PM
Join us as we talk to NASA scientists about balloon research in the stratosphere over Antarctica. This season, three giant helium balloons will launch near McMurdo Station and circulate in circumpolar air currents above Antarctica collecting data about cosmic rays, very high energy particles that zip through the galaxy at nearly the speed of light. If conditions permit, we’ll be talking with the balloon scientists from their ice facility at Williams Field, where the giant balloons are inflated and launched and their flights are tracked.


Saturday, January 12th, 8am
We’ll continue our discussions with scientists on the Ice Cube telescope at the South Pole. This unique telescope is designed to capture the movement of neutrinos. Neutrinos are subatomic particles with infinitesimal mass that slip through the universe, earth and even our bodies without leaving a trace. Scientists study these ghostly particles for clues about supernova explosions, black holes, and gamma ray bursts, which in turn will shed light on the mysterious nature of dark energy and dark matter.


Friday, January 18th, 8am
For our last chat with the folks at the South Pole Telescope, we will learn about the data collection. We will focus on the receiver, a very precise instrument that is a sensitive, state-of-the-art data collector with a thousand eyes pointed to the distant universe. We will also meet the the scientists who will be wintering over at the South Pole for eight cold, dark months.

Friday, January 25th 1pm
Join us for more conversations with David Ainley and the penguin researchers wrapping up their field season at Adelie breeding colonies in Antarctica.