Hello everyone, welcome to the STG media

zone. We're live from the UN Ocean

Conference here in Nice, France. Uh the

next session is with Mr. Ragi Omar,

international news affairs analyst with

ITV and he will be connecting with

Martin Stew, science correspondent who

is live from Antarctica. Over to you

guys.

>> Thank you very much indeed and thanks

for uh coming. Um this uh session um

report is called Antarctica, the climate

front line. Now Antarctica is warming

fast. In fact, it's 3° hotter, I

believe, since the 1950s, putting

wildlife and the global climate at risk.

It's also home to the Antarctic

circumpolar current, the only ocean

current linking all major oceans. Now,

record low sea ice means that this is

the latest winter a ship has reached um

uh Antarctica. Scientists are studying

melting glacias, nutrient release, and

underwater tsunamis caused by ice

breakoffs. Now, ITV News's science team,

as you were just hearing, joins the

boat, the RRS

David Atenburgh, for a month-long

mission with exclusive access to British

Antarctic Survey scientists. What

happens in Antarctica, of course,

doesn't stay in Antarctica and what

scientists uncover could shape our

warming world's future. And I'm

delighted to say that I'm now joined by

my colleague Martin Stew. Um Martin,

just tell us where you are and how your

journey on the RRS David Asra has gone.

>> Yeah, hello conference from Antarctica.

As you say, I am on board the Sir David

Atenburgh, a research ship run by the

British Antarctic Survey. It's the UK's

largest floating laboratory. And we're

currently 67° south deep with inside the

Antarctic uh uh circle. And you may be

able to see behind me a large glacia

front. This is just one of many places

uncharted water. We are currently where

we're having a look. And one thing the

science have noticed in the last couple

of hours is that we've been able to get

much closer to the glasses than we

thought. And the reason is firstly that

there's a real lack of sea ice around

making moving around much easier. But

secondly, this water is far deeper and

it always used to be the thought that

the main melting happening in Antarctica

was from the atmosphere, from air

temperatures. What we're seeing

increasingly is that a lot of that

warming is coming from the ocean. And

the fact that this glacia wall sinks

potentially several hundred meters below

the ocean just goes to show how much of

that ice is exposed to the warming ocean

and how much that is going to impact the

speeding up of the glacias. It's been an

incredible trip to get down here. It's

too dark and too dangerous to fly. So we

sailed across Drake Passage, one of the

most dangerous stretches of water with

huge waves often. [clears throat] And we

got down here and as we got our first

glimpse of the continent, it is

absolutely stunning. You know, you sail

along and there's penguins swimming

alongside you, there's seals. And one

day we counted 115 humpback whales. And

I think that's a real lesson for the

topics going on at the conference in

Nice today because obviously those

whales were hunted to near oblivion. The

hunting ban came in, humans took action,

and now they're coming back. So, it's

been a real kind of visceral lesson to

me that actually where we do take

action, we can make a difference.

>> And um what else has really surprised

you and the scientists in terms of your

journey and what you've seen, Martin?

>> Well, that sea ice thing really, I mean,

less so the scientists than some of the

sailors on board. I was talking to one

guy, his he's been sailing on British

Antarctic survey ships for 39 years. His

father did the same before him. and he

was stood out on deck in a t-shirt in

June sailing through a stretch which

would and should have been

[clears throat] completely frozen shut

and he was you know gobsmacked really

that it was open and available to sail

through at this time if if nothing is a

more visceral sense of the fact that our

ch climate is changing it has been that

and there's lots of things that

scientists are looking at as you alluded

to one of them is to do with underwater

tsunamis and Two of the scientists are

on board, you're going to hear from

later on in this session. Six years ago,

they were stood and they looked at a

glacia and they saw it carve in front of

them is where the ice falls into the

ocean. Somewhere between 3 and 20

million tons of ice fell into the ocean

in front of them. That obviously caused

waves on the surface, but it causes this

mixing underneath the ocean. And that's

what they've been studying. And lo and

behold, when we were on the ship this

time, we were stood up on the bridge at

night in the winter when you do not

really expect carving to be happening.

And they saw exactly the same glacia

carve again. Now, it wasn't as much for

ice falling ocean this time, but it's

perhaps more worrying that it's

happening in the winter. So, the fact

they're able to gather data in these

winter months that they never normally

can could potentially be invaluable. And

Martin, you're there because we are

doing a special week's reporting on the

Antarctic and on uh the climate crisis

as it affects oceans. Now, tell us about

it and introduce a a segment of your

report for us, please.

>> Yeah, absolutely. So, it's a a unique

opportunity to be on this ship and we

wanted to give viewers across the UK

and the world digitally as much of a

sense of how this climate is changing.

So, we've got climate stories. We've

also got stories looking at wildlife.

We've got stories of hope as well.

Species like those whales rebounding

back. We're trying to capture exactly

what goes on and just how challenging it

is to do science down here. That's going

to be played out across the next two

weeks. I've got a colleague in the

Bahamas looking at how the sea level

rises triggered by glasses like the one

behind me will be impacting places like

that. not to mention coverage in the UK

to see the impacts at home as well. So,

the first report I'm going to show you

is the lead package which is going to be

playing tonight and after that I've got

a Q&A session with two of the scientists

on board where I pose to them some of

the questions which uh university

students have sent in to the UN. So, I

hope you enjoy this report.

Sunrise 11 a.m. Our first glimpse of

Antarctica. A frozen wilderness warming

before our eyes.

No British ship has sailed here at this

time of year since Shackleton's

Endurance. That was crushed by ice.

Now we glide through almost open water.

We shouldn't be able to make this

journey. The very fact we can in

midpolar winter is a warning shot across

the boughs from mother nature.

>> Gee, aren't you going to be cold?

>> Just a little bit.

>> Bosen Dave has been making this journey

for 39 years. Never this late in the

winter.

>> What do you think it says about how much

this place is changing the fact we're

making this journey in June

>> in global warming kind of thing? It's

pretty Yeah, it's pretty unusual. That's

what I mean.

I don't I wouldn't believe we'd be down

here at this time.

>> We sail through a sheltered stretch

called the Gullet, unencumbered by the

sea ice, which would have made this

route to Rother almost impossible in the

past. The bay next to the British

Antarctic Survey Station used to be

frozen by now. Compared to 30 years ago,

there is now 1.5 million square

kilometers less sea ice than there used

to be at this time of the year. That

equates to an area six times the size of

the UK.

>> The retreat in sea ice is linked to the

warming of the ocean and that's

something that we know us humans are

doing. So there's a a direct signal

there of our activity. Um the

implications of this are climatic in

that um it affects how reflective the

surface of the planet is. So the

planet's now absorbing more heat from

the sun than it used to. It also removes

a protective barrier from around

Antarctica and can actually contribute

to the destabilization

of the ice sheets.

>> That's what's happened to the Sheldon

glacia. Without ice acting like a cork,

it's collapsing into the sea, retreating

several kilometers and creating this

entire bay which used to look like land.

Back on board, Mike and his colleague

Rianan revisit a different glacia they

saw carve three million tons of ice in

the summer six years ago.

>> Unbelievably, they film it happening

again.

>> Oh my god. This time at night in the

winter.

>> That's That's disaster from underneath.

>> To stand there and see it directly in

front of us was incredible. It was

really unexpected. It really hit home

that we're seeing some rapid changes to

the region and we don't know what the

consequences of that will be.

>> The theory is ice collapse on this scale

causes underwater tsunamis.

>> So I'm going to switch this one on so it

>> the team are monitoring water samples to

understand how those waves release heat,

carbon, and nutrients into the

environment, not to mention huge amounts

of fresh water. Latest modeling shows

even in the unlikely case we can cap

global warming to 1 and a half degrees,

melting polar ice will push sea levels

up by a centimeter a year come the end

of the century. A rate fast enough to

tangibly affect our children's lives.

Hello Nice, from Antarctica. We're stood

on the peninsula, one of the warmest

parts of this frozen continent, which is

changing so rapidly before our eyes.

We've sailed down the latest in the

season the British Antarctic Survey have

ever done. And I'm with some top

scientists, including to my left,

Rihanna Jones, who specializes in

understanding the differences or the way

that biology and chemistries interact

within the ocean, and Mike Meredith, who

is an oceanographer, a climate

scientist, and a lead author for the

IPCC. We've got some questions that have

been sent in. one if you could help me

answer some of them. The first one comes

from uh Niha. She says, "What role do

Antarctic ocean ecosystems play in

absorbing carbon and how might that

change as the region warms?"

>> That's a great question, Niha. Thank

you. Um so the Antarctic Ocean, the

Southern Ocean that surrounds Antarctica

is globally an integral region for

carbon storage. So the ocean absorbs the

humanmade atmospheric carbon long term

for us. does us a climatic favor. In

fact, and as we see climate warming

continue, the oceans warm and the

atmosphere warm, what we're seeing is

huge changes in the region. What this

means is, for example, sea ice decline,

uh, this changes the potentially changes

the potential for the southern ocean to

store this carbon forest. And it was

explained to me, tell me if I've got

this wrong, but the the less sea ice

there is, and I think that there's about

a million square kilometers less sea ice

now than there was 30 years ago, that

exposes more of the ocean to wind, which

whips and stirs things up, and that can

release carbon and heat. Is that right?

>> Yes, that's right. So, the deep ocean is

where most of this carbon is stored. And

so, as you physically change how the the

ocean mixes and the ocean cycles, you

can release some of this carbon from the

deep ocean back into the atmosphere. and

the ocean stops being such an effective

sink for that atmospheric carbon.

>> Great. Thank you. My next question is uh

from Jay Whitney from the University of

Arizona. How does climate change affect

food resources available for the ocean?

We've seen some seals out there this

morning, haven't we?

>> Yes. So, the uh southern ocean, this

this ocean we are at right now is a

highly productive region across the food

web and that is driven from bottomup uh

processes. What that means is the ocean

is nutrient-rich. It's foodrich for the

photosynthesizing plants of the ocean,

phytolanton. And these phytolankton

support the whole food web. So they feed

the krill, the plankton. And the krill

are a keystone species for the region.

They feed animals up the food web such

as the seals we've seen there this

morning. Whales that we saw here

yesterday. And all of these animals are

at risk from a changing climate.

>> And one of the you just had a paper

published to do with nutrients and

glasses. Is that right?

>> Yes. Yeah. What we're seeing is as uh

glacias and ice sheets continue to melt

and discharge fresh water into the

ocean, that changes how the ocean itself

is physically cycling the chem the

chemistry of the ocean, the nutrient

supply, and potentially that will have

impacts again on those primary

producers, photosynthesizers, and up the

food web.

>> Great. Thank you, Mike. I think this

next one may be for you. Um, how do you

prepare for unexpected weather events or

ice conditions while at sea in

Antarctica? And how does it affect your

ability to gather data? That's from uh

Kayla Wrl from Cornell University.

>> Yeah, it's a great question. Um, working

in the Antarctic, you can be exposed to

quite hostile conditions. Um, there are

very powerful storms here. You've got to

navigate the ice. Uh, sometimes you've

got to cope with 24-hour darkness, which

we're going to be dealing with pretty

soon. Um, you got to be prepared for

this. Um, the way you do that is by a

lot of advance planning.

>> That's the ship's horn.

>> That's the ship's horn. [laughter]

um you've got to have flexibility built

into your plans um so you can adapt as

you go um and still get the signs that

you need to uh delivered. A key thing

there is to have very robust facilities

available to you like the ship the Sir

David Atenburgh which is a very powerful

very capable ice breaker so it can cope

with what the Antarctic throws at us uh

and still get the measurements we need.

I guess it's contingency after

contingency. If that breaks, we've got

plan B and C and D because you can't get

people out of here, can you? Sometimes,

>> sometimes not. Um, so you got to be

self-sufficient. You got to be prepared

to look after yourselves while you're

here. You got to have plans out to plan

zed and beyond. Um, but we've got a lot

of experience of doing that. So,

typically, you know, we do get the

science, we do get the measurements that

we need.

>> Great. And one of the final questions

here, what is an arising issue that

scientists and marine sciences or

environmental policy should look at? Uh

that's from EL Emily Conception from

East Carolina University.

>> Uh well, one of the most important

things we're beginning to understand

about Antarctica is how rapidly and

dramatically it can change. You know, we

develop a scientific understanding, but

Antarctica continues to surprise us. It

continues to throw things at us that we

just hadn't predicted. Um the loss of

sea ice about a decade ago is a prime

example of that. uh but also we're

seeing uh ice being lost from glacias at

increasingly rapid rates. We can pass

tipping points uh in which the system

shifts to an entirely different way of

working and what we really need to do is

understand more about where those

tipping points are, how close we are to

them and be able to better predict what

happens once we go past them. Uh that's

really important understanding because

that then feeds into policy for setting

climate uh initiatives uh fisheries

policy uh marine protected areas all the

policy domains to try and protect

Antarctica protect the world uh it comes

down to trying to get that that

understanding better

>> and scale is a massive thing. You were

telling me that this project you're

working at the moment called Polo Mint

was inspired when you saw Glacia carve

into the ocean and we've just seen the

terrible pictures from Switzerland of a

whole village being wiped out by

something similar happening. But what we

sort of looked on a small scale

Antarctica, but it was exactly the same

size as that event in Switzerland. So

we're talking about really big impacts

here, aren't we?

>> We are. I mean Antarctica is is a really

big continent and different parts of it

behave differently. Um but some of the

changes, some of some of the very sudden

events you can see like collapsing

glaciers, like collapsing ice sheets, uh

very significant huge amounts of ice

being discharged very very suddenly and

everything can change. Um and things

like the terrible event in Switzerland,

you know, they really bring it home uh

the actual magnitude of what we're

seeing here in Antarctica by putting it

alongside things that people can relate

to such as settlements, villages, and so

on. And I've been interested sailing

down with you guys that there's no doubt

in your minds that there is serious

change of foot. It is not going in the

right direction. But also it's not too

late. There are some options. And I was

struck because it's the 40th anniversary

of the discovery of the hole in the

ozone layer which was found by your bass

predecessors discovered down in

Antarctica. So are you hopeful that the

science here if policy makers listen to

the science we can still make a

difference and make a change?

>> Absolutely we can. I mean, you're

absolutely right that, you know, in

terms of climate change, we're not where

we want to be. We need more action. We

need better action. Uh we need much more

accelerated progress at the policy

scale. Uh that has to be informed by

science, which is what we're down here

doing now. Um but there's still cause

for hope. Um it isn't game over yet. We

can still avoid the worst case

scenarios, the worst um impacts that

climate change can throw at us. What we

need to do is really push hard now um

because the sooner we get the action

needed um the more we can save in terms

of the lives and livelihoods around the

world that are going to be affected by

it.

>> Well, I think you couldn't have summed

it up better. Uh Mike Rian, thank you

very much and um thank you for having us

uh in the conference. I hope it all goes

well.

>> Great. Thank you very much indeed

everyone and thank you to Martin and

everyone on the boat with him. And

that's the end of the session. Thanks

for attending.