Meet the Team: Climate Change in Greenland and Around the World

0:19 from the cold vastness of space 0:21 our small planet may look pristine but 0:24 it is fragile 0:25 and in peril the earth's global 0:29 temperature is becoming more and more 0:31 erratic 0:32 and is rising to record highs 0:33 [Music] 0:35 some areas on earth are more sensitive 0:37 to a warming climate 0:38 and one is a giant island covered by ice 0:41 high on the arctic circle 0:44 greenland a very remote 0:47 and complex arctic environment between 0:49 north america and europe 0:51 holds one of the world's greatest 0:52 amounts of freshwater ice 0:54 second only to antarctica 0:58 while all glaciers and ice sheets are 1:00 essential to the survival of earth's 1:01 current climate 1:03 studying the science of greenland holds 1:05 one of the keys to better understand how 1:07 humans impact this reserve of ice 1:09 and how it can be better protected in 1:11 the future 1:14 join us on an exciting expedition to the 1:16 arctic isolation of greenland 1:18 led by dr perry sampson the team he has 1:21 selected is a hand-picked group 1:22 of adventurous and brilliant 1:24 undergraduate students 1:26 three expert professors from the fields 1:28 of solar 1:29 climate and glacial science and a 1:32 wayward filmmaker 1:33 trying to find his place on this 1:34 adventure 1:36 as they prepare for the voyage of a 1:37 lifetime unlike anything they have done 1:39 before 1:40 they soon realize this will not be an 1:42 easy trip 1:44 in part one we meet the team learn about 1:47 the history of this special island of 1:48 ice 1:49 how this expedition was dreamt up and 1:51 how it became a reality 1:54 welcome to the new north pole of the 1:58 [Music] 2:06 winds 2:08 [Applause] 2:09 [Music] 2:10 [Applause] 2:11 [Music] 2:22 [Music] 2:32 [Music] 2:44 my name is perry sampson i'm a professor 2:46 in the department of climate and space 2:48 sciences and engineering at the 2:50 university of michigan 2:51 global temperatures are rising and few 2:54 would debate that 2:55 as it happens as global temperatures 2:57 rise it's not rising equally everywhere 3:00 the arctic temperatures are rising 3:02 faster than outside the arctic and 3:05 greenland 3:05 is sort of the canary in the cage they 3:08 have a lot of ice that's located on land 3:10 unlike the ice in the arctic ocean which 3:13 melts but when you start melting 3:15 ice on land it adds extra volume to the 3:18 ocean so it has the sea level 3:20 uh rise in a dramatic way through my 3:22 work at the center for academic 3:24 innovation i've worked with perry for a 3:25 number of years 3:27 and he was always mentioning this 3:29 expedition that he was about to propose 3:30 the national science foundation it 3:33 involved undergraduate students 3:35 riding around a c-130 with skis it just 3:38 sounded amazing 3:39 we're in a point where we need more 3:41 climate scientists 3:42 so give students the opportunity to get 3:45 their hands dirty 3:46 one of our fundamental attempts in this 3:48 was to bring in more 3:49 students who are first-generation 3:51 students who haven't had much 3:52 opportunity to 3:53 get out and travel so that they could 3:56 begin to get a sense for what this 3:59 classroom 4:00 material means when you're actually 4:02 doing it 4:14 mackenzie zowell i'm a senior here at 4:16 the university of michigan studying 4:17 environmental engineering 4:19 when i was a little girl my dream job 4:21 for when i was older was to be an 4:23 expedition leader 4:24 so when i saw the opportunity to go to 4:27 greenland on an expedition my heart just 4:28 kind of stopped 4:29 i was so excited and i thought it would 4:31 be the perfect opportunity to learn more 4:33 about 4:34 climate science because that's something 4:35 that i didn't really learn a lot about 4:36 with my environmental engineering degree 4:38 so it was just another opportunity to 4:40 learn more and to become more involved 4:43 in the climate crisis so i am 4:46 mark i am a senior here at the 4:48 university of michigan i study aerospace 4:50 engineering 4:51 so not necessarily directly climate 4:53 related but i was 4:55 very excited to have an opportunity to 4:56 start conducting some like real-life 4:58 field research 4:59 as well as something that i'm fairly 5:01 passionate about 5:02 which is the environment and how 5:03 important that is which is 5:06 usually kind of odd coming from an 5:07 aerospace engineer we're normally 5:09 focused on other planets and not 5:11 necessarily our own but of course 5:12 to get somewhere we have to start from 5:14 somewhere so we need ours 5:16 my name is abby meyer i'm a computer 5:20 science student 5:21 i wanted to go on the expedition because 5:23 it was an 5:25 expedition to greenland and i've always 5:27 wanted to participate 5:29 in environmental field work so this was 5:31 an amazing opportunity to 5:33 try my hand at field work in the most 5:36 amazing 5:37 place i think in the world 5:41 [Music] 5:44 my name is lydia i'm currently a 5:46 sophomore 5:47 i wanted to go because when else do you 5:49 get a chance to go to greenland 5:51 and to get your hands in field research 5:54 as a freshman that just 5:55 it doesn't happen now that i've been to 5:58 the arctic 5:59 i am definitely definitely coming back 6:03 [Music] 6:05 we had an extraordinary group of 6:07 students from the university of michigan 6:10 alan abby mark 6:14 camaro lydia mackenzie 6:18 and cheyenne from the university of 6:21 albany 6:22 allie celia and chelsea 6:26 from virginia tech ian 6:29 gwyneth and celeste 6:33 our faculty leads were dr perry sampson 6:36 dr jeremy bassist dr mark flanner 6:39 and dr bob clower this was our full team 6:44 and we were ready to go 6:50 my name is jeremy bassis and i'm an 6:52 associate professor in the department of 6:53 climate and space sciences 6:55 and i study how ice sheets and glaciers 6:57 change in response to past present and 6:59 future climate change 7:00 the university of michigan has a 7:02 historical presence in some of the 7:04 original 7:05 field campaigns to look at some 7:08 geology and atmospheric conditions in 7:10 greenland 7:11 they did sort of some of the first 7:13 long-term 7:14 meteorological recordings in greenland 7:18 so they left on a boat called the 7:19 morrissey and it took them about three 7:21 weeks to get there 7:22 they were battered by storms throughout 7:25 and then when they got there they had to 7:27 set up camp 7:28 one of their ships sank their primitive 7:30 equipment broke down 7:32 two years they left somebody recording 7:34 temperature pressure 7:36 through a couple winters it's really 7:39 inspiring to see how much science they 7:42 got out 7:42 of their expedition without the 7:45 technology 7:46 that we've been given today they also 7:48 ventured out in the ice sheet a little 7:49 bit 7:50 they were the ones who were using the 7:51 theater light and 7:53 releasing other balloons because that 7:55 was what they had at the time 7:57 out of that multi-year expedition came 8:00 some of the first results about the 8:01 climate of greenland 8:03 but also a book detailing the exploits 8:06 of their adventure 8:07 called the north pole of the winds 8:10 before we went on the trip we read the 8:12 north pole of the winds which was 8:14 written by 8:15 professor hobbs i think the book gave an 8:18 interesting 8:19 framework to see the research we were 8:21 doing now in 8:22 i could also tell that it was very dated 8:25 in comparison to now 8:27 if we go back to the original 1926 8:30 campaign 8:30 it was all men all white men and all 8:34 professors and we want 8:37 a more diverse cohort to be interested 8:39 in polar science 8:40 to women underrepresented minorities to 8:42 people that maybe didn't really consider 8:44 a career in polar sciences and the way 8:46 to get people to interested 8:47 is to take them to this spectacular 8:49 landscape and show them what it looks 8:50 like 8:51 to show people how dramatic it is and 8:54 how dramatic it's changing 9:08 [Music] 9:48 so 9:52 [Music] 10:17 you