On Thin Ice

Image of Icebergs with sign In front that reads "Caution Thin Ice"
Climate change as icebreaker.

Water is essential for life – that we know.  But the honeycomb lattice that forms when you chill it to zero degrees Celsius is also inexorably intertwined with life.

Ice is more than a repository for water that would otherwise raise sea levels.  It’s part of Earth’s cooling system … a barrier preventing decaying organic matter from releasing methane gas … and a vault entombing ancient bacteria and other microbes. 

 

From the Arctic to the Antarctic, global ice is disappearing.   Find out what’s at stake as atmospheric CO2 threatens frozen H2O. 

Guests:

  • Peter Wadhams - Emeritus Professor of Ocean Physics at Cambridge University in the U.K. and the author of A Farewell to Ice: A Report from the Arctic

  • Eric Rignot - Earth systems scientist, University of California, Irvine, senior research scientist, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

  • Åsmund Asdal - Biologist, Nordic Genetic Resource Center, coordinator for operations and management of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, Svalbard, Norway

  • John Priscu - Polar biologist, Montana State University

​originally aired August 14, 2017