- 1 day ago
A pioneering British expedition to sample a lake under the Antarctic ice hopes to find unknown forms of life and clues to future climate impacts.
在数公里厚的坚实冰层之下，南极洲隐藏着一处壮观而复杂的地貌，其中包括深邃的峡谷、活火山、高耸的山脉，以及由地热和巨大压力维持液态的、由数百个冰下湖泊和流动河流构成的广阔水系网络。
在数公里厚的坚实冰层之下，南极洲隐藏着一处壮观而复杂的地貌，其中包括深邃的峡谷、活火山、高耸的山脉，以及由地热和巨大压力维持液态的、由数百个冰下湖泊和流动河流构成的广阔水系网络。
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TVTranscript
00:23Welcome to Christchurch, welcome to the CDC, welcome to a new exciting new
00:28season hopefully. Okay the first thing of course to remember is the clothing we've
00:33packed in your orange bags for you today is based on where you're working in
00:37Antarctica and what particular job you're doing. And of course what we're
00:42going to do this afternoon is to get you to try your ECW gear on before we send
00:46you south tomorrow. They call it going to the ice. It's a simple thing to say
00:52but the journey is profound. Tonight they'll get warm clothes in this United
00:57States National Science Foundation warehouse in New Zealand. Tomorrow
01:03they'll leave for Antarctica, 2400 miles to the south. My name is Norbert Wu. I'm an
01:13underwater photographer. I've been going to the ice since 1997. Most people call me
01:26Norbert Wu and his team have been invited by the NSF's Antarctic Program to take high-definition
01:35video cameras into some of the least accessible waters in the world.
01:40Norbert Wu. Norbert Wu apparently got a phone call this morning. My name is Christian McDonald.
01:45I've been to the ice six times. I'll be diving and helping Norbert logistics.
01:50How much weight? What are our... Weight actually. Okay. And at this stage it's 280 pounds unfortunately
01:56which means that we can only take so much ECW gear. Okay. But it'll follow. It'll follow on the next
02:01flight. As soon as possible. Yeah.
02:03So what's coming on at all? Well we've got to repack everything. So this stuff is going to join us
02:09on the next flight which could be anywhere from just two days to two weeks. You never know.
02:16Check-in time tomorrow morning will be 5 a.m. Okay. So that's basically all there is to it.
02:24At first it's like getting up early to go on an airliner to anywhere. Same standing around, same security hassles.
02:33Feels like going to Chicago.
02:37Hey Dale. Can you do me better? Hand me my parking. That's right on there.
02:42This is the second year I've gone to the ice with Norbert. I'm Dale Stokes. I'm an oceanographer.
02:53This is no airliner. This is not a trip to Chicago.
03:01It's so noisy in here you can't talk. You can barely move. It will be an extremely uncomfortable five hour
03:08journey.
03:10About all anyone can do is think about the ice.
03:20Antarctica is dominated by ice. Over much of the continent the ice is more than one and a half miles
03:27thick.
03:30This fortress of cold holds captive 70% of all the fresh water on the planet.
03:35If the ice melted, the oceans would flood over half the world's population.
03:41The ice controls the Earth's climate. It reflects heat from the sun back into space.
03:47The sea water it chills affects currents and temperatures everywhere.
03:51But there is more to Antarctica than just ice.
04:09On the surface, Antarctica seems bleak with its endless cold and its flightless, awkward birds.
04:16But that's only on the surface.
04:18Norbert, Christian and Dale are going to the ice to get under it.
04:22In the sky.
04:39War peacefully.
04:49Horror.
04:51Four or more pounds.
04:52Being able to wipe out the ice to Salut.
05:08Norb's team is flying as far south as you can go and still find ocean.
05:12This is less than 900 miles from the South Pole.
05:16It's even too far south for most penguins.
05:18Out of 17 penguin species, only two live this close to the pole.
05:37The big ones are emperors.
05:39The small one is in a deli.
05:44The penguins only look awkward on the surface.
05:46They are completely at home.
05:52Five hours after takeoff, the plane lands on the frozen sea near McMurdo Station, a United
05:58States research base.
06:02For the passengers, those five hours have transformed their world.
06:20It's like getting out on another planet.
06:26I'm always impressed with the purity and the vastness of the ice.
06:36The sea we want to explore is beneath our feet, locked away under six feet of ice.
06:41But first we have to learn to deal with the ice.
06:44This is snowcraft one.
06:53This is the basic snow survival course that all field parties have to attend in order to
06:58get permitted to head out into the field.
06:59The height of the winter as the sea ice is growing, the continent roughly doubles in size.
07:04So in a normal year, you'll pretty much see a lot of little cracks in the sea ice out here.
07:08What we're going to do here is we're just going to break out our drills and just find out how
07:11thick the
07:12ice is here.
07:14Whenever you're going to drill, and drilling is considering the potential hazards out here,
07:20that's the way to find out whether the ice you're on is safe or not.
07:26It's known as snowcraft one, also collectively known as happy camper school,
07:30and sometimes known as survival school.
07:31And I guess a lot of that depends on the weather and the disposition of the folks involved.
07:35But today, it is definitely happy camper school.
07:39Well, this is the couch, see?
07:42This is a party couch.
07:44I think I'll turn this into like a little drink rest or a coffee table.
07:47Okay, high winds coming in from the south.
07:52You're going to have to hold on to everything you've got.
07:55You can't just take the contents of your tents and dump it onto the ground,
07:59because otherwise it's just going to blow away.
08:01And for God's sakes, you don't take the thing and try and blow into it.
08:05You're going to wind up in medical.
08:15This is a classic Antarctic day out here.
08:19The weather is virtually dead calm.
08:22Lots of sunshine.
08:24But the potential for it to change in the next two hours or less is pretty dramatic and
08:31pretty amazing.
08:32Intimidating, I think, is probably the best word for it.
08:36The weather is just plain intimidating.
08:38The way it can humiliate you and make you feel small.
09:03It's mid-October, springtime at McMurdo Station.
09:08If you have any trouble at all, you just call mag ops and tell them you have a dive accident.
09:15They'll page everyone.
09:16Hundreds of scientists and technicians are here, but most of them, like Norb's team,
09:21are inside getting ready for the season's work.
09:24What transportation options will be best?
09:25If you're diving locally here, the best transportation is going to be your Sprite.
09:31Rob Robbins is McMurdo's diving coordinator.
09:33He'll often dive with the team.
09:35They have a helicopter launch from here, go up there and pick you up, so.
09:40People call this place Mack Town.
09:42It's a frontier outpost, a modern version of an old mining town.
09:47When the weather breaks, everyone scrambles to get out in the field.
09:51They're all chasing the most elusive kind of gold, knowledge.
09:55This year, the National Science Foundation will support 127 major research projects.
10:04The projects cover everything from microscopic worms in the ground
10:08to the movement of ice sheets, to the hole in the ozone,
10:13to the crystals made in the big volcano called Erebus, the dominant landmark here.
10:23For Norb, Christian, and Dale, gathering equipment and scheduling trips into the field
10:28seems to occupy all the daylight hours.
10:31And it's daylight all the time.
10:33So what we may want to do is fly up here, see if you like anything.
10:37We can land anywhere down there, take the door off, and do it again.
10:43And just pull it off.
10:44We'll put a rock on the door and leave it.
10:50All this work is dwarfed by Antarctica.
10:53It's the only place on Earth that still has huge areas
10:56which have never seen the track of a human being.
11:08I'm so ready to dive, I'll dig with a toothpick if I have to.
11:12But we still have to plan things out with Rob.
11:16There's some of the Sprite accessible dive sites around here.
11:18There's a lot of good diving.
11:20At Cape Armitage, it's fairly shallow.
11:23There's a shoal there.
11:24There's a lot of anchor ice.
11:25It's really pretty spectacular.
11:30Little Razorback, which is maybe an hour away or so.
11:33A lot of big pressure ranges there, so that's a good spot.
11:36Are we going to be able to cross them?
11:38Do you think the travel's going to be bad?
11:40The travel, I think, is going to be pretty good.
11:42There are some cracks.
11:43You're going to want to be careful, but it's fairly safe out there.
11:50I'd really like to film an iceberg underwater.
11:52I mean, that's kind of this thing, you know.
11:54There's an iceberg grounded up at Cape Barn, which could be spectacular.
11:58But it looks like it's quite a ways offshore.
12:00We'll have to see what it pans out to be.
12:04This ice is six feet thick.
12:09It's like cutting a porthole in a concrete wall.
12:22But we can't just go jump in the hole.
12:31We'll come back in and blade it.
12:32Then we'll bring the hut in and place the hut.
12:34We'll put some around it and put some around it.
12:35That was great.
12:36Okay?
12:36Thanks, man.
12:46Weddell seals are at home on the ice.
12:49They live far from open water and use cracks and holes to get in and out of the water.
12:54And to breathe.
12:57In October and November, the seals haul themselves out on the ice to give birth and raise pups.
13:10After 10 days of preparation, we're ready.
13:17I admit it, I'm a wimpy diver.
13:19I hate boats.
13:20I get seasick.
13:23This is great.
13:24No waves.
13:26You just drive out on a frozen ocean in this big red thing, which is called a Sprite.
13:38A Sprite is fun for about the first five minutes.
13:41It's like driving a tank.
13:45But a tank's fast.
13:46This thing maxes out at about 10 miles an hour.
13:54After five minutes, it's sheer unadulterated hell.
14:04After a rough hour's ride over the frozen ocean, the team arrives at the dive hut that they place
14:10next to a rock called Little Razorback Island.
14:22Dale will be first into the water.
14:29Three layers of underwear and a dry suit.
14:31It still doesn't really keep you warm.
14:33But for me, it's worth it.
14:35There's no diving like this anywhere else in the world.
14:39The only thing exposed to the water is your lips.
14:42At first, they burn.
14:44But then they get completely numb, and it's okay.
15:02The water temperature here is 28 degrees.
15:05So cold, it can freeze blood.
15:08If something goes wrong, there are only two places to get out.
15:12This hole and a nearby safety hole.
15:16But diving is what they came all this way to do.
15:53The crystals on the bottom are called anchor ice.
16:00The crystals on the bottom are called anchor ice.
16:05So it grows in kind of an ice garden.
16:18Sometimes it picks up stones or even living creatures like this sea urchin
16:21and then carries them up to the ceiling.
16:38To me, these noises sound like alien radio signals in science fiction movies.
16:48There are actually the calls of Odell's seals.
16:57The seals will go anywhere they could find a hole for air.
17:00To be honest.
17:29To be honest today out here you have
17:34I've dived in a lot of places that are famous for clear water.
17:38The Great Barrier Reef, the Bahamas, Tahiti, Hawaii.
17:42This is far clearer.
17:45At this time of year, you can see almost a quarter of a mile.
18:03These strange things are called brine channels.
18:06Up on the surface, salt is concentrated in the frozen sea ice and makes brine, which is
18:11so salty that it stays liquid even when the surface ice cools it to extremely low temperatures.
18:18When this cold brine flows downward, it freezes the less salty seawater around it, making
18:23these tubes.
18:39We're diving in shallow water because most of the action is on the ocean floor.
18:45These sea stars have just finished off an urchin and are attacking each other.
18:54Some of these animals are far bigger than similar species elsewhere.
18:58This sea spider is a giant compared to its cousins that live in warmer water.
19:02other animals are far bigger.
19:04Isolation helps these animals evolve differently, and their slow metabolism in the cold lets them
19:09grow older and bigger.
19:20Clear water is great for us, but hard on the life here.
19:25There's been no sunlight for four months, so nothing has been growing in the water.
19:31Everything is hungry.
19:37This anemone may look pretty, but it's a ravenous predator.
19:44The current has carried this jelly too close to the bottom.
19:47The anemone snagged it.
19:51Sometimes they can eat an entire jelly.
20:05The anemone snagged it.
20:23After about 40 minutes, you start to really get cold.
20:27It's time to get back to that warm hut.
20:33Under the ice, you have no clue what the weather's been doing.
20:36But this is Antarctica. It's sure to be different.
20:45When you come out, you get oriented by looking for Mount Erebus.
20:48There it is, smoking away in the distance.
20:55Underwater, the body fights off cold by burning calories like a furnace.
21:00Everyone is physically exhausted.
21:04But the whole blue room sensation has been dropping down out of the second tunnel
21:10and then looking up into the blue room.
21:14That's the sensation. Right there.
21:17But other than being tired, they're exhilarated.
21:21I think it must be because you're coming out of that dark part, right?
21:25Yeah, exactly.
21:26Because otherwise, it'd just be like...
21:27It's kind of spooky.
21:29Long-way scary.
21:30It's kind of fun.
21:36The next day, they're right back out on the ice.
22:00The team comes upon a hump in the snow that could be a lot more dangerous than it looks.
22:05This is exactly what Norb and Dale were warned about in survival school.
22:10So what's the rule of thumb?
22:11It has to be, we need 30 inches of ice, but if we get a crack, it's got to be
22:18less than a third of the track width.
22:21So I think if we just get a shovel here and we can put some of this away and see
22:25how wide it is.
22:28This snowdrift marks a crack in the ice.
22:31You can't tell from the surface if the crack is too wide for the sprite to cross.
22:37It's always weird to think that right underneath this solid-looking surface, there's ocean a thousand feet deep.
22:44I love diving, but I sure don't want to fall in.
23:01The penguins know how to get around better than the team.
23:04In fact, research has shown that their funny waddle is actually very efficient.
23:19There are all sorts of mysteries under the ice.
23:23One of them is how the Waddell seals live.
23:28In this field camp near McMurdo, biologists are studying the seals.
23:33They have drilled a hole in the ice so far from the other holes that a seal released here has
23:39to come back.
23:40It's held captive by its need to breathe.
23:46Under a special research permit, this male was captured and he'll work with the scientist for a couple of weeks,
23:52then be returned to the place he was caught.
23:55They have glued instruments on his back and a camera on his head
23:58to explore a world of life and hunting under the ice that would otherwise be hidden forever.
24:16An observation chamber has been built under the ice near the hole.
24:20One of the science team is there to watch the seal's behavior.
24:30This seal, and others that have worn the equipment, have led to breakthroughs in the study of Waddell's.
24:39The video the seal takes is a first.
24:45Here, with the camera pointed forward, is something divers and scientists had never seen before.
24:51The seal blows bubbles at the sea ice ceiling and flushes out its prey.
25:09The ice is too thin for vehicles near Turtle Rock, which is the best place to see seals underwater.
25:15The team must hike with tanks, cameras, weight belts, and all.
25:26Underwater, a male seal hears them approach.
25:36He checks them out.
25:39But he has other things on his mind.
25:42There is a female in the neighborhood.
25:51There's no warm dive hut here.
25:53But that's all right.
25:54It's a balmy day.
25:56About 15 degrees.
26:05Since the big drill can't get here, the team has to dive through a seal hole.
26:11The water is constantly refreezing, but keeping the hole open is one thing the divers can do more easily than
26:17the seals.
26:21Seals have to use their teeth.
26:43Do you hear it going or not?
26:45Do you hear it going?
26:46Do you want to press it?
26:48I'm scared of course.
26:57The details get you every time.
27:00I've had trouble with this hose before, so I want to be real sure it's working.
27:17There we go.
27:19What do you think you're on that one?
27:21It's frozen.
27:22All right.
27:25As Norb and Christian get in the water, a mother seal is teaching her baby to swim.
27:42But she has other concerns, too.
27:46Females, once they've given birth, are often ready to breed.
27:49And this female knows that the male is around.
27:58Seals can dive as deep as 2,000 feet.
28:02They have been known to stay under water for over an hour.
28:07But they don't get decompression sickness, the bends, which is a major hazard for divers.
28:12To prevent the bends, divers must be careful when ascending so nitrogen doesn't fizz out of their blood like bubbles
28:19in a soft drink.
28:33As we watch, a male shows up to chase the female, but she's not interested.
29:11The males sometimes fight each other at breathing holes, so we try to use holes that aren't occupied.
29:20As Christian heads for the hole to get out, something unexpected happens.
29:47He thinks it's a huge male, about to take a chunk out of a part of him that Christian doesn't
29:52want to lose.
30:02I'm like, whoa, someone's used to be.
30:17I saw that baby seal go, like, don't bite me, don't bite me.
30:25That mountain care at all, man.
30:34Is that the baby that came out there?
30:40Big dude over here, scraping out a hole.
30:45This big one is a leopard seal.
30:47He's near the top of the food chain.
30:51A wolf of the Antarctic.
30:54A penguin eater.
31:01But out on the surface, he's about as agile as a slug.
31:05So the penguin is safe.
31:07For now.
31:13Kular Cliffs, the next dive site, is too far away from McMurdo Station for the team to use a drilling
31:18rig.
31:31But Christian Robindale used just about every portable tool known to man to get through the ice.
31:55This is the type of sea star that I have never seen before, using its long arms to pick plankton
32:00out of the water as the current moves past.
32:18This crinoid, a relative of sea stars, is sort of fly casting for plankton.
32:25On the surface, Rob keeps the hole clear and has no idea that beneath him, Dale is having one of
32:32the most memorable dives of his life.
32:35He is witnessing the effects created when snow from these cliffs melts and sinks beneath the cracks in the rocks.
32:44Under the surface, the fresh water seeping back out from the rocks is frozen by the colder sea water.
32:50It looks like a frozen waterfall.
32:57The sunshine has been feeding energy to algae, which is turning green and golden.
33:03Soon the algae will bloom in the water and end our season by ruining the visibility.
33:07But for now, it's just plain beautiful.
33:28On a slope below Mount Erebus, a glacier flows to the sea from the thick ice in the interior.
33:34In some ages of the Earth's history, Antarctica's ice has flowed completely away.
33:42Today, scientists are studying this ice, trying to learn whether it is growing or shrinking and why.
33:50This simple and precarious balance between what is frozen and what is not affects everyone on Earth.
34:01Norb's team has put a hut right where the glacier meets both rock and the sea.
34:07The glacier face goes hundreds of feet down into the water.
34:11Norb and Christian will dive right next to it.
34:16A
34:43This is a spooky place.
34:47When you swim close to this, you can't really tell where the water ends and the ice begins.
34:52It gives you kind of an ominous feeling.
35:11You see all this big ice, but fish live right next to it, no problem.
35:20They make their own antifreeze in their pale blood.
35:24The ice isn't ominous to them.
35:26It's home.
35:34Every year, Antarctica sheds thousands of icebergs like flakes of its skin.
35:43Everyone knows that icebergs hide most of their mass underwater, which is why the team wants
35:49to shoot near one.
35:51But that, like everything else here, is going to be harder than they thought.
35:57Christian and Rob have been out for two days looking for bergs to explore.
36:02Their report is not good.
36:06Okay.
36:09How'd it go to Cape Roberts?
36:11Well, Cape Roberts is pretty nice, but we weren't able to find any diable icebergs.
36:17Are you kidding?
36:18No, actually.
36:19We tried quite a bit.
36:20We spent a couple days chasing sawing holes and trying things out, but it doesn't look
36:25too good.
36:25Not really.
36:27You're saying, what, out of all those bergs over there, you don't think any one of them
36:32is diveable?
36:33I don't think any of them are diveable without drilling or blasting a hole.
36:38Most of the icebergs are packed tight by the sea ice.
36:42No cracks, no openings, no nothing, and a lot of snow drifted up around each of them.
36:47We did find one bird that had kind of calved off and collapsed, and as it collapsed, it
36:55broke the surrounding sea ice around it, which looked really good.
36:59It looked like there was some thin spots we could get in, and there was a seal or two
37:02around.
37:03We spent like five hours chainsawing this thing open enough so that we could get in.
37:10It turns out, not only was it really dark and murky and kind of freaky, but it looked
37:18as if when the iceberg calved and it broke all the sea ice around it, it pushed all that
37:24broken sea ice underneath the surrounding sea ice.
37:27So as soon as you open up a hole, it could be plugged up by this broken piece of ice
37:32that's
37:33underneath it.
37:33Yeah.
37:34It's dangerous.
37:35So I kind of jumped in and went down about eight or ten feet, and all the ice started
37:40kind of shifting around me, and so I came back up, didn't like it.
37:50But the team is determined to dive an iceberg and find this berg frozen in the sea ice.
38:01The berg appears to be in very deep water, not the most interesting diving.
38:07But at least there's a seal hole to dive through, and what they discover is a complete surprise.
38:24This is very cool.
38:27There's rock right under the berg.
38:29It's not in deep water after all.
38:31There's an underwater pinnacle here, and the berg crashed into it like a ship hitting a reef.
38:43But a ship would be here for centuries.
38:45It's hard to imagine, but soon this huge structure will just disappear.
39:11Bergs play a huge role in the Antarctic ecosystem.
39:14They crash into the bottom often, clearing big swaths on the seafloor for new life to colonize.
39:22Some scientists think this constant churning of the bottom is one of the reasons that life
39:27down here is so diverse.
39:35I've seen these dimples on most bergs.
39:38They may be caused by the way the ice is eroded by currents swirling against it.
39:55Young fish take refuge in the dimples.
39:58I guess when this berg melts, they'll just go find another one.
40:02It's not as if there's a shortage.
40:10This is a Desmadina, the same kind of jelly that was nailed by the anemone.
40:14It's riding higher in the current though, fishing with 40-foot-long tentacles.
40:23It has been another great dive, but this dive costs the team, big time.
40:31I'm calling from McMurtle Station in Antarctica.
40:35I'm a physician.
40:37I'm a diver.
40:38And I have somebody here who's a professional diver who truly seems like he has decompression
40:43sickness.
40:44Diving down here...
40:45Dale is in trouble.
40:46He may have the bends.
40:48Diving heavily for a week...
40:50It's a sharp pain in my back, and I don't want to mess with it.
40:53If there's a bubble in there, you never know.
40:55You can be paralyzed for the rest of your life.
40:58Sometimes you just don't recover, and you can't dive ever again.
41:02Kind of a tough one.
41:04Now, we do have a chamber here, and the chamber is standing by.
41:09All right, get in and you go.
41:11See ya.
41:12Bye.
41:14Imagine being told that you can no longer do something that has been a large part of your
41:17life since you were a child.
41:2030 seconds for our descent to 60 feet.
41:24Dale has been placed in a hyperbaric chamber, an enclosure in which air pressure is first
41:30gradually increased and then gradually decreased.
41:34This shrinks the nitrogen bubbles in Dale's tissues and allows the extra nitrogen gas to
41:39safely diffuse out of his body.
41:42I feel selfish for being depressed about losing what some may consider to be a hazardous
41:47job.
41:50Most of all, I'll miss being underwater, under the ice.
42:07Dale will help out on the surface as the team continues diving and filming.
42:12They fly to the strangest dive site on the schedule.
42:16It's near a region called the Dry Valleys, where wind keeps the rocks scoured clear of
42:21ice.
42:23At the foot of these valleys is sea ice that is unusually thick and stable.
42:29Near the ice, the National Science Foundation has built a well-equipped field camp.
42:37Here, oceanographers are studying life that is remarkably similar to what lives thousands
42:42of feet down on the ocean floor, the largest and least known ecosystem on Earth.
42:54But the depth here is only 90 feet.
42:58It's the ice, so thick it never breaks up, that makes this shallow world as dark and cold
43:04as the bed of the deep sea.
43:13These unusual soft corals have evolved to sweep the sand for food, a behavior that has never
43:19been seen anywhere else.
43:31Among scallops, these brittle stars fight each other like stick warriors.
43:35The red ones eat the white ones, if they can catch them.
43:46They also fight properly and twist the sand forènees.
43:48The brown fish whiskey and teeth love it.
43:48.
44:04The brown fish will get the yellow fish.
44:04The brown fish will be among the lines of the vessel they have to die by.
44:05They're also at the end of the sea.
44:06They're at the same time when they reach the water.
44:06They're at the same time when they díaouble.
44:07My nose is a little crazy.
44:07They're walking down and there's just a bit of the ground.
44:07They're scared to the ground and they're dropping.
44:07They're still eating the eggs, they're rubbing.
44:08I don't know.
44:40It's January.
44:42On the shore, water is cut loose by temperatures that flirt with a thaw.
44:48But summer ages quickly.
44:50The midnight sun sinks toward the first sunset of autumn, and there are new visitors to McMurdo
44:55Sound.
45:07The U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker, Polarstar, arrives to cut a passage for a freighter to
45:13bring in supplies to Macktown.
45:16In the strips of open water behind the icebreaker, minke whales appear.
45:21They're feeding on plankton that has bloomed in the water under the ice in the constant
45:26daylight.
45:30Minkies, among the most common whales in the world, are still hunted in Antarctic waters.
45:40The sudden appearance of abundant food is good for them, but bad for diving.
45:45The great visibility is gone, so Norb's time here is almost over.
45:55All around the coast of Antarctica, ice cracks and disintegrates.
46:00The expanse of sea ice has shrunk from its maximum of seven million square miles to its
46:06minimum of only about one million.
46:09There are other visitors out there, but they're more elusive.
46:14For days, the team searches outside McMurdo, looking for the orcas that often haunt the ice
46:20edge.
46:20But day after day, the patches of water are empty.
46:24Then, in one breath, everything changes.
46:31The ice of the whole bay seems to be breaking up in front of our eyes, opening into long strips
46:37of water that are called leads.
46:56The orcas take advantage of these leads as soon as they open to get as far into the ice
47:01as they can.
47:06They're hunting the giant Antarctic cod, a fish that can reach over 100 pounds and uses
47:11the ice edge as shelter.
47:13get back in here.
47:14I'm out of here.
47:17Let's go.
47:53Everyone thinks that orcas eat penguins.
47:56These Adelie penguins seem to think so, too.
48:04But scientists haven't actually seen a penguin eaten here, so they don't know for sure that it happens.
48:16Still, when whales are around, penguins play it safe.
48:35Dude, this is ridiculous.
48:41There's like 20 whales right there.
48:45Let's go.
48:45Let's go.
48:50Let's go.
49:10Orcas seem to watch us by doing what we call spy hopping, checking out the surface.
49:15They may also spy hop to look for new leads or to navigate back to open water.
49:41The orcas seem to be at the heart of the huge ebb and flow of energy in the Antarctic Sea,
49:46where the sun burns away the ice each year, and the long night builds it back.
49:59On our last day, Rob is filming me with his digital camera.
50:04And suddenly, something happens that reminds me that for all our study, we still know very little about life under
50:10the ice.
50:12The whale checks me out, then sends some kind of message, but I have no idea what it means.
50:27Months ago, Norb, Christian, and Dale said they were going to the ice.
50:32There is no casual term for leaving it.
50:43They have looked in the face of glaciers and at the roots of icebergs.
50:47They have glimpsed the life that has turned this hostile place into a home.
50:54But it's tough being on the ice, and at the end of all this work and cold, the team is
50:59happy to be heading home.
51:05Antarctica is the one continent where humans may forever be strangers.
51:10But we have looked past the big white shield and have seen the beauty and mystery that the ice tries
51:16to hide.
51:29Under Antarctic Ice is available on VHS for $19.95 and DVD for $24.95 plus shipping.
51:37To order, call 1-800-336-1917 or write to the address on your screen.
51:48Oh my goodness! Look who it is! Hi, honey!
52:08Here's good footage.
52:09Yeah!
52:12It hurts! It hurts!
52:14Going...
52:16...
52:16...
52:18...
52:18...
52:18...
52:19...
52:19You
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