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the antarctic is is this absolutely

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incredible place it's a contradiction

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it's one of the driest places on earth

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and yet it holds 70 percent of the

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world's fresh water antarctic is big

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it's larger than the continental united

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states it's so incredibly cold it's the

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coldest place on earth at the surface at

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the base of the ice sheet it's melting

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we're talking about a big inaccessible

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chunk of ice that is probably some of

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the most unexplored territory on the

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[Music]

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today you know we have maps every single

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year complete coverage of the antarctic

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flowing into the ocean we're looking at

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all these changes we've got

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lasers in space measuring very subtle

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changes in the shape and the topography

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i mean what's it going to look like in

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10 years from now

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right i mean our understanding is going

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it's exponential it's amazing how much

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how little we knew and how much we know

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now uh and how much there still is to

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learn i i totally agree and i think

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what's wicked cool about that is both

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the remote sensing component and the

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glaciology component

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those have really

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accelerated and transformed inside units

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of time that are comparable to like the

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age of us you know it's that's pretty

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cool that that we're working in fields

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where

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this is we've seen that sort of that

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logarithmic

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just take off i

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totally agree i think

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some of the history stuff that's fun to

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look at

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[Music]

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it wasn't long ago in the 1960s and 70s

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that satellites were only able to catch

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snapshots of antarctica

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they were single moments in time few and

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far between

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it wasn't until decades later when

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landsat 7 started to reveal detailed

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features of antarctica that signs of

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change could start to be seen

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at the ground level nasa first stepped

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foot on the ice sheet in 1983

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when robert binchadler began studying

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the behavior of ice streams along the

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coast of the ross ice shelf

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over the decades the combination of

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efforts on the ground

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air and space helped nasa develop

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game-changing ways of mapping the

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unexplored places on the continent

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we don't have a high-resolution map of

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antarctica to date but this will be the

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first high-resolution map that's

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available to the science community 25

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meters in resolution lima takes us from

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the world of black and white tv lima is

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true color high resolution

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representation of antarctica it's a step

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change

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and then it wasn't until 2011 that we

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had our very first map of

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how the

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surface of the ice sheet moves right

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because the the ice sheet is ice that is

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flowing into the ocean it's moving

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everywhere

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i think you know what alex was getting

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at what is our our

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look and our mapping and our view of

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antarctica going to look like in 10

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years and i i hope we have a better

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three-dimensional sense of the ice sheet

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that we have a very good sense of the

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bottom

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we're getting at the resolution of

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different things that come down to base

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and scale things that we didn't really

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have before so we're looking at things

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at dynamics and systems at a much

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smaller

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a traversable is that a word type scale

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yeah so there's rima reference elevation

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model of antarctica it's incredibly high

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resolution incredible detail and gives

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us some of the most precise knowledge we

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have of the ice sheet elevation you know

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and we're able to use the data for

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practical things like initializing a

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model a numerical model of ice sheet

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flow and so having these types of data

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sets just lets crowspheric scientists

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get to work that much faster and

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generate conclusions from the data that

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spent a total of about you know a little

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over two years in antarctica on the

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ground

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and some of that was with research that

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i've been doing recently with nasa and

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some it goes back to

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kind of you know your first jobs out of

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out of school and whatnot doing doing um

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gis and remote sensing

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for

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the science support contractor that's

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that's in antarctica

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the u.s national science foundation

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operates three permanent stations in

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antarctica which provide the facilities

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for scientists like kelly to do some

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pretty remote research and then more

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recently you know i've been working on

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the 88 stock project which is going down

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just after thanksgiving missing

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christmas coming back kind of in late

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january doing a big science first base

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out of this uh south pole station in

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support of icesat-2 we come

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out of the base drive a 300 kilometer

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stretch along 88 south and then go home

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at 750 kilometers total

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work and life at the pole is harsh

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it's cold

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very cold

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and it's very dry antarctica is a desert

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after all

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and there's wind relentless wind with

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the other environmental issue that i

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that i see is this is huge too is

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trying to breathe

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[Laughter]

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trying to breathe what's the problem

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with your breathing

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we're ten thousand feet above sea level

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getting higher every day

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you know you can get out of the

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temperature you can get out of the wind

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but you're at 10 000 feet period and

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the crazy thing is is i can look at a

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satellite image of the antarctic

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and even with a fairly small postage

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stamp i can tell you where it is and i

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have never been to the antarctic i feel

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like the fanboy that just can't afford

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the ticket to the concert

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is it strange knowing so much sort of

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geography about a place having not been

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there or how many other people just

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stare at imagery of places they've never

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been and understand it and

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you know deep ways that maybe people

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that have set foot on the con that never

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even thought about it

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it actually takes quite a while to

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build trust between those communities

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because they do they have these

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different kind of world views of how

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things are

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when you talk to somebody on the ground

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especially in the past when remote

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sensing was was just starting to become

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more prominent is that there's an

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inherent skepticism that that you can't

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you can't see what i'm seeing

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because it's so detailed and it's so

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nuanced and the people that are looking

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from the satellites down

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often feel that the world is so big and

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so massive and moving in so many

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different ways that how could you

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possibly understand it from putting your

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feet on the ground and looking at a

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single spot

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one of alex's current projects is

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comparing the antarctica of today with

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the antarctica of the past the problem

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is nasa's satellite imagery only takes

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us so far back to go back further alex

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needed another agency's satellites the

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first satellites were not for scientific

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applications they were for military

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applications there was a series of

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satellites still some of the most

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expensive ones that we know about its

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name

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hexagon

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and they were these short-lived

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satellites you know this was during the

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cold war and they were really designed

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to keep tabs on the russians and and

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where the missile silos were but they

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were collecting imagery other places

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they were using analog cameras so that

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means they had film and they'd have

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these these gold canisters full of film

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like miles of film and they would

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deorbit these canisters when they would

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get over the us these canisters would

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re-enter through the atmosphere

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and they would deploy a parachute and

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then a plane and would actually go and

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grab these canisters mid-air

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and then bring them down develop the

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film and then analyze them for all the

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different targets

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we've had a big project where we've

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tried to scan a lot of that imagery

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through the usgs

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so that we can analyze that imagery to

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see what the antarctic looked like back

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in the 70s

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and and how it's changed up until now

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[Music]

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i get asked a lot like how did you get

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into this and i think it was because

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my family what we did for family

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vacations was load in the car go up

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north and go skiing and so what i

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remember as a kid is snow and it

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frustrates me when you know i see

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short winters and whatnot or you know

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not a lot of snow it's it bums me out so

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i think that's how it started

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i did two years of engineering and then

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i kind of got restless and so i went and

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traveled south america with my wife to

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be and found myself sitting in front of

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the moreno glacier at one point

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wondering if this was something that

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anybody had ever thought about studying

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and also starting to realize that these

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things would probably change a lot in

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the future

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and i remember i was just in awe i mean

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i was just

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it was you know these these ten-story

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buildings of ice crashing off into a

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lake and i had never seen anything like

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that with with that much power that i

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could witness in real time

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i i just sat there and watched it until

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my wife dragged me away because she was

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ready to go

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that was kind of occurring at the same

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time that i wanted to contribute to

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something big societally

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there's an amazing photo taken by apollo

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on its last mission that everyone's seen

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it it's the base of earth as a disc and

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in the center of the frame is africa

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and what

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you fail to really realize is if you

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look down at the bottom of that the bulk

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of antarctica is in that photo too and

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it's kind of the first time you get

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a really big remote sensing full look

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at the continent

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[Music]

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we need to

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do this again

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get people back on the moon to

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respark

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that interest in

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in sciences and engineering when i talk

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to my colleagues that are a bit older

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than than i am

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a lot of them say that the mercury

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gemini apollo that type of activity got

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them into engineering

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we need that again

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so i think this is fundamentally

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important to kind of

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keep nasa and that exploration and

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engineering that getting kids and adults

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interested in science

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i get frustrated that we've likely

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already crossed certain tipping points

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and i get apathetic that we're not

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taking more action and that i'm not

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having enough of an impact and that

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really frustrates me um and and kind of

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makes me feel down but

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then i thought you know

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where i started on this journey which

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was staring at a glacier in south

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america in 2007 or eight

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where i am now in kind of the influence

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that i'm able to have you know to do my

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small part in this big picture

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it it's kind of one of the like don't

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give up stories right like we're we are

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making progress we are getting through

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um our voices are starting to resonate

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and we just can't give up because