the very idea that the highest
part of the planet has been impacted by
human activity
ought to be a real wake-up call for
everybody
we’re working close to the top of
everest
no other scientists work
the big goal of this national geographic
project
is to collect scientific information
about
climate change and how much glaciers are
changing
glaciers don’t lie
the size they are is a consequence of
their environment
the things that are captured in them
they’re the truth
What is climate change
climate change is the most important
security issue
of the 21st century
it’s not just a change in temperature
it’s a change in precipitation flooding
storm patterns
air quality water quality
places like the himalayas have
experienced changes that are
higher than the average global rate
my involvement has been primarily being
able to
answer a very big question is
what is going on today something that’s
part of a natural cycle or not
you do that by getting as long a record
as you can and seeing if what’s going on
today
is markedly different than what’s
happened in the past
we’ll be collecting ice cores which
capture past temperature precipitation
storm patterns and biological
productivity
layer by layer going back through time
ice cores are the most robust tool that
we have for looking at past climate
Ice cores
my role here is collect ice core and
snow samples on the way up from kumbu
glacier
across cumbo ice fall
up south call 8000 meters if it’s
possible
we’re going to use drill that you can
compare to
tube with teeth on the end
the scraping ice when it filled the tube
the bottom part of the drill will
collect the ice core itself
the ice core stays in a tube
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i don’t care how fantastic a climber you
are without the sherpas
all of this equipment wouldn’t get up to
the various camps
we’re going to depend heavily on them to
get the ice coring
thank you for all your time so you guys
are all
personal gear smash i think here yes
everything is here
ready
it’ll be a real stress on everybody at 8
000 meters and south call
good morning guys
the early morning working and then same
day going to camp 2
okay but that is the fun
look up there
Summit
30 relative humidity 13 meters per
second 270
more afternoon negative 27.9
44 meters per second
that looks pretty good excellent yeah it
sounded like you guys had a
bit longer time in the ice fall and
obviously getting up to
camp two in the heat than we had
anticipated when you guys left at 3am
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we are at the camp forest south ko going
30 minutes from here there is a
beautiful
blue ice and i’d love to drill
and compare h so you’re going by that
rock
ah up there because that’s the top and
that’s the blue eyes
we are limited by time so we try to use
all entire time to collect
as much as possible
we are limited by oxygen and temperature
so i think the maximum we can stay there
about
two hours no more
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we’ll try to go as deep as possible
is the highest located ice core
the previous one was just about 7000
meters
this one is about eight thousand meters
above sea level
all my trip is about this
are we done yeah we are on top
you’re happy absolutely i’m extremely
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happy
we’ve lived in a dream world for a while
we’ve assumed that the way
we have evolved in the last 100 years
is a good way for humans to live
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my biggest hope for this expedition is
that what we find here
will awaken people even more
to the importance of climate change
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you
