Antarctica

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It is summer.

It is midnight.

We are headed south.

Um, uh, we just logged

another run low 10-10 spot.

Chain before coming in.

As they travel south,

the men and women in this ship

will be bitterly cold.

Sun will burn their faces,

wind will sear them,

but they will feel fortunate ...

to have become part

of a great adventure.

For thousands of years,

as human beings spread

across the planet ...

no one came here.

Antarctica was as remote

as the moon.

Ancient Greeks reasoned

that the world was round ...

and that there must be

a great southern continent.

They called the stars

above the North Pole ...

Arktos, the bear ...

so they named the far Pole

Antarktos.

They imagined a land ...

of strange beasts

and stranger customs ...

where the laws of nature

might be reversed.

It was the greatest mystery

on Earth.

A world of ice.

A continent far larger

than the United States,

it is three times higher

than any other continent.

Its air is drier

than the Sahara ...

yet 70% of the fresh water

in the world is frozen here ...

in ice sheets up to 3 miles thick.

For centuries, Antarctica was

the ultimate goal ...

the last challenge

of exploration.

Getting here

was the hardest thing ...

a human being could do.

Until 1821, no one even saw it.

Explorers came bravely

in wooden ships.

The ice crushed them ...

but they never gave up.

In 1911, Robert Falcon Scott

of Britain ...

and Roald Amundsen of Norway ...

both started for the South Pole.

Both men would reach the Pole,

but only one of them would return.

This is Scott's party

sitting like knights ...

at the long table

beneath their battle flags.

The long table is still there...

the chairs they sat on,

the cups they drank from.

Here, they helped

to build the foundations ...

of Antarctic science.

Their isolation was complete.

They worked at the very edge

of what was known ...

and the lessons they learned

were often hard.

Near Scott's old hut,

in the shadow of a volcano

called Mount Erebus,

there is a nursery on the ice.

Weddell seals were one

of the first animals ...

to be studied in Antarctica,

one of the few species ...

that lives here all year.

The pup was born

a few weeks ago ...

and, now, it's time

for it to learn how to swim.

At home beneath the ice,

they call eerily to one another.

Scientists have been

counting seals here ...

since the early days, but they

are still fascinated ...

by how these animals have

adapted to the climate ...

and to the freezing water.

The seal's blood carries

so much oxygen ...

that is can hold its breath

for over an hour.

They're amongst the greatest

natural divers in the world.

The ice is six feet thick.

This is where Antarctica

hides its color ...

and its complexity.

Forests of tiny plants'

called algae ...

grow in the ice

as if in a greenhouse.

Millions of krill, which

are like small shrimp ...

eat the algae.

Fish eat the krill

and seals eat the fish.

This chain of life is so

isolated and balanced ...

it gives scientists clues ...

to the health

of the whole planet.

Diving here is agony

for the first 20 minutes.

After that,

it becomes dangerous.

Keep a hold!

Less than 2% of Antarctica

is free of ice.

Here, Adelie penguins

build nests of stones.

But even stones

are in short supply.

Somewhere, a leopard seal waits

a thousand pounds of muscle ...

and teeth well-adapted

to tear flesh.

So scientists

have built a cage ...

for a view of emperor penguins

early explorers longed for.

The penguin on land

is almost wholly ludicrous.

But the penguin in the water

is another thing.

One would like to follow

the bird in his aquatic life

if only such a thing

were possible.

The penguins sense danger,

so they don't surface.

No other bird lays its eggs on the

darkness of a polar winter ...

or hatches its chicks

in the coldest months ...

of the Antarctic year.

I think we are right to consider

the bird to be eccentric.

They may look silly,

but they're unbelievably tough.

They must walk great

distances from the sea ...

lashed by sub-zero winds,

bellies full of fish and quill ...

to feed their chicks.

At the edge

of the penguins' empire ...

ice bergs move slowly out to sea.

They're pieces of Antarctica,

born high on the continent ...

where snow packs into ice

and flows slowly outward.

If the earth grows warmer,

the movement may speed up ...

and ice sheets as big as

nations slide into the sea.

The sea would rise,

the climate change.

It may already be happening.

As the ice sheet moves,

it strains and splits.

Some crevasses are so huge'

they could swallow a house.

They can be

hundreds of feet deep.

Wind-blown snow gradually builds

crystal bridges ...

across the gap at the top.

The bridges can be quite

invisible on the surface.

Some will support

the weight of a man,

but some will not.

Whoa!

This is only a demonstration.

But this was real.

The driver in this accident

was lucky.

He survived.

But his bulldozer is now

in a long slow grind to the sea.

These ponds look shallow,

but they're not.

When a diver swam

through a hold ...

in the bottom

of one these pools ...

this is what she found.

We're inside a moving glacier.

No other film like this exists.

No one has seen caverns

like this before.

Here, scientists would expect

only rock-hard ice.

So Antarctica reminds us again:

We have scarcely begun

to understand our planet.

Once, these dry valleys

were full of ice.

Thousands of years ago ...

something happened

to the climate ...

and the ice that was here

disappeared.

It left behind

vast empty valleys ...

where it has probably not rained

for a million years ...

where algae grows

inside solid rock ...

and the land is so arid,

we practice experiments

designed for Mars.

And it left a mystery ...

that becomes more important

to us each day:

What makes the climate change?

Sea ice around the continent

waxes and wanes.

In winter,

Antarctica doubles in size.

The expanse of coldness affects

climate all over the globe.

But Antarctica not only

affects climate,

it also records it.

Far from civilization ...

a core drill digs deep

into the ice sheet.

Ice layers can be read

like the rings of trees.

The climate record goes back

100,000 years.

Entrapped bubbles of ancient air

ice cores tell a simple story.

When the levels of carbon dioxide

in the atmosphere change ...

so does the climate.

A day, a week, a month,

a year, a decade ...

This core came

from 466 feet down.

It's ice that fell as snow

about 4,000 years ago.

In the crystal ball of the ice,

the news from Antarctica is bad.

Methane, strontium 90, lead ...

increased carbon dioxide ...

were changing the air ...

and we're starting

to see the effects.

20 years ago, scientists predicted

that man-made chemicals ...

would thin the planet's

protective layer of ozone.

Recently, the thinning

became dramatic ...

letting dangerous

ultraviolet rays from the sun

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