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Clip: Episode 3 | 3m 36s | Video has closed captioning.
Dr. Heidi Sevestre studies the surging Wahlenbergbreen glacier in Svalbard, which has accelerated in recent years. Using time lapse footage, she and her team monitor the glacier's movements and find it's moving at an incredibly fast pace of four to five meters per day.
Aired: 05/24/23
In recent years glaciers across Svalbard, have been behaving strangely.
Scientists know that the Scandanavian Arctic, like most of the North, is undergoing a dramatic change.
None more so than glaciologists, like Dr. Heidi Sevestre.
"My job is to study big monsters of ice," "like this guy behind me..." "I find glaciers endlessly fascinating."
"They are absolutely beautiful," "they are just mesmerising."
Heidi has been studying glaciers for over 10 years.
"Just another day in the office."
Wahlenbergbreen is one of over 2,000 glaciers on Svalbard.
This is a river of ice, 16 miles long, emptying into the sea.
"Glaciers in the Arctic" "are all being deeply affected by climate change..." "the one we have behind us is quite a special one."
"This glacier 5 or 6 years ago," "was - almost completely static," "it was completely dormant," "so slow, nothing was happening here..." "And simply the glacier started to wake up," "and to accelerate."
"This is a glacier that is currently surging!"
As the Arctic heats up, Svalbard is experiencing more rain every year, which erodes through glaciers, making them slip faster towards warming seas in this process known as surging.
Heidi is here for the arctic melt season, to find out just how fast Wahlenbergbreen is moving.
"Timelapse is really a revolution in the field of glaciology..." "making the invisible visible."
The team leave the timelapse cameras running over the summer to monitor the glacier's movements before retrieving the footage.
"Using the timelapse footage" "and tracking some of the features in the ice," "it tells us that the glacier is moving" "at about 4 to 5 meters per day..." "which is super, super fast for a glacier of this size!"
For scientists like Heidi, Svalbard is a glimpse into the future, for places far beyond Scandinavia.
"It is very important to have people" "to study what is happening here," "because it is showing us what will happen" "in the rest of the world in the decades to come."
