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Outside/In

The city inside a glacier

Outside/In

NHPR

Society & Culture, Documentary, Natural Sciences, Nature, Science

4.71.5K Ratings

🗓️ 27 April 2023

⏱️ 34 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the late 1950s, engineer Herb Ueda Sr. traveled to a remote Arctic military base. His mission? To drill through nearly a mile of ice, and extract the world’s first complete ice core. To finish the job, he and his team would endure sub-zero weather, toxic chemicals, and life inside a military base… which was slowly being crushed by the glacier from which it was carved.  Producer Daniel Ackerman takes us inside Camp Century, and explains how a foundational moment in climate science is inextricably linked with the story of the United States military.  Featuring Curt La Bombard, Julie Brigham-Grette, Herb Ueda Jr., Don Garfield, and Aleqa Hammond.   SUPPORT Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of the show. Subscribe to our newsletter (it’s free!). Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook. Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).   LINKS If you want to see footage from inside Camp Century, check out this Department of Defense archival film, “Research and Development Progress Report No. 6.” For a little Cold War context, watch this 1951 Civil Defense Film called “Duck and Cover”, featuring Bert the Turtle.  Here's a book about the history of Camp Century, which includes a chapter on the ice core drilling project. To see some amazing photos, and read about how scientists are still learning new things from the Camp Century core after rediscovering sediment samples in 2017, check out this blog post from the European Geosciences Union. Learn more about the NSF Ice Core Facility in Colorado, where sections of the Camp Century ice core are currently stored.    CREDITS Host: Nate Hegyi Reported and produced by Daniel Ackerman Mixed and edited by Taylor Quimby Editing help from Justine Paradis and Felix Poon Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer Special thanks today to Carrie Harris, Holly Ueda, Chester Langway, Nancy Langway, Laura Kissel, and the Polar Archives at The Ohio State University Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center Music by Amaranth Cove and Blue Dot Sessions Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Okay, so I am leaving our little trailer.

0:04.2

We're kind of in our main staging area, which is pretty loud.

0:08.4

On the edge of Denver, Colorado is a giant flat, boring looking building, two or three

0:14.1

times the size of your average Walmart.

0:17.5

But inside, it's actually a scientific storage facility.

0:21.2

So I'm walking into the warm room.

0:23.8

Yeah, there's actually a really fun piece of equipment in here to warm up our hands

0:29.6

and eye glasses.

0:35.2

Kurt LeBombard is its curator.

0:37.4

And even in the summer, when temperatures are in the 80s, Kurt needs heavy winter gear

0:42.0

to work here.

0:45.4

That's because the collection he watches over is composed entirely out of ice.

0:50.3

Okay, so I'm going to go into basically opening a large freezer door.

0:55.1

It's about minus 26 centigrade, so it's not too bad compared to what I'm going to go

1:02.7

into.

1:04.7

This is the National Science Foundation's Ice Corps facility, a giant freezer where we

1:09.5

keep some of our most precious and vulnerable scientific artifacts.

1:14.9

The ice cores stored here were dug from places like Antarctica and Greenland, and scientists

1:19.8

use them to research the chemistry and the climate of Earth's ancient past.

1:23.6

All right, I'm going to go to back storage.

1:27.6

So I'm going to get the lights here.

1:30.7

In the back storage area, temperatures are kept at a cool negative 40 degrees.

...

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