The Life Scientific: Liz Morris

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 11 August 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A frozen, white world at the far-reaches of the globe, where you're surrounded by snow and silence, might sound rather appealing. Factor in temperatures that drop to -57°C and a few of us might be put off - but for glaciologist Liz Morris, that's very much her happy place.

Liz is an Emeritus Associate at the University of Cambridge’s Scott Polar Research Institute, and was among the first British women scientists to work on the planet’s coldest continent, Antarctica. Over the course of her career, Liz has gathered vital data on polar ice sheets and how they’re affected by climate change. She's also made numerous research trips across the Greenland Ice Shelf, and has a glacier named after her in Antarctica.

In conversation with Professor Jim Al-Khalili, Liz discusses her fascination with glaciers and ice - and explains her unwavering determination to break into what was once a heavily male-dominated field.

Presented by Jim Al-Khalili Produced for BBC Studios by Lucy Taylor Reversion for World Service by Minnie Harrop

Transcript

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0:00.0	Imagine a frozen white world at the far reaches of the globe,
0:04.4	temperatures plummeting down to a bone-numbing minus 57 degrees Celsius.
0:10.1	All around you, nothing but snow, ice, silence, and the occasional snowmobile.
0:16.3	That's the happy place of today's guest, a glaciologist who was among the first British women
0:21.5	scientists to work on the planet's coldest continent, Antarctica. Liz Morris is an emeritus
0:27.8	associate at the University of Cambridge's Scott Polar Research Institute, where her work focuses
0:33.0	on polar ice sheets and how they're affected by climate change. Liz has crossed the Greenland
0:39.2	ice sheet. She's had a glacier named after her in Antarctica, and she was once attacked by
0:44.6	a penguin in South Orkney. Argumentative flightless birds aside, Liz's fascination with the
0:50.7	physics of ice and her determination to break into a male-dominated world
0:55.0	have made her trailblazer in glaciology.
0:57.7	But she's also a living embodiment of the phrase,
1:00.7	Love what you do, saying, my body, heart and soul, simply feel happy in cold regions.
1:07.1	I'm not sure how cheerful I could be at minus 57 degrees, but, you know, each to their own.
1:12.0	Professor Liz Morris, welcome to the life scientific.
1:14.3	Thank you very much. I'm delighted to be here.
1:17.0	Now, I'm going to have to ask about that penguin attack.
1:20.1	Well, yes, I'd waited for a long time to get to Antarctica, and the moment when I first set
1:26.5	foot on Cygney Island was a very, very important
1:29.4	one for me. And I thought, well, we must have a photograph of this and started to pose.
1:35.8	And I was just getting ready to look noble, heroic and all the rest of it when this small
1:40.8	penguin came up and pecked me in the knee, which meant that I fell over backwards.
	...

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