The North Pole Unwrapped - Russell Kane, Felicity Aston and Lloyd Peck

Introduction

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Host Introduction

2:10Hello, I'm Brian Cox. I'm Robin Inks, and this is the Infinite Monkey Cage. And it is Christmas Day!

2:20Happy Christmas!

2:24Here's a shiny shilling, Brian Cox. Get me the finest turkey in the window. Hope you got everything you wanted under the tree. Sorry, Brian didn't, unsurprisingly, because Brian got a particle accelerator. And he's got one of those already. And so I was like, oh, why did I get a particle? I wanted a Hubble Space Telescope. No one understands me. I'm going back to my room to listen to Heaven 17. Ooh! Heaven 17? Yeah, and I thought Heaven 17 was quite a good choice for you. I'd have thought you'd have been into them.

2:54It was either them or Flock of Seagulls. But Human League was kind of too mainstream, I thought. Oh, Human League, I would have thought before.

North Pole Discussion

3:00So today, we're going to visit Father Christmas' home and see if we can find Santa and discover why Brian didn't get the presents that he demanded. As usual, Robin is in a linear superposition of right and wrong, because we are going to the North Pole today, but not in search of Santa. Though we will have a little look, won't we? Maybe. But mainly, we'll be looking at how our proximity to the geomagnetic North Pole affects navigation. What does the latest research tell us about the northern lights and the behaviour of our star?

3:31And how is the polar environment changing? And what effect is that having on the flora and fauna of the far north? And also, what is the best way of hosting a cocktail party at the North Pole? Now, astonishingly, that last statement is part of the not-wrong branch of Robin's wave function. To help us explore, we are joined by an astrophysicist Arctic explorer, a physiologist, marine biologist, and a comedian with an antipathy to the aurora borealis, for some reason. And they are. My name is Felicity Aston.

4:03I'm a polar explorer. And the coldest temperature I've ever experienced was not at the North Pole. I've been there several times. It was actually in a place called the Pole of Cold, which is the coldest inhabited place in the world. So this is a tidy village called Omikon in the very northeast of Siberia. And there's a population of about 300 people there. But their average wintertime temperature is below minus 70 degrees centigrade. Oh, my goodness me. Hi, I'm Lloyd Peck.

4:33I'm the physiologist, marine biologist, and I'm a polar one. I work for the British Antarctic Survey, and my thing is scuba diving underneath ice. And the best way I've found in the past to keep warm when you're cold is to get in a sleeping bag with somebody else. And body heat is a really good way of keeping warm. Cover story.

4:57I'm Russell Kane. I'm a comedian. If you're over 50 and your name's Terry, you can put it in inverted commas. And the coldest I've ever been was in Luton. It was last December, just after Keir Starmer took my nan's radiator allowance away.

5:15Well, that's ended a rather gloomy opening to her, hasn't it, now? I wish we'd done the Pole of Cold now. That seems upbeat, doesn't it?

Panel Introduction

5:23Anyway, this is our panel. Well, I suppose really to start off, Felicity, with you, one of the major questions a lot of people at home will be thinking about at the moment is, how difficult is it to build an enormous toy factory in an area like the North Pole? I mean, what would be the issues? I've been to the North Pole a number of times, and I go quite often into schools to talk about the Arctic and the North Pole and all these sorts of things.

5:57And the question I always get asked, without fail, is, have you ever seen Father Christmas or any elves at the North Pole? And you can hear the collective intake of breath from all the adults in the room. Like, you do not mess with Father Christmas. And you can hear them thinking, what's she going to say? What's she going to say? What secrets is she going to give away? But unfortunately, I have never seen any sign of Father Christmas or the elves at the North Pole, because it's magic, isn't it? You're not supposed to see it.

6:27But I have seen Father Christmas, but he's on the Arctic Circle in his office. There is an office in Finland, just north of Rovanimi, and Father Christmas is there pretty much every day with his elves. And I have been to see him many times, not always accompanied by children. So that is the place to go to see Father Christmas, not the North Pole. So that is what I can reveal.

Defining North Pole

6:50How do we define the North Pole? How is it defined? Depends which North Pole you are talking about, because there are many North Poles on planet Earth. The two that are absolute North Poles by anybody's definition is the magnetic North Pole and the geographic North Pole. The geographic North Pole is the one that everybody thinks of, the one at the top of our planet at 90 degrees north. The magnetic North Pole is the North Pole of our magnetic field that surrounds planet Earth.

7:20So that's not too far away from the geographic North Pole. But then it starts to get a little bit more esoteric, and it depends. Some people think these are true North Poles. Some people think it's a load of rubbish. So you've got the geomagnetic North Pole. So this is like a theoretical North Pole. This is if the Earth really was a definite sort of bar magnet, and we had a perfect magnetic field that was all nice and even and uniform, then that's where our North Pole would be. So this is the North Pole that's used by a lot of models, computer models.

7:52But then you've got things like the Pole of Cold that I just mentioned, and some people go, yeah, it's not really a proper North Pole. And you've got the Pole of Inaccessibility, which is the place that is most inaccessible from all directions. And you've got a Northern Pole of Inaccessibility and a Southern Pole of Inaccessibility. And then you really do start to get a little bit bottom of the barrel. So there's the celestial North Pole. That's not the bottom of the barrel. Well, I was talking to an astronomer.

8:26So astronomers use this a lot, because if you imagine that the sky is actually a sphere that surrounds the Earth, then the North Pole of that sort of celestial sphere, if you project that down onto the surface of the Earth, then some people say, well, that's another North Pole on the surface of the planet. So how many is that? Is that six? That's six. So, you know, you could maybe stretch it to seven if you include the Pole of Cold. So it's two kind of North Poles and then just some general flibbity-jibbity stuff.

9:00But no, you could go for three at least. Do you reckon three? I reckon you could go for three absolutely rock-solid ones. What's the third one then you go for? So there's the geographic, there's the magnetic, and there's the geomagnetic. Oh, fair enough, yeah. Those three you can measure. The others are subject to argument. And so the geomagnetic pole is the one that's wandering. The geomagnetic pole is fixed. Oh, sorry, the magnetic one that's wandering. So that one's wandering around. And that one sometimes flips. So hang on, right, look, this is going to be an absolute...

9:33I'll tell you what, considering most of the people listening at home are drunk already on Christmas Day, this is not following Reethian values.

Magnetic North Pole

9:40So where is the magnetic North Pole now? Well, for ages, it was sort of floating around the Queen Elizabeth Islands in northern Canada, Northwest Territories and Nunavut. But then the last ten years, it started really accelerating. So it started moving 50 to 70 kilometres in a year. So it's gone right the way across the Arctic Ocean, is now closer to the coast of Siberia than it is to the coast of Canada. It'll never go south, though, will it?

10:10Like, it won't, like, go on tour and appear in Manchester or something. It will. Yeah, it will. It'll come here. Well, it'll go down to the south pole. But it doesn't actually... It doesn't keep... Right, let's just get this clear. It doesn't kind of keep sliding down, does it? There's a point, isn't there, when it flips. Yeah. So it doesn't kind of just go, oh, it's just gone past Guernsey. It doesn't do that, does it? No, it's a bit like the expansion of the Big Bang. You know, there's definite theories, but no one yet knows which of those theories are right. So one theory is that our magnetic field will slowly decrease until there's nothing,

10:45and then it will reappear equally gradually over time in a different orientation. Another theory is that it's an instant flip and that we might get lots of flips really rapidly. But, I mean, we're talking rapidly over geological time. We have a record of it, don't we? Because we have essentially a barcode across the Atlantic, for example, when rocks cool and they line up with the magnetic field. So we can see when it flips in the past. And it's irregular, isn't it? We should say this is the North Pole to which your compass points.

11:19And then the question arises, as an explorer, is that a problem? Yeah. That your compasses point into different places? Yeah, OK. So the last time I skied to the North Pole, a helicopter set me down on the frozen surface of the Arctic Ocean, about 80 kilometres away from the North Pole. And I have to find my way to the North Pole. There's nothing to see out there. So every direction looks exactly the same. So what do you do? Do you use a compass? But the problem with a compass is that it's pointing not to the geographic North Pole that

11:50you're aiming towards. It's pointing towards the magnetic North Pole, which is several hundred kilometres away from the geographic North Pole. And occasionally in Canada and occasionally in Siberia. Exactly. So you can't really use a compass. And the other difficulty is that the difference between the magnetic North Pole and the geographic North Pole changes depending on your location. It's called declination. So you have to know what the declination is so that you can use a compass to direct you

12:22to the geographic North Pole. And you're trying to do that while the ice that you're standing on is also moving in an erratic motion, not always at the same speed or in the same direction. So then you think, well, I'll use a GPS then. So, yeah, OK, you can use a GPS, but you're at temperatures of maybe minus 40 degrees centigrade. And every handheld GPS device that there is uses batteries of some description. And they run down very quickly at those sorts of temperatures. So you can't always navigate using a GPS.

12:56So unless you're going to drag out a sextant, which, you know, they used to use in the old days, but that's working out your position based on the position of the sun. A bit difficult when it's really cloudy and you can't see the sun. So all of these different methods of finding your way to the North Pole have their inherent disadvantages in them. And so you end up sort of using a bit of a mishmash of all of it. So you go, oh, we'll just go to the right a little bit. And then maybe the ice will drift us back on to the North Pole and all will be good.

13:26So it's all a bit of a guessing game. I can't get anywhere without a sat-nav. I'll just be dead within my... How did you get there? Well, I mean, it explains why I've never seen Father Christmas, doesn't it? I mean, maybe I've never actually been to the North Pole and it's all just been a big mistake. Lloyd, you make it even more difficult for yourself by diving under it.

Diving in Arctic Ocean

13:46Could you actually outline what the challenges are in diving in the Arctic Ocean and in the Antarctica? So in one sense, we don't have it more difficult because we usually know where we are. And we've got batteries in our GPS system, so we're pretty good because we're not out for days and weeks on our own. So our location is pretty good. The way we dive through ice is we take out a five-foot chainsaw and we cut OXO patterns in the ice until we get a block. And the problem with that is that as you cut lines with your five-foot chainsaw, it freezes

14:20behind the chainsaw. So it probably takes you about three hours to dig a hole in the ice. Are you looking aghast? Yeah. Could work for the council. That sounds like a pothole rate is about the same.

14:31And then you bounce the blocks in the middle out and you pull them out with a skidoo and you're left with a hole that's about... And you think, I'm going to dive in that?

14:40Well, yeah. Not only that, you think, I'm going to dive in that because that's great. That's the best diving you are ever going to do on the planet anywhere. What is it about that diving? So there are several things. One is that that time of year when the sea's frozen, everything settles out of the ocean and the visibility is hundreds of metres. Wow. And you can see all this life that's around you on the seabed that you wouldn't otherwise be able to see because in the summertime, when the phytoplankton blooms are on, you can't see your hand at the end of your arm, so you don't see anything. But you said the hole freezes over.

15:12So the hole does freeze over. So if we want to go back to the same place day after day after day, we put a cover over it. What's the cover made of then? Everything else bloody freezing. Well, we use plywood.

15:26Was anyone else expecting something more scientific?

15:30Because plywood's easy to get out and easy to retrieve and it's flexible enough. It doesn't break like plastic does when it's cold. You said that you see the life in the winter when the visibility is good. Can you describe the kinds of life you see and the differences between the North and South Poles? One of the great things that gets me excited about life in the polar regions is that some of it gets really big. So, and I did bring a couple of examples. Yes. That I have in my box. We all know wood lice, yeah? That's a group of animals called isopods.

16:02Well, in the oceans, there are lots of isopods. And they get bigger as it gets colder. And this is one that you would find in the Arctic. It looks like something from Star Wars that would kill you. You should edit this so it's the end of the show. And everyone goes, and this we found. Everyone went, ooh. And then it just stops. And that's the end. A scream. Ah, it's alive! It's got into my mouth. So is that, if a lobster and a wood louse had too much sambuca and got it on, that would

16:34be their kid. So they get up to 10 centimetres, four inches long. They are hundreds of times bigger than the biggest isopods that we have around our coasts. And Felicity, earlier, wouldn't you say that they jumped at you? Yeah. So when I was stationed at Rothera Research Station, which is a British Antarctic Survey research base on the Antarctic Peninsula, there was a marine biology building that had these big aquariums. And part of the wintering job that you had to do was that you had to do night watch.

17:07One of the jobs that we had to do was sent to us by Lloyd. It was like, you need to check my aquariums to make sure that, you know, all the little beasties that we've collected are all doing all right. So middle of the night, I've been on my own all night in the dark in an Antarctic research station looking like a 70s horror movie set. And so I let myself into this dark aquarium lab and it's all dark, but apart from the red floodlights. So it looks like that scene from Alien, right? Where there's something scuttling underneath all the lab desks. And I noticed that one of the covers that were over the top of the aquarium had been

17:41left partly off. And the reason those covers were on the aquarium is because those little woodlouse creatures like to jump out of the tanks to anyone that's passing by. And if they land on you, they stick to you. You can't get them off very easily. So I was seeing that. Oh, no, I've got to go and put that cover back on the aquarium. And these things are going to jump out of me in the dark in this red light. But I managed to get them on and I didn't get attacked by a woodlouse. I have a question, does Imodium freeze?

18:13Because I would need a lot of it to survive that scenario. Oh, no, you wouldn't. Honestly, it would be. Who was that guy, do you remember, when we went to the Adventurers Club? The Explorers Club. The Explorers Club, that was it. And he, when he got trapped underground, realised that because sometimes dog excrement, you could actually turn into a pick because it would freeze hard. So he did a big poo and then chipped his way out with his own excrement. And he also lost a leg and ate some of his own leg. I'll stick with Imodium. It sounds more convenient. So to come back to the large animals, the real big story here is not the isopods.

18:47It's these guys. So, listeners, it looks... And these are... It looks... It's like a star-shaped, spider-esque, daddy-long-leg thing, but it's the size of two adult hands. Very thin legs. It's a massive spider. What are you talking about? Sorry to be pedantic, but how many legs does it have? It looks more like a living asterisk, I think. So you can all count, can't you? It's got ten legs. So, most... Taxonomically, is it a spider? No, and taxonomically... Indeed, indeed, Poirot. However, there's a big story to this as well. 95% of sea spiders in the world have eight legs.

19:19But in the Antarctic, you get 10-legged species and 12-legged species. And the biggest ones are three times as big as this. They're 60 to 70 centimetres across. And they are 5,000 times bigger than the biggest sea spiders that we get in temperate latitudes. What's not poisonous, not bitey? Well, they move very slowly. And if you were to put your hand underneath its mouth and hold it there for three or four hours, you might get bitten. You've done that, haven't you? So... Week five of the expedition, I'm going to do it.

19:53So why... Because many people have heard of island giganticism. What is it about the ocean, the Arctic oceans, that leads to this size? So the polar oceans are different in many ways from the oceans elsewhere in the world. If you go into the high polar oceans, the sea temperature is permanently below zero degrees. And that has extra characteristics. One is the amount of oxygen you can squeeze into water increases as you cool it down.

20:24And that's in simple terms. It's because the molecules in the water move more slowly, the gaps get bigger, and you can force more in between the gaps. And there's nearly twice as much oxygen in seawater at the polar regions as the tropics. So, one, more oxygen to feed the tissues. Two, these are all cold-blooded animals. And that means their body temperatures are the same as the environment. And because their body temperatures are below zero, their respiration rates, their amount

20:55of energy they need to keep their bodies going, is 25 to 30 times less than at the tropics. So there's more oxygen, twice as much. 25 times slower rate of use, two times 25 is 50. You have a massive increased path length for supplying your tissues, which means you can grow more tissues. You mentioned just that the body temperature is the same temperature as the ocean, as the water. Yeah. And you said below freezing. Yeah. So why doesn't it freeze? So this is one of my lectures to undergraduates that takes about an hour.

21:29So if you're all sitting comfortably... Well done, Brian.

21:35So, if you look at living cells, they have to stay liquid. And there are various ways that you can keep that cytoplasm, that cellular content liquid. One is you can use antifreezes. And fish in the polar regions produce protein antifreezes and glycoprotein antifreezes. So they make proteins that basically, when an ice crystal starts to form, they stick to the front of the ice crystal like cling film and stop more water coming on. Then they can use a whole range of things, things like glycerol and things like glucose

22:05to change the point at which that liquid would freeze. In the same way that we can put salt into water and lower the freezing points. Vodka in the freezer, that's what my nan does. Vodka in the freezer. Yeah. Yeah. So if you drink a lot of vodka, you'd have to go to a lower temperature before you froze, which I guess a lot of people in Newcastle on a Saturday night do as an attorney. So you can do all of that. But then they can also control the amount of water in their cells. And when it comes to wintertime in the Arctic, the different ways that animals survive the

22:37cold is absolutely mind-boggling. If you go and look in Canada at the red bark beetle, it has larvae. So that starts off using glycerol, and it goes down to about minus 20 with glycerol. Then it pumps the water out of its cells, so there's less chance of water molecules sticking together. It gets down below minus 40. And then when it gets down below minus 40 towards minus 50, it vitrifies. And the problem with freezing is the ice crystals break your cells open and kill you.

23:08But if you vitrify, you turn into glass, and there are no ice crystals. And those bark beetle larvae have been taken down to minus 150 and survived. Can I ask a question? Is it ageing still at this point, or is it in stasis? So if it was to stay frozen and it was to defrost 300 years later, would it be the same age as when it froze? So really, really, really good area of research. It is in stasis. And is it possible we could ever use this technology to stop human ageing so we could travel to

23:39distant stars and things like that? So cryogenesis, yes, that is possible. In the 1950s, there was a lot of work done on freezing mammals. And they were able to freeze mice, and they couldn't do it with rabbits. And the problem is not with freezing them. The problem is warming them up. Because if everything does not warm up at the same rate, and something goes liquid while something else is solid, your animal is not going to function. And that was the research that led to the invention of microwave ovens.

24:11Oh. So they microwaved them to warm them up.

24:16I could have told them that wasn't going to happen. Where's Nan? She's on defrost. Shall we tell me this? This has changed a lot of people's Christmas lunch.

24:27Absolutely fascinating. We've spoken about the life that we see underwater.

Life on Surface

24:31So in terms of the life that you've seen on your expeditions, what's the variety of animals that you see on the surface? Yeah. I mean, this is the wonderful thing about going to the North Pole versus going to the South Pole. And one of the defining characteristics of the Antarctic Plateau in the center of Antarctica is the absence of life. I mean, there's no wildlife there. There's no penguins or seals or birds or anything like that. But when you are up in the North, you are surrounded by life, even if you're right up there in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. And it's not just that you see it, it's that you can feel it all around you from the presence

25:07of the big predators, the polar bears, right down to when a big chunk of ice turns over and there's lots of algae and even fish using the algae. I remember being startled by a lemming in my tent when I was about... Didn't make you fall off a cliff, did it? That would be the most ironic day in history. And you're thinking, how does this tiny little thing, you know, manage to survive all the way out here? It's really incredible. Everyone has a polar bear story.

25:38Surely every explorer has a polar bear story. I'm glad you narrowed that down. Everyone has... No, actually, I shouldn't be able to hate to run. But I just wondered, in terms of Jeopardy, because you talked about, and they're big predators, so what's your big predator story? Oh, gosh. Well, I mean, the closest encounter I've had with a polar bear, luckily, I was on a snow machine. So I was driving by myself on a snow machine past a big area of ice rubble. Oh, so that's a machine that goes on snow, not a machine that makes snow.

26:10Yeah, a snowmobile, a skidoo, whatever you want to call it. And I was keeping an eye on the ice rubble, because that's where the polar bears kind of like to hang out. And I came over a rise to find one sort of stood pretty much right in front of me. I was close enough to really see the sort of definition of its muscles. I mean, these are frightening animals. The number of people that said, oh, I really want to see a polar bear. It's like, you really don't. And so luckily, I was on a snowmobile, and I knew that I was in an area where the locals

26:44hunted them on snow machines. So I was able just to rev the engine a bit, and it got up on its back legs, took a big sniff. And, you know, my heart was sort of in my mouth as it's doing this, and then it just took off and ran. So I didn't have to even get the rifle off my back. But your snow suit was a bit warm after that encounter, wasn't it? If you go and work in Svalbard, and you go to the UK station in Svalbard, the first thing they do on the first day is they give you a .375 rifle.

27:14And that has bullets that are bigger than anything you've seen in a rifle before. They train you how to shoot it, and they give you thunder flashes. So that if the polar bear starts coming towards you, you're supposed to throw the thunder flashes between you and the polar bear, and the bangs make it go away. And then they say, if that doesn't happen, then you have a rifle if you can't get away from it in time. And if it worse comes to worse, you have to shoot the polar bear. Now, you're on Norwegian territory, and the law says you are not allowed to shoot a polar

27:49bear unless it is less than 10 metres away from you. And a full-sized polar bear does 11 metres per second.

28:00And then they say, the last time one of these was killed, it took three bullets to kill it.

28:08So the best advice is, if it starts stalking you, get out of the way really quickly. Yeah, so if you come across a bear when you're on an expedition, the only responsible thing to do is to get yourself out of there. Because we are intruders in their territory. My life is less valuable than the bears in that scenario, is what you're telling me. Yes. They are nine feet tall, and they are heavier than any two people that you know. So they are massive animals. Guess who's back in the house?

28:43It's Robert, Jesse, Bill, and Mick. Back for season two of Silver Linings with the Old Gaze. Brought to you in partnership with iHeart's Ruby Studio and Veve Healthcare. We strut back down memory lane on navigating life, love, loss, and the lessons that shaped us along the way. And, as usual, someone just might break into song. From leather bars to bathhouses, dance floors to drag brunch, nothing stays off limits.

29:16These are the insights that only come from experience. So listen to your elders, honey, and discover the silver linings you can take with you. All sass, zero filter, and decades of perspective from four friends proving that pure joy only gets better with age. Tune in to Silver Linings with the Old Gaze on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Dr. Jake Goodman, and I'm the host of Beyond the Script, a podcast where I sit down with pharmacists to answer all those health questions that you forget or maybe are too embarrassed to ask when you're at the pharmacy counter.

30:03In this episode, all about women's health, Amy Lynn Safaty-Valentine, a CVS pharmacist from Long Island, New York, talked about just how often women approach pharmacists with questions about menopause symptoms. When it comes to patients that are really suffering with the symptoms of perimenopause or menopause, it's really important for them to be evaluated by their OB-GYN because there are a lot of prescription medications that can help with that. If someone is really opposed to taking medications, there are a few lifestyle modifications that they can do, like avoiding caffeine and spicy foods, trying to stay hydrated, have a regular sleep cycle, get some exercise.

30:41Those are all things that can kind of help to limit the symptoms. Hear the full conversation, plus so many fantastic insights into all the stages of life when it comes to women's health. Listen to Beyond the Script, a podcast from CVS Pharmacy, wherever you get your podcasts.

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32:01Now, we're going to do, because you, I believe, this is true, you are in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most polar bear shot. No, we have to get that to you. No, you're in the Guinness Book of Records for the most northern most cocktail party. Yes, that is a Guinness World Record that I currently hold. So I was on an expedition, and we were right up at 78 degrees north. And so, you know, as you imagine, like, polar explorers are in a tent, and all the polar gear with skis and everything else.

32:32But in order for it to be considered a cocktail party by the Guinness Book of Record, there's a very specific set of criteria that you have to follow. There has to be at least five people. Tick, we were a five-person team. You have to be in proper cocktail attire. So, that is a dress for women. I mean, you know, the Guinness World Records have got something to answer about, sort of. And if you're a man, it's a proper lounge suit or a lounge dress, cocktail dress. You have to have music playing.

33:03You have to have a table with a tablecloth. I'm already thinking most of the parties I've ever been to in my life are already not considered a cocktail party. You have to have at least three different types of cocktails, and you have to have two different types of canapé, one sweet and one savoury. Oh, and it has to last for at least 15 minutes. We had to sort of drink it quickly before it froze into a sort of icicle in the bottom of the glass. God, it goes straight to your head. How did you defrost the canapés?

33:34Oh, I knew you were going to ask that. So, the cocktails were ready-mixed, and we took them in, like, these little packages. We had to defrost those by sort of putting them down our fronts. I knew it. The warmest parts of our body, so, you know, under your armpit, it's one of the warmest pits, and down your pants, whatever. But they were all enclosed, so that was fine. But the canapés, yeah, our canapés, we had to get inventive using the rations that we had. We're going to now try and create Aurora-based cocktails using a UV light.

34:10So, what we've got in these glasses here is a gin and tonic. Just to say, because I arrived quite late for this recording, I have no idea what's going on. Oh, neither do I, aren't you? Is there some context about why you've got a UV light and some gin? Do you know what, Brian? You've never complained before when we've found reasons that we can have alcohol in, which appear to be tax deductible. So, I have a vague memory of something now in some production meeting a while ago that said something about the northern lights. So, that there, using a small amount of blue liqueur-style drink, and a barocca and a UV light, all of those things you probably receive for Christmas.

34:49So, just to recap, so this is an elaborate introduction to the Aurora Borealis. Yeah. What is happening in the atmosphere that creates that kind of, that's the greenness of the Aurora Borealis? Yeah, so, if we rewind a bit to what the Aurora is. So, if you imagine the Earth is a big bar magnet, and we have this big magnetic field that spreads all the way around the globe. And that creates this sort of area of space around the planet called the magnetosphere.

35:19And then, you have the Sun in the middle of the solar system that is constantly sort of emitting this wind of charged particles. So, it's this huge amount of charged particles that are cascading from the Sun outwards across the whole solar system. And instead of hitting the Earth, it hits the magnetosphere. And because these particles are charged, they react with that magnetic field that surrounds the planet. So, it acts as a sort of shield that protects us from the solar wind, from all this radiation.

35:54But some of those charged particles sort of get trapped inside the magnetic field of the Earth. And if you can imagine sort of around the poles, let's focus on the North Pole. Around the North Pole, where the magnetic field lines are sort of going into the top of the planet, all these charged particles that are spinning around all these magnetic field lines are being dragged down towards the surface of the planet around the North Pole. And where those charged particles start getting dragged through the atmosphere,

36:29that it starts interacting with other particles that are in the atmosphere. So, things like oxygen and nitrogen predominantly. And so, when a charged particle starts interacting with some oxygen, it will start getting really excited and emitting light as photons. And we see that light as green if it's interacting with oxygen. But we'll see it as different colours depending on which gas it's interacting with. And there's so much a part of the Arctic, of the experience, of the aurora, both North and South.

37:02So, they've become part of the mythology, haven't they, in the Northern Lights, part of the cultures of the Arctic. Hugely. The first time I saw the Northern Lights, I knew about the science. I knew how they were caused according to European science. You know, we have the explanation. And yet, sitting there, watching this phenomenon for the first time, that seemed like the least likely explanation. Magic seemed like a lot more realistic explanation of what I was seeing.

37:35I think it's important to say that, you know, this is a lot of people's beliefs. And I, in no way, am sort of sneering or laughing at that. Because the first time I saw it, that was what I saw. I saw spirits moving across a bridge to another world. And it's reflected in a lot of different cultures. So, one of the loveliest stories I heard was actually from First Nation tribes north of the Great Plains. And they had a folkloric hero, a mythical hero, almost like a godlike figure,

38:09who, once he'd finished creating the world, they believed, travelled north. And so that he could send a message back to his people that he hadn't forgotten them, he would light a massive fire. And this is what the Northern Lights was. It was a reflection of this massive fire. And whenever I see the Northern Lights now, I kind of, that story springs into mind. Because it really does feel like you're seeing something that connects you, not only to people around the world, but also connects you to, like, the solar system and everything beyond that.

38:41You know, this is created by something that's come from the sun. It's really incredible. But is it a very, very different experience being in the Northern Arctic, where you have all these rich cultural stories, and then the Antarctic, where there's essentially nobody other than scientists? Well, it is massively different because the north is an ocean, and the south is a massive continent, a continent twice the size of Australia. Yeah, so it's such a rock. It's rock underneath it, yeah. And there's no rock at the surface in the north.

39:14It's an ocean. And the Antarctic contains about three quarters of the world's fresh water. So the amount of ice in the Antarctic is absolutely unreal. It's an area the size of Europe that's two miles thick. I'd like to ask about the impact of climate change on these areas, in the Arctic and the Antarctic. So what are we seeing change over the years and decades that you've visited those areas? So the biggest change, I think, is the loss of ice. So in the Arctic in the 1970s, we had 15,000 square kilometres of sea ice,

39:46and now we've got five. And the predictions are that by 2050, in the summer, that minimum extent, and that's the minimum extent of ice in the Arctic, will have gone, and it'll be open water in the Arctic. So people will be able to sail ships through the Arctic. You mentioned earlier, the ice turns over, and it's green, and it's thick green. And huge numbers of species live on the underside of that ice, including the early life stages of things like polar cod. And lots of organisms depend on that ice for their life cycles.

40:19So the effect on the ecosystem is massive. And all the timings change. And the ability of animals to raise themselves efficiently, or even at all, becomes a really difficult problem. And we know there are tipping points in the environment. We know there are tipping points not just in the environment, but in ecosystems. And we, in the polar regions, we don't know how much we can lose from an ecosystem before it collapses. Felicity, how does that change in terms of your experience now, when you go out and knowing this fragility?

40:50How different is it for you, really emotionally, I suppose? It's really odd, because if you're in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, you know how fragile this environment is. And yet, when you're there, seeing big blocks of ice, you know, coming up one over the other, and size of apartment blocks being just tossed over, you know, it feels anything but fragile when you're in that moment. But it's not just the amount of ice being so much less. It's the fact that what is there now is thinner, newer,

41:23and less stable than it's ever been before. Whereas, say, in 1969, when Sir Wally Herbert crossed the Arctic Ocean and became the first team of people to undisputedly get to the top of our planet, get to the North Pole. But, you know, that journey is no longer possible, because they did it when there was lots of what we call multi-year ice. So this is the thick stuff. It can be three metres or more, and it's really stable, really strong,

41:54and it holds the pack ice together. The last time a polar explorer went from land to the North Pole across the Arctic Ocean was in 2014. It's not been possible to do it since then. So now it's only possible to do partial journeys to the North Pole. Russell, what are your final thoughts on everything that you've heard today? I always get invited on this programme, and I never know anything about the subject. I'm sort of like a student. But I have actually seen the Northern Lights,

42:27and I have actually been to the Arctic Circle for a project I was filming. It was a sort of comedy survival programme. So I've seen this majestic spectacle, and I was honoured, I was invited by the Sami of the people in the northern part of, I think we were in Norway, the Sami. And I went into something called a lavoo, which is their conical-shaped traditional hut. I was invited for dinner. And in this programme, I had two YouTubers with me called Rose and Rosie, and they'd been stressing all trip because they were vegetarians.

42:59I don't think even word exists in their language. Which eventually we had to try to explain to these people what vegetarian was. And when we got there, obviously I eat anything, because I'm a moron from a council estate. And when I got there, dinner was... You couldn't have done a more comically shocking snack for vegans. It was a boiled reindeer's head, which was out, and everyone was happily picking the bits of meat off. It just tasted like meat. It just looked horrible. Obviously, the eye holes and everything. And these girls were starting to cry

43:30and panicking, you know, and the producer's like, is it okay? And he went... And the translator said, don't worry, he's got something without meat for you two. And it was a pancake made from blood.

43:43It was delicious. But yeah, I've been there. It's like another planet. It's hard to explain if you haven't done it. The more that we express the fascination, the beauty, the curiosity, and how much you can fall in love with the possibilities that are there, then the more I think we strive to try and preserve what is there as well. Experiencing what the world has out there is just way more intense than anything that you can get within a city. And I would say,

44:14the Northern Lights, the Southern Lights, that's one of a whole plethora of things and experiences that most people don't get. But if you have experienced them, they become a substantial part of the way you function and the way you live. And it has effects that go beyond what you can get by understanding what it is. Well, we also asked our audience... By the way, I'll just tell you, you know the guy I told you about who had one leg who did a poo and then used it as a pickaxe? Peter Froiken. Anyway, so we always ask the audience a question

44:44because we have the most intelligent audience of any Radio 4 show. And I don't care what you say, it's a gardener's question time. I'll meet you out the back of the allotments and take you on. With a poo shovel, with a poo shaker. Is that a poo knife? Call that a poo knife? This is a poo knife. Where's your top? It's a very strange remake of Crocodile Dundee. That's not a poo. This is a poo. So, we also asked our audience, if you were going to make a snowman resembling anyone,

45:14who would it be and why? Is that the first one you've got? No, it's Hugh Jackman, I think this should be, isn't it? Do you know why? You need to give us more clues. Hugh Jackman. What films has he been in? Wolverine. Yeah. By the way, if you ever want to be a Wolverine at home, just put potato chips on. Snowman, the greatest show. The greatest snowman. Yeah. Brian Cox building a snowman of himself because things can only get meta. Well done. Well done. I think I beat that. I beat that. Oh, come on then.

45:46It's not Brian Cox based. I know you like them to be based on YouTube, but this isn't. I'd build a really big one with a six pack. It would be the abdominal snowman. Oh, very nice. Okay then. Well, thank you very much to our wonderful panel. Felicity Aston, Lloyd Peck and Russell Kane. Next week, it's, well, it's 2026 and we're going to be taking a bit of a break so Brian can tour the world and I can watch every episode of The Professionals on daytime TV because I've always seen myself as a bit of a Martin Shorty or Lewis Collins.

46:17I think he's more cowly, don't you? Yeah, I think, yeah. The woolly jumper and an OCD. He doesn't have a woolly jumper. He's got a tweedy jacket. It's like you've never seen the show. A tweedy jacket and a scotch and a jag. That's what I see you as. Oh, okay. Well, thank you very much. That's Arthur Daly, isn't it? Anyway, as we're having a bit of a break, this week's homework is a 500-word essay on how Archimedes' principles affect the flotation of Brian's ivory bath ducks or, for the more adventurous amongst you, using balsa wood, paper straws, three glass marbles and one item of your own choosing,

46:49make a perpetual motion machine and send it to BBC TV Centre Wood Lane. I'm sorry, but we're unable to return your perpetual motion machines if you return them back again and so on and so on and so on. Bye! Bye! Bye! APPLAUSE In the infinite monkey cage Done that nice again. Political language can seem archaic. It's like the light from one of those stars that actually died.

47:21Sometimes bamboozling. It's a theme park with a five-foot log flume from one thought to another. And very often beyond words. I don't know how to describe the language I use. I'm Amanda Iannucci. I'm all reset and turbocharged to stress, test to destruction. Used and abused buzzwords and phrases from the world of politics. I come with a dazzling array of guest presenters and I'll be exploring the verbal tricks of the political trade, the intentions behind them and the effect they have on all of us. The new series of Strong Message here with me, Amanda Iannucci,

47:52from BBC Radio 4. Listen now on BBC Sounds.

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