INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
There's a place on our planet where it's so cold that humans could only take a few breaths before their lungs would haemorrhage.It's on the
high dome of the East Antarctic ice sheet, where, during the long, dark polar night, satellites have recorded the temperature plunging as
low as -98C.Antarctica is a hostile continent
The katabatic winds that whip down from the 4,000m (13,123ft) heights to the coast regularly reach hurricane force
The record is 199mph.And then there's the ice, so thick it buries an entire mountain range
At one point - the Astrolabe basin - it's 4,776m (15,669ft) from top to bottom
That's almost three miles.By any measure, Antarctica is not a natural place for humans
So remote it was only discovered 200 years ago, so wild that it was barely a century ago that Roald Amundsen pipped Robert Scott in the race
to the Pole.And yet scientists are now racing south, braving the conditions to study, with growing horror, the hell that Antarctica could
unleash as the world warms.It has lost three trillion tonnes of ice over the last 25 years
Half of that has been in the last five years.Image:The Antarctic has lost trillions of tonnes of iceAll that fresh water - and Antarctica
has about 70% of the global total - is raising sea levels.At the start of the last century, the water was creeping upwards at just over 1mm
Now it's 3mm - and accelerating.It doesn't sound much, unless you live on a low lying island, like the Maldives or Kiribati, already losing
land to the sea.But scientists can't rule out a 2m (6.5ft) rise by the end of the century
Spring tides and storm surges could drive up the level even more.New York, Miami, Calcutta, Lagos and other great cities could be flooded
One billion people could be forced to move.That could already be baked in to our future, regardless of efforts to reduce global emissions of
greenhouse gases.Image:Antarctica's Collins glacier on King George Island has retreated in the last 10 yearsAnd it won't stop there
The sea will continue to rise, and at an even faster rate, in the 22nd century - the start of which is now within the lifetime of children
being born today.To understand the threat of Antarctica's melting ice, you need to understand the topography.Scrape away the ice sheet and
large parts of Antarctica actually lie up to 2,500m (8,200ft) below sea level
Only a rim of higher land along the coast stops the sea from flooding in.But as sea levels rise, a torrent of water could slip beneath the
ice and begin to melt it from beneath.The 2.2 million cubic kilometres of the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet are particularly vulnerable.If it
melts, it could add another 3m (10ft) to the global sea level - on top of the 2m that scientists already believe is possible.Image:Sky News
is on a mission to find out how the Antarctic is in perilOn the eastern side of Antarctica the Wilkes ice sheet is also at risk - and could
add yet another 4m (13ft) to sea level.So that's 9m (29.5ft) in all: enough to redraw coastlines around the world.It's happened in the
past.Three million years ago carbon dioxide levels were much the same as they are today.Temperatures were a degree or two warmer
But sea levels were 20m to 25m higher.That's a lot of numbers, but they're important because it could be the world we are returning
to.Scientists writing in the journal Naturerecently warned we were perilously close to the tipping point
Temperatures are expected to climb past 1.5C by 2030, committing our descendants to a watery future.Image:An enormous iceberg (R) breaks off
the Knox Coast in the Australian Antarctic TerritoryThe scientists didn't mince their words
They said the melting ice in Greenland and particularly Antarctica was "an existential threat to civilisation".Whether that happens in the
timescale of centuries or millennia may well depend on our success in rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions over the next few decades.By
then, the wildlife that we associate with Antarctica is likely to be long gone.Two species of penguin are utterly dependent on the frozen
habitat.The Emperor, at 40kg the biggest penguins of all, could virtually disappear by 2100.The males spend the Antarctic winter on the
apron of sea ice surrounding the continent, balancing a single egg on their feet, huddled together against the elements.But already entire
colonies are suffering successive years of breeding failure, with the ice breaking up before the young are raised.Image:Emperor penguins in
the AntarcticAs the decades pass, they'll run out of suitable ice altogether.It's a similar story with the Adelie penguin.Already numbers on
the Antarctic Peninsula, the finger of land that stretches up towards South America, have slumped.As the climate warms their nests are being
flooded, the eggs drowned
Colonies that used to number in the thousands have in some cases dwindled to the hundreds.Nesting sites are now being taken over Gentoo
penguins following the warmer weather south
They're more adaptable, able to have a second clutch of eggs if the first fails
And the species is doing well, one of the winners in the climate change story.British Antarctic Survey has been studying the frozen
continent since the 1960s.Image:Adelie and Gentoo penguins next to a memorial to three British Antarctic Survey staff who went missingSky
News will join scientists on the Royal Research Ship (RSS) James Clark Ross for the 1,300-mile voyage south from Punta Arenas at the tip of
Chile, across the notoriously rough Drake Passage to Rothera, BAS's main science base on the Antarctic Peninsula.From there we will head
north again to study three fjords where glaciers that used to flow into the sea are retreating rapidly, exposing the water to light for the
first time in thousands of years.It'll be the third consecutive year that the scientists have been to the fjords to track changes to the
water and the life within.It's a critical piece in the Antarctic puzzle
How quickly is the ecosystem changing? Over a wider scale, will the blooming marine life absorb more carbon dioxide and lock it away at the
bottom of the sea?Understanding the rapid changes in Antarctica has never been more vital
The faster we reduce emissions the more of the ice we save and the slower the rise in sea level.Britain may be 10,000 miles away, but what
happens at the bottom of the planet matters to us all.Thomas Moore will be writing a daily blog about what he sees and finds in Antarctica
for Sky News and filing regular reports on what he discovers
Follow his progress here.
