Work For Future Generations | Continent 7: Antarctica

[Music] When I'm down in Antarctica and I see our team working, and I see our scientists who are devoting their lives to understanding the changing world based on what's happening in Antarctica, my comfort is that there are generations after me that will learn from the work that we're doing.

There's quite a lot of science that we do at Scott Base. It's quite diverse, but I think one of the most important pieces is how the ice is changing in Antarctica and how that's going to impact the rest of the world, not just in rising sea level, but the changes to global climate.

This is an incredibly pristine environment; it's only really been explored mostly in the last 50 or 60 years. It will tell us so much about what our future planet will look like. The hostility of the environment and the proximity is very challenging. You get through that; you get used to the cold a little.

But there are certain things that you do miss about being home. For us, anyone that comes back to New Zealand having been down on the ice would normally roll around on the grass because there is no grass, there are no trees, there is no green.

If I had a choice between perpetual sun and perpetual night, very difficult question. Because in the night, of course, you have the most amazing auroras that very few people get to see. But for me, it is definitely the day.

To be able to wake up at 3:00 a.m. or 2:00 a.m. and it be bright sunlight is quite an unusual thing, but what you see and what you hear in those hours is quite special. [Music]