The Current - Antarctica’s landscape is changing, from melting ice to geopolitics

Episode Date: June 6, 2025

<p>Fifteen Canadian scientists turned a navy vessel into a research ship this February, and set out to explore Antarctica. The CBC’s international climate correspondent, Susan Ormiston, was along for the ride. Ormiston tells Matt Galloway about being chased by a seal in the planet’s strange, southern continent — and why melting Antarctic ice will impact the rest of the</p>

The election may be over, but that certainly doesn't mean things are settled on Parliament Hill, and that gives At Issue a lot to talk about. I'm Rosemary Barton, CBC's Chief Political Correspondent, and every week I'm joined by three of Canada's top political journalists, Chantelle Baer, Andrew Coyne, and Althea Raj, to help you understand what's at stake as the Liberals settled in for another minority and the Conservatives try to hold them to account. Follow At Issue as we break down the biggest stories in Canadian politics, new podcasts every Friday. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is the Current Podcast.

Just about to touch land here in Antarctica. to touch land here in Antarctica. In late February, 15 scientists from across Canada boarded the Canadian Navy's HMCS Margaret Brook in southern Chile and turned it into a research ship. They embarked on a month-long mission to measure how Antarctica is responding to climate change. It was the first ever all-Canadian expedition to the continent. The ship broke through narrow ice block channels by day, dodged towering icebergs by night to get to the most southerly point the Canadian Navy has ever been. The CBC's International Climate Correspondent, Susan Ormiston, was on that journey. She's off the ship.

She's with Mead Studio. Good morning. Good morning, Matt. What was it like when you first stepped foot onto Antarctic? Oh, well, of course it was unbelievable. You know, it was a pinch me moment. The ambassadors were there on the shore to greet us. The ambassadors?

Yeah, the penguins. Okay. They're the real ambassadors of Antarctica. They are irresistible. Really curious about our visit to the shores. We were in Admiralty Bay. It's a gorgeous bay ringed with sort of low-lying mountains covered in snow and ice. It's on the Antarctic Peninsula, which is the northern tip of the continent. It's kind of juts up north towards Chile. And we took a small boat from the big ship, HMCS Margaret Brook, and stepped ashore and

you think, wow, this is the southern end of the earth. This is the place, the lure of explorers and scientists and now us. It was really magnificent. It was the Antarctic autumn, it's reversed to ours, so maybe minus two, but that changed as we went further south. It got more frigid for sure. So what was the voyage like? I mean, I joked saying that you're off the ship and you're here in studio. You were on this vessel for 32 days. A confession. I loved it.

Oh. Loved it. Okay. We worked, we ate, we slept. That's perfect for me, 32 days. You know, as the civilization fades away, you entirely focus on one of the most remote places on earth. The HMCS Margaret Brook is an Arctic and offshore patrol vessel and it's one of the newer ships in

the Navy. So there were creature comforts. It doesn't feel claustrophobic. This, the bridge where they navigate, Matt, it's unbelievable, about 180 degree view of where you're going. We could go up there at any time, day or night. The ship has stabilizers, so it takes some of the

roll out of the heavy seas. And while sleeping, the- That's what I was going to ask, but where did you sleep? Well, the sailors and the scientists got all the available bunks. We were not stowaways, but we did, my producer and I, Jill English, slept at arm's length on army cots in a closet. Oh.

Well, like a tiny change room. Okay. And our videographer, Sam Martin cots in a closet. Well, like a tiny change room. And our videographer, Sam Martin, slept in a storage room. I think he got the short end of the stick. But you know, routine saves you. I mean, it's seven o'clock, the PA comes on, wakey, wakey, hands to breakfast, and you just go from there and it's lights out or lights dim a half hour before sunset. So I thought it would feel long and it didn't at all.

That's kind of amazing. You mentioned the ambassadors. What did you see? What animals did you see when you were in Antarctica? So we saw penguins, lots of them on the shore, but more fun to see them swimming. They're made for swimming and they go in and out of the waves almost like little porpoises. One even hopped up into the side of the boat, the dinghy that the scientists were in to check them out. We saw orcas, a pod or two, and also we saw a lot of seals, all sizes on Deception Island. Goodness! What was that? Yeah, that's a seal! That's a seal announcing, I'm here, you're intruders! One was pretty

territorial actually, and there's a now infamous scene I may add that shows me and the chief scientist chased by a seal on the beach, running down the beach, all caught on drone video. Now, seals aren't made to be sprinters, Matt, on land. They're great swimmers, but they don't sprint. So, we were not really threatened, but we were startled. And I've been chased by a few humans, but never by a seal. The kids would perhaps suggest that that may end up as a meme. Yes. Susan Ormiston, chased by seal. You weren't there on holiday. Yes. Susan Ormiston chased by seal.

You weren't there on holiday. No. You were there as part of this work observing the scientific research. What is the mission of this voyage? Well, here's where Antarctica is like nowhere else in the world. So according to this international treaty, there's to be no military engagement in Antarctica. So any military mission, including this one, has to be in support engagement in Antarctica. So any military mission, including this one, has to be in support of scientific research. So it meant Margaret Brooke had to cover its armament

before entering the 60th parallel South Latitude and it had to host this science team from across Canada. And many of them that had worked in the Canadian Arctic, so they were really keen to work with the Navy on this ship and compare their data that they collected there with what they're seeing in the Arctic. They collected samples, everything from penguin DNA to a thousand-year-old sediment pulled up from the seabed. They brought up liters of water at different depths to measure things like carbon uptake. And we asked Brent Else from the University of Calgary to explain that carbon part of the mission. I talked to him on the quarter deck with the hum of the Navy ship behind us. So it turns out that oceans absorb a lot of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. If you look back over time sort of since industrialization,

they've probably taken up about the equivalent of about 40% of all of the emissions that humans have put into the atmosphere. So that gives us a huge break on climate change. And what we really need to understand is will the oceans continue to do that because they might not. So it's really important that we understand what's going on in polar oceans, especially because they're changing the fastest. What do we know about how climate change is impacting Antarctica? I mean, there's a lot of talk about what's happening in the north. Exactly.

And we do know, I would say, more about the Arctic, our Canadian Arctic, than Antarctic. It's just so far away and difficult to get to and difficult to work in. And while our Arctic, as you say, has been rapidly changing three times faster than anywhere else, the Antarctic has been slower to respond, but the trend now, undeniably, is warming and melting. And, you know, Matt, the Southern Ocean is a big barometer of our global climate. Thomas James, the chief scientist of this expedition, explained that the climate changes here affect us all. He studies sea level rise.

The Antarctic ice sheet contains enormous amounts of fresh water and as the ice sheet thins and melts in places, calves at faster rates, that's going to affect global sea level change. The planet is changing extremely quickly. And so what we see in the Canadian Arctic is also mirrored in Antarctica. And he had this really memorable quote, Matt, it's what happens in Antarctica doesn't stay in Antarctica.

Hmm. You yourself had a bit of an aha moment. Tell me about that. Yeah. You know, the words climate change, we hear them a lot. They've become ubiquitous. Uh, they risk becoming normalized. Many people, fair to say, know that the polar

regions are warming and faster than anywhere else, but we're still talking incrementally and over a long timeframe. Okay. So here I was at Rothra Point. It's just a stunning destination, uh, on the peninsula where the British Antarctic survey has their research station. It's just a stunning destination on the peninsula where the British Antarctic Survey has their research station. It's a brilliant day. The sun is shining. The icebergs

are dazzlingly white. And I'm with Sandy Steffen, a researcher for Environment and Climate Change Canada, who she's scooping up snow to bring back to Canada. I mean, think of that. We have snow, but that's different. I know. I kept asking them, why are you here doing this? But here's how she summed up the challenge. When I talk to people about the impact of climate change on things, they just consider warming. And they consider, you know, like the ice is melting and all this.

And I said, yes, but what happens when the ice melts? And I thought, okay, right. We know now that ice is melting, ice from age-old glaciers is made up of fresh water. And when they melt, they dump water into a salty or saline sea. So potentially that rises, raises sea levels, but it also changes the properties of the ice sheet which forms in the winter. So these changes affect everything. And Sandy science is searching for contaminants. So the reason she was scooping up that snow was to look for things like mercury and microplastics, which should not be here in one of the most remote places in the world. The point is that we know we see changes, but how do we know and what do we know about how melting will

change the ecosystem of our climate? That's what the scientists were looking at. It was over 30 years ago that Clifford Olson first called me. Secret phone calls from Canada's most notorious serial killer. I knew I was killing the children, but I couldn't stop myself. Now it's time to unearth the tapes, because I believe there are still answers to be found. I'm Arlene Bynum from CBC's Uncover,

calls from a killer, available now. As you said, this is one of the most remote places on the planet, but it's also, Antarctica is a place that kind of exists in our mind, like as a part of the mental map. Yeah, it's true. We're not going to get there. Most of us won't get there. You got there. But it exists there somehow.

What do we know? I mean, tell me a bit more about this place. Who owns Antarctica? Yeah. It's a weird question, but it's important. It is. And you're quite right. There's a huge curiosity about this continent,

even though many people will never visit it, but no one owns it. I mean, countries have tried to claim it, Matt, but 65 years ago at the height of the Cold War, 12 countries came together in Washington and said, oh, wait a minute here. We have to preserve this place. Uh, countries claims at that

time were frozen. They established an Antarctic treaty in 1959, which rules to this day. It means that this continent is preserved for scientific research and peace. It's protected from development, mining exploration, settlement. The only so-called embassies really, if you will, in Antarctica are research stations and there are about 80 camps and research stations run by 40 countries. The US, China, Russia, the UK, many others, Chile, Argentina. In the Antarctic summer, there's staffed up, but in the winter there's really skeleton staff. And we visited a handful of these. It was so interesting. In one area, Matt, in Maxwell Bay, there's a Chilean station with an active runway next to a Russian station with its

own Orthodox church. You can see it on the hill. And just down the road in the other side of the bay is the Great Wall, a Chinese research station and another one nearby from Uruguay. I mean, it's so fascinating all these countries are there making their footprint in a scientific way but the big question is will that remain? 65 years ago is a long time and a lot has changed not just in 65 years, but in the last few years or the last few months. What kind of pressure is there on that treaty? Well, really the same as we see in our globe today. The splintering world order, mistrust of international treaties, a race for resources and geopolitical tensions that may seem so far away, but they are encroaching anyway. You know, 58 countries

are now signed onto the treaty including Canada but the common purpose and the goodwill from decades ago is being severely strained and we spoke to Klaus Dodds, a political geographer at Royal Holloway University of London about that. One of the most important elements of the treaty is the nature of the governance arrangements. All decisions have to be taken on the basis of consensus. Now, in the last couple of years, as a direct consequence of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation, the ability to secure consensus has become so much harder. So what that means is parties are now struggling to agree on things that hitherto might have been taken for granted. And what's happening now is that as the relationship with

Russia has deteriorated so badly and then throw into the mix China becoming a more assertive polar actor, it's becoming really hard to find consensus. So that means that the Antarctic Treaty is under considerable stress and strain, probably entering the worst period it's ever experienced. That's quite a statement. You know, it's under more pressure now than ever in 65 years. And, you know, some of the examples of differences right now are fish quotas in some parts of the Southern Ocean for krill primarily,

the Norwegians and the Chinese are the biggest harvesters. And China and Russia are now voting using their veto power to prevent future marine protected areas in the Antarctic. Another warning sign, Russia has mapped parts of the seabed floor for oil and gas reserves. They've taken no action but they're sending a signal to the world if this treaty frays or other circumstances change, there are economic benefits in Antarctica even though it would be very difficult and expensive to extract from that area. You know, you ran down the number of countries that have footprints, their research stations, China and Russia and the UK and you did not mention Canada. No. Why doesn't Canada have a research station? Well, at the moment we are told that Canada is collaborating with other nations on research. So they will go to their bases and use

their bases. They will use their ships to collect scientific data. That's the decision, the political decision at the moment and it allows them some flexibility. But that's in part why this mission was so extraordinary. They had a Canadian ship, Canadian science for a month in the area. But that doesn't mean that Canada doesn't want a bigger voice here, Matt. And that's where the real push is. It's been asking for years to get a seat at the big table as it were. That's securing voting rights at the Antarctic Treaty discussions, a so-called consultative party status.

But guess what's happened? Politics. Here's Klaus Dodds again. The last three or four years, Canada's claim to be a consultative party has been blocked first and foremost by Russia. And the reason is Russia wants its ally, Belarus, to be made a consultative party alongside Canada.

Canada publishes more scientific work on the Antarctic than about two-thirds of the consultative parties. So to my mind, bluntly put, it's an absolute travesty of justice that Canada is not a consultative party. Bluntly put indeed. The Antarctic Treaty meeting is happening at the end of this month in Milan. What is expected to come out of that meeting? Yeah, that's an annual meeting and likely

we'll probably see status quo. You know, to be clear, the treaty is not on the brink of collapse. It's also not going to take bold steps to preserve more of Antarctica for example, because the spirit in which it was created is being chipped away. It's a very fraught time, Matt. I mean, President Trump has plans to cut part of the American

research funding in Antarctica. That's a victim of the doge cuts. But at the same time, China is presenting plans at this meeting for a sixth research station and Russia wants to reopen one and build another one. So there's no shortage of nervousness about the future of Antarctic or Antarctic stability and Canada knows that and that's in part why the Navy was here in part. The commander of the RCN, Vice Admiral Angus Toppshee told us he wanted to see what's going on in Antarctica to compare with what Canada's defence and security experts are seeing in our Arctic. So here's a part of the exchange I had with him on board the ship. The genesis of this was the idea of let's go get some hands-on experience, let's do

some science and just see if we can figure out things that can help us better protect and defend our own North. Do you think there's a security concern here in Antarctica as there is in the Arctic? I definitely do. I am concerned that we, you know, the whole agreement that we would not militarize the Arctic, that we would not exploit the resources of the Antarctic, sorry, could change. And I don't think that's in our interest to allow that to change easily. He sees that change coming, possibly. Not a lot of people, as I said, get to Antarctica. There are cruises that go down, but most people

do not get to do what you did. What will stay with you aside from being chased by the seal and the penguins? Well, what's going to stay with you about what you saw? Well, you're right about people getting there, maybe more than you think. I mean, about 80,000 tourists touched land last year compared to 12,000 back in 2000. And those are largely on those cruises?

On luxury cruises. Okay. And they are getting more and more luxury, I can tell you that. For me, what struck me, you know, every day looking out with all that ice, you know, marveling at its elegance and its architecture, you know, molded by the seawater.

I really had this conviction that what happens here will affect all of us. It may be remote, its environment may be hostile, but the consequences of changes here will reverberate. And also, I must say, I felt very grateful to experience all that on behalf of CBC, for the Canadian Navy to take us down and some of Canada's top scientific explorers to help us understand what's going on there. What an amazing opportunity. And what you have come back with is fascinating.

Susan, thank you. Thank you. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.