THE RACE TO ANTARCTICA

Antarctica the coldest most savage place on earth so remote it's very existence was questioned by navigators for centuries even after it was discovered in 1820 it remained for decades terra incognita a land unknown but by the beginning of the 20th century the age of Antarctic exploration had taken hold and the continent was being visited by a growing number of expeditions much research was being done and there was a growing competition to be the first to reach the heart of the interior one of the main competitors was Robert Falcon Scott this was his Hutton a place quite literally frozen in time Scott had set out from England to make history trying to become the first person to stand on the South Pole [Music] he reached his goal but when he arrived we found that a Norwegian team had beaten him to it [Music] disaster struck on the return journey and his entire party perished in the buku cold Scott's final haunting diary entry shook the outside world and we lived I should have had a tail of the hardihood endurance and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman these rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale four years after his death Scott was regarded as a hero a British icon who had shown courage and nobility in the face of insurmountable odds but as time went by critics began to question his aptitude calling him an ill-prepared adventurer whose bad judgment had cost his team their lives he was portrayed as irrational consistently inept a heroic bundler I signed on to some extent to the legend of Scott the bumbler when I first went to the Antarctic but that legend just doesn't stand up against reality not when you get to know these guys not when you look at the facts of what happened to me [Music] climatologists Susan Solomon has spent years in Antarctica studying the ozone layer she became interested in Scott's story after a visit to his Hut questioning the popular theory of his incompetence she decided to try and find out what had really gone wrong on his expedition her conclusions were startling for rather than confirming his mistakes she revealed evidence of Scott as a careful planner with a deep faith in science ironically it was this very faith that would lead his team to disaster they planned so scientifically they tried to figure out how they would put what resources they had and what nature would normally be expected to throw at them together and be able to succeed they would have succeeded in a normal year [Music] in November of 1910 Robert Scott arrived in the Antarctic aboard the ship Terra Nova he established his Basecamp in a hut at Cape Evans and on November 1st 1911 after a year of preparation he set off for the pole two weeks later Scott and his party of 16 men ten ponies and 22 dogs arrived at a location 150 miles inland [Music] they called the site one ton depot because earlier in the year members of the expedition had journeyed there to leave over a ton of supplies one ton was to be the springboard for their assault on the pole and the safety valve for their return despite all their planning and stockpiling of provisions the odds were against them making it to the pole Scott himself had failed in an attempt eight years earlier as had Shackleton in 1909 the continent of Antarctica is larger than India and China combined and from Scott's heart at Cape Evans the trek to the pole was more than 900 miles the first part of the journey would take them 400 miles across the featureless Ross Ice Shelf then they would have to climb the 125 mile long Beardmore glacier finally at an altitude of 10,000 feet the team would face the final 370 miles log to the pole itself if they made it they would then have to retrace their steps back to the safety of the hut [Music] Scott's expedition was financed by the Royal Geographical Society which expected him not only to reach the pole but also to oversee rigorous scientific research while he was there Scott was tremendously interested in science I mean not only was he proud of the fact that he was leading the biggest scientific expeditions that had ever gone down south is much deeper than that he drives enormous intellectual satisfaction from the scientific work which was being done by his team he is he actually curious about it Scott was the leader of a well financed and highly publicized Antarctic expedition he was equipped with the very best technology available and he had surrounded himself with the most accomplished scientists he could find Herbert ponting the team's official photographer made a film documenting the expedition and the scientific work being done outside the Hat the calendar rooms would spend hours with his telescope making astronomical observations and intensely called jobs which demanded stoical quality among others the presence of meteorologist George Simpson was featured on the film well side the hat said meteorologist dr. Simpson had a vast collection of scientific instruments of studying weather conditions thirteen Atkinson did research work with his microscope Simpson nicknamed sunny Jim became indispensable to Scott he was responsible for recording and analyzing the Antarctic weather and Scott respected him immensely the feeling was mutual Simpson said that he had never met anyone who had the scientific experience so utterly unalloyed all of them scientists particularly admired him they all talked about him as being someone who would get to the nub of any scientific question immediately but later critics of Scott claimed he had made irrational decisions these claims did not sit well with Solomon who discovered much evidence to the contrary wherever she looked she found signs that Scott had been a meticulous planner the scientific method seemed to be at the heart of his preparations captain Scott used to spend a lot of his time it is a dead writing of his journal and working out plans for the judge of the pole for every detail had to be carefully thought out before head Scott devised a careful plan knowing that it would be impossible for the men to carry all their supplies with them he had ordered a series of earlier journeys into the interior to stockpile provisions along the route for transport across the ice shelf Scott chose ponies because Shackleton had had success with him two years earlier dogs and motorized tractors would provide minimal backup support the ponies would be slaughtered enroute to provide food [Music] once at the Beardmore glacier the men would hold their own supplies this would be grueling on the outbound Trek but Scott was counting on light loads and a strong tailwind to drive them back to the depots on the return each leg of the journey had its own carefully thought-out team a party of 16 would set out from base camp to help carry provisions at the glacier half the men and the two dog teams would turn back while the other eight men continued on when they reached the plateau Scott would select three men to accompany him on the final leg timing would be crucial in order to beat the onset of winter the team had to be back at Cape Evans by the end of March Scott had thought through every detail how many units of food the men would need per day how many miles they would have to average on the polar plateau and on the ice shelf for Solomon there was nothing sloppy about Scotts preparation I think Scott tried to plan the journey to the pole very much as a scientist and as an engineer in a sense he tried to figure out what it would take and how he would do it that's very much I think the modern ways in a sense he was a man ahead of his time as they approach the top of the Beardmore glacier the excitement began to grow they were nearing the end of the second leg and it was almost time for Scott to pick his final team for the actual assault on the pole it had been 40 days since they left one ton depot the going had been difficult a blizzard had delayed them near the base of the glacier and the ponies had struggled through the heavy snow but Scot had pressed them to make up time and they were now back on track the team had finished with the ponies and was now relying on man holding each 800 pound sledge was pulled by a team of four men in addition to his race against winter Scott had another reason to push the pace on the way to Antarctica it found out that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen who had lost his bid to become the first to the North Pole was now trying to beat Scott to the south Scott realized that actually it was going to be a race between the two of them and that Amazon could very well get there before him but at the same time he tried to push that out of his mind because he was I think just as interested for much of the time about the scientific achievement that he hopes would come from his expedition the work that his team that he was taking down there was going to do above the Beardmore Scott was feeling confident at the last minute he decided on polar party of five instead of before he had originally intended perhaps he wanted to reward as many as possible the hard work they had done to reach that point [Music] scoffs critics regard this change as a crucial mistake but Solomon is convinced that while it may have led to discomfort it was not a big enough gaffe to derail the expedition the problem with having sized men had in part to do with the fact that it took longer to cook for 5 min for Scott confessed that it was a big problem it took a half an hour more the tent was really too small for five men somebody would get kind of pushed off the floor cloth onto the edge of the of the tent that's obviously not a good situation so for many reasons having five instead of four was a mistake but I don't think it would have been a fatal one finally on the Antarctic Plateau the men continued to trudge southward their spirits were high they were beginning to grow tired after nearly sixty days of marching dragging their sledges behind them [Music] On January 9th they passed the southernmost point reached by Shackleton in 1909 they were now walking on virgin ground Scot was still confident it is wonderful that two long marches would land us at the pole we left our depth today with nine days provisions so that it ought to be a certain thing [Music] Scot had good reason to anticipate success his team was making excellent progress he was impressed with the men he had chosen for the final push Edmund Wilson the expedition's chief scientist was a doctor and a talented artist and Scots best friend Henry Bowers nicknamed birdie for his prominent nose was known for his exceptional stamina [Music] Lawrence Oates the aristocratic but unassuming army captain had been in charge of the ponies on the expedition [Music] and seaman Edgar Evans he was the strong man of the group by the middle of January the men had covered nearly 900 miles they had climbed 10,000 feet of a glacier strewn with crevasses and they had survived on rations of dried meat and lard now they were approaching their final destination on January 17th 1912 the team reached the pole but the glory that Scot had dreamed of was denied him for he was met by the sight of a tent flying the Norwegian flag amundsen-scott great rival had beaten him to the pole it was a crushing blow the wind is blowing hard temperature is minus 21 and there is that curious damp cold feeling in the air which chills one to the bone in no time Gregg got this is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority Amundsen strategy had been very different from Scott's relying on his experience from the Arctic get foregone careful planning I made a dash for the pole he had taken a gamble and won beating Scott by a full five weeks Amundsen got to the pole first because of his transport arrangements very simple a few men on skis with lots of dogs he was able to take less time getting to the pole and back again and he was able to eat the dogs as they traveled he knew about traveling over snow and ice he knew about the Cole they had not been first but Scott's men planted the British flag then began the long journey home Scott's preparations had served them well they believed they would quickly make it back to the safety of the coast even though Edgar Evans was beginning to have problems with frostbite Scott's confidence came from his careful planning and from his understanding of the weather data that meteorologist Simpson had provided him in fact Solomon found that Scott was counting on the weather to bring them home I had to really step back in time because a critical part of putting the pieces of the puzzle together was actually getting a sense of the science that they did their approach to understanding whether to have a sense of whether or not they just blindly sauntered out into Antarctica not knowing what would happen or whether they actually tried to figure out what they ought to expect Solomon was surprised to discover just how attentive Scott had been to the weather and just how determined Simpson had been to understand it long before the advent of modern forecasting equipment they had attempted something that had never been done in Antarctica they had based their schedule on a prediction of the weather Simpson very carefully tried to understand what the weather should be like to figure out how you get to the pole and get back the weather was going to be a key component of that process and Scott's writings make it clear that he was worried about that that he and Simpson talked about it he wrote in his Diaries many times the temperature is minus 17 in formed Simpson and remember to talk about this with Simpson in Simpson Scott had found a man who matched his own passion for science Simpson had been born into a family of umbrella makers in Derby England his father established a department store bearing the family name and Simpson was expected to follow in his father's footsteps but the boy showed an uncanny ability in science and instead became the first member of his family to go to university his advisor there was a personal friend of Scott's and he recommended Simpson for the polar expedition he was an amazing guy the insights that that Simpson had into many different aspects of Antarctic meteorology yard are just incredible he was the first to figure out why the Antarctic summer is colder than the Arctic summer he was the first to really launch balloons in the Antarctic and study how the temperature's changed as a function of altitude which was a really stunning achievement he was clearly a scientist of tremendous capability as Solomon pored over the data in Simpsons papers she realized she was looking at something truly remarkable in front of her on the yellowing pages of century-old Diaries were the first ever forecasts of the Antarctic interior composed from Simpsons observations in the year prior to the push for the pole Soloman examined every detail of the forecasts I wasn't prepared for what I found looking at Simpsons books and other documents it's incredible to me that that he was able to piece together enough information about the weather to make a remarkably accurate forecast for what the conditions ought to have been like for the journey to the pole and the entire journey back the way he did that was it was just amazing Simpson predicted that the temperature at the Cape Evans base camp would be warmer than the Antarctic interior not simply because of the natural warming effect of the ocean but also because the nearby mountains blocked the cold winds coming off the ice shelf [Music] he built a weather station just above the hut where readings of temperature wind speed and wind direction were taken on an hourly basis to get data from the interior we trained the men to take temperature readings three times a day on every one of their depots supply journeys by comparing the records from the Depot trips with the corresponding measurements from Cape Evans Simpson came to the conclusion that throughout the year the ice shelf was consistently 20 degrees colder than Cape Evans from his findings he was able to forecast the temperature on the ice shelf for every month of the polar journey simpson's approach was years ahead of its time but it remained to be seen how accurate his predictions really were over the last 20 years technology has allowed modern scientists to learn a great deal about Antarctica's weather patterns one of the most powerful tools in this quest to unravel the continent secrets is a network of automated weather stations that gather temperature wind and other meteorological data every day of the year sending it via satellite to labs around the world examining this archive Solomon was quickly able to work out typical temperatures for every month of Scott's journey when she compared her modern results to Simpsons 1911 predictions she was amazed to discover that Simpsons forecasts were never more than three degrees off how cold would it be at the pole in January he figured it out how cold would it be on the ice shelf how cold would it be on the last part of the journey he had all of that nailed to a tee when Scott left the pole he was relying on Simpsons forecast for the return journey he had planned his schedule around the temperatures he knew he could expect and so far everything had gone according to plan the team made its way back across the high plateau and as Simpson had predicted temperatures hovered near a frigid negative 25 degrees Fahrenheit the party was averaging more than 15 miles a day but Edgar Evans was suffering from worsening frostbite and his situation was getting serious Evans was beginning to lose heart Evans is the chief anxiety now his cuts and wounds separate his nose looks very bad and altogether he shows considerable signs of being played out things may meant for him on the classier and his wounds get some respite under warmer conditions the men's spirits rose when they arrived back at the Beardmore but on the way down Evans sustained a severe head injury he and Scott fell into a crevasse Scot had hoped the warmer temperatures on the ice shelf would help Evans recover but after the accident the situation began to look hopeless his comrades encouraged him to push on but two weeks later Evans collapsed I was first to reach the poor man and shocked at his appearance he was on his knees with clothing disarranged and a wild look in his eyes we got him on his feet but after two or three steps he sank down again he showed every sign of complete collapse [Music] Willson bars and I went back to the sledge while Oates remained with him when we returned he was practically unconscious and we got him into the tent quite comatose he died quietly at 12:30 a.m. frostbite had taken its toll but Wilson the team doctor documented the cause of death as brain damage Evans had been done in by a freak accident something no amount of planning could have prevented there was nothing the team could do but bury him and move on with Evans gone the menu quickened their pace the day after they buried their friend scott willson oats and bowers approached their resupply depot near the base of the glacier they were finally back on the ice shelf here stockpiles of food and fuel awaited them at last the frigid temperatures of the plateau were supposed to be behind them simpson's forecast called for strong tailwind and much more moderate temperatures there were still 400 miles away from Cape Evans but they expected the worst was behind them the very first night that they regained the barriers Scott talked about how they had a good night's sleep for a change because it was so nice and warm they weren't even worried when they got back down to the Ross Ice Shelf at that point they thought they had it made for the next six days everything went according to plan but on February 27th the temperature suddenly dropped to a brutal 37 degrees below zero this was far worse than anything they had experienced on the plateau for the first time a hint of uncertainty entered Scott's writing desperately cold last night pray God we have no further setbacks we may find ourselves in safety at next death oh but there is no a horrid element of doubt the doubts did not let up brief periods of such bitter cold were manageable but for days the thermometer refused to budge only once rising about negative 30 the men were stunned by the unexpected weather Wilson and Bowers had survived worst temperatures on an earlier research expedition but never for this long and never after four months of exhausting man holy it's not just the fact that it was cold it was cold for three and a half straight weeks you probably can't appreciate what the impact of that is on the hand volume less you've actually been through it those kind of temperatures are absolutely killing [Music] scoffs carefully laid plans were in tatters and the lives of his men hung in the balance the staggering calls had thrown his schedule into disarray and everyone was nearing exhaustion the sledges became harder and harder for the straining men to pull the surface lately a very good hard one is coated with a thin layer of wooly crystals these are to firmly fixed to be removed by the wind and cause impossible friction on the runners god help us we can't keep up this pulling that is certain normally friction from the sledge melts a thin layer of snow that lubricates the runners as they slide but below negative 20 the snow remains crystalline and grips the runners tightly Sir Ranulph Fiennes a polar explorer who pulled a sledge across Antarctica in 1993 knows all too well what Scott and his men had struggled with we developed a real feeling for the problems that Scott faced from day to day with the variety of snow surfaces and temperatures if you want to practice it you want to get to six-foot fat men put them into a bathtub with no legs and pull them for in this case 1,600 miles over sand dunes that's the friction that you actually get there's no sliding but even as the conditions got worse Scott made no effort to lighten the load it is a decision his critics have often cited as a clear indication of his incompetence three weeks earlier the party had spent a day collecting 30 pounds of rock samples on the plateau so when the going got rough why didn't Scott dump the extra weight sign says lightening the load would have made little difference pulling sledges is a very unpredictable thing you can have the load of a sledge and have bad snow and go slower than the full load of the sledge with good sled so the great thing about putting a few rocks thirty pounds of rocks on their sedges wouldn't have made much difference they weren't stupid they weren't going to keep them on the sledge if it was really killing them they could have just dead load them and come back for him the following year what was killing him wasn't the RIP in the weight of the racks it was the friction of the snow the unyielding surface had a devastating effect on their progress instead of averaging 15 miles a day they could barely manage three and a half at this rate they would never make it back to Cape Evans in time to beat the onset of winter and temperatures would drop to an unsurvivable 50 below to make matters worse the Tailwind that Scott had been expecting another crucial element of Simpsons forecast was also failing to materialize hope for better things this afternoon but no improvement apparent Oh for a little wind on the previous journeys back from the depot's the teams had erected sails on the sledges when the wind began to blow from the south Scott had calculated this added advantage into his plans so without it his team was in even more trouble the wind had aided them before but this time the air stayed bitter and still the surface remains oval pre-code intense and our physical condition running tar god help us not a breath of favourable wind for more than a week the elements were unyielding they were trapped in a condition we now call a temperature inversion the reflective surface of the ice loses energy rapidly creating a layer of cold air sandwiched between the ground and a warmer layer above only wind can bring the warm air back down to ground level but for Scott the wind refused to arrive when it's windy it's actually warm in the Antarctic I know that sounds terribly counterintuitive but but many of the warmest days you'll have down there an Antarctic winter have just enough wind to keep things stirred up frigid temperatures on no wind had left the team with little hope they were now relying on sheer force of will to get them home the situation was still getting worse as they weakened they became more vulnerable to frostbite a polar explorers greatest fear captain Oates was the first to succumb poor oats got it again in the foot it is only with the greatest pains the rest of us keep our frostbite no idea that could be temperatures like this at this time of year we know now that when we tend to go from minus 20 Fahrenheit and we cross to about minus 30 for a night there is quite a sharp increase in the chance of development of frostbite in fact the chance go from about 50 percent to about 95 percent within that range frostbite on their feet was the greatest danger for if they couldn't March they would die where they fell the simple ability to keep their socks dry became a matter of life and death very cold nights now and Qom feet starting March as Dave foot gear doesn't dry at all wet material loses heat 25 times faster than dry and the cold tends never gave their clothes an opportunity to shed moisture in fact the tents were so cold that the men's socks froze solid at night causing another grave problem every morning before beginning the day's march they had to spend an hour and a half struggling to get their damaged feet into their Footwear it was an agonizing ritual that cost some valuable walking time and left their feet ever more susceptible to the chill their feet would have been rule in many places so you don't want to press raw flesh against a rock-hard sleeping bag is one of the most painful things on earth I remember for about 70 days every morning and trying to put my feet which were gangrenous with bare ended toes with no flesh on them firstly into socks I mean it was painful even putting the sock on and then trying to put them into our our ski boots which were rock-hard house cots men not only had that problem every morning but the problem which we didn't have which was to not be able to get into their sleeping bags when they were still retaining body warmth from the movement of the day is unthinkable I mean they were very very brave men all five of them [Music] but brave as they were Oates's condition was deteriorating rapidly this was his second bout with frostbite and skin that has been damaged once is far more vulnerable to re injury his odds of survival were plotting oats is warmed Affleck lucky as his feet must be giving him great pain he makes no complaint but his spirits only come up in spurts now and he grows more silent in the tent if we were all fit I should have hopes of getting through but the poor soldier has become a terrible hindrance though he does his utmost and suffers much I fear [Music] the team's options were running out on March 10th boats asked Wilson whether he had any chance of pulling through the doctor said he didn't know endpoint of fact he has none apart from him if he went under now I doubt whether we could get through the weather conditions are awful and our gear gets steadily more icy and difficult to manage the party had endured 13 days of temperatures below negative 30 in such conditions water freezes in under a minute fingers bond instantly to metal humans exist here at the very margins of survival oats is very near the end one feels he is a brave fellow and understands the situation but he practically asked for advice nothing could be said but to urge him to March as long as he could a few days later Oates requested that Scott leave him in his sleeping bag he said he could go no further and knew he was holding the rest of them back his companions begged him to rally and he relented but the cold was quickly overcoming him three days later with the temperature now negative 43 degrees Fahrenheit Oates took matters into his own hands Oates slept through the night hoping not to wake but he woke in the morning it was blowing a blizzard he said I'm just going outside and maybe some time he went out into the blizzard and we have not seen him since we knew that poor oats was walking to his death but though we tried to dissuade him we knew it was the act of a brave man and an English gentleman we all hoped to meet the end with a similar spirit and assuredly the end is not fun [Music] their group was down to three but only 160 miles separated them from the safety warmth and food at Cape Evans the cold broke and they could increase their daily mileage they might still have a chance 11 miles a day would mean only two more weeks on the ice but the day after oats is death Scott found himself in trouble during about a violent indigestion he failed to notice when his right foot began to freeze within minutes his toes were severely frostbitten there is no chance to nurse one's feet amputation is the least I can hope for now but will the trouble spread Scott made only a few more diary entries after that on March 21st he wrote that the party was now only 11 miles from the depot at one ton camp but a blizzard had stopped them in their tracks and they were nearly out of fuel their only hope was for Wilson and Bowers to depart the Depot alone Wilson and bars unable to start must be an area have decided it shall be natural we shall march for the depo with or without our effects and die in our tracks but they never marched again in his last diary entry dated March 29th Scott wrote the blizzard had raged for ten days keeping them trapped in the tent I do not think we can hope for any better things now we shall stick it out to the end but we are getting weaker of course and the end cannot be far it seems a pity but I do not think I can write more for God's sake look after our people bowers composed a last letter to his mother as this may possibly be my last letter to you I am sorry it is such a short scribble we have had a terrible journey back when man's extremity has reached God's help may put things right it is splendid to pass however with such companions as I have I should so like to come through for your dear sake Marcin dearest love to your dear self and may and Edith Wilson wrote to his wife Oriana my love is as living for you as ever we will all need after death and death has no terrors don't be unhappy darling orders for the best we are playing a good part in a great scheme arranged by God himself and all is well scoff wrote a letter he titled message to the public in it he listed the reasons the expedition had failed he stressed that the logistics for food supplies clothing and depots had worked out to perfection then he described the whether they'd faced on the ice shelf no one in the world would have expected the temperatures and surfaces which we encountered at this time of year our wreck is certainly due to this sudden advent of severe weather which does not seem to have satisfactory course I do not think human beings ever came through such a month as we have come through Scott blamed the weather but he was careful in his choice of words Susan Solomon believes Scott's final note also contained a redemptive message to his meteorologist and friend George Simpson I think I know why he said no one because he wanted Simpson to understand that he was not blaming him for the fact that the forecast didn't turn out to be right he was saying look sunny Jim you couldn't have forecast this no one in the world could have forecast this and we're dying but it's not your fault prior to his departure Scott had briefed the support teams that the polar party would return to Cape Evans by late March [Music] as the days turned into weeks the 13 men back in the hut grew increasingly worrying but there was little they could do as winter set in April became May and the Sun sank lower and lower on the horizon enveloping the continent in another long cold Antarctic winter [Music] it was another six months before recovery team could set out across the ice shelf after two weeks of searching one of the men saw the tip of Scott's tent sticking out of the winter snow the search party recovered the men's Diaries and letters Scott's favorite hymn was sung the commanding officer read some of their last words aloud then they removed the tent poles and allowed the canvas to shroud their lifeless comrades bodies they built a large snow Karen and erected a cross then headed back to Cape Evans [Music] it took a year for the news of Scott's death to reach George Simpson Simpson had seen Scott off from Cape Evans but soon after had been recalled from Antarctica and sent to work at the British Meteorological Office in India [Music] he found Scott's death extremely difficult to deal with news of the sad disaster came to India in such drills that it was nearly a fortnight before I could really understand what happened I [Music] could not have imagined that the sad news would have affected me so much Simpson began reviewing all his records and forecasts trying to see for himself what had gone wrong was it a mistake he had made or had Antarctica dealt them an unwinnable hand at some level I'm sure he blamed himself I'm sure that he asked himself well you know could I have done it better what did I miss how did I screw up and he had to be asking himself those questions and therefore he was driven I'm sure by a sense of tremendous sadness over the fact that these men had died and that he had in some way played played a role six years later Simpson published the first of a painstaking three volume study on the meteorology of Antarctica in it he concluded that the temperatures recorded by Scott's party on the ice shelf in March 1912 were nearly 40 degrees colder than those at Cape Evans it was a difference he knew was not typical 1912 he theorized must have been an abnormal year but he didn't have the data to prove it Simpson absolutely nailed it he not only figured out what the weather should have been like for the polar party but he also looked at what they actually experienced and understood how unusual it was he figured out that they would have made it back in about nine out of ten years turns out he was a little conservative it's more like 59 or 60 I don't think he has to be a scientist to be stunned by this to be in awe of that man's insights nearly 90 years after Simpsons forecast Solomon was able to prove that his work had been perfect but she had the benefit of the modern weather stations with their constant measurements while Simpson could only rely on his more crude readings his forecasts were stunningly accurate but in the end they made no difference 1912 was such an aberration there is no way Simpson could have predicted it to see that this man correctly predicted what it would take for those men to survive what they ought to have had in terms of very survivable weather on the way back and that he died not knowing that he was right was an incredibly moving and really quite important experience for me it almost drove me to tears Simpsons work was ahead of its time and no one picked up on his conclusions about the disaster he moved to London soon after he published his findings which were so dense and technical few could understand them he soon buried himself in other work he drifted his study at a big study in that bigger shops that we lived in it and he simply stayed in there all the time and didn't come out except to eat a meal that sort of thing and I used to go in as a child to kiss him goodnight on my way to bed but then he didn't even always look up and notice and I remember coming out saying daddy doesn't love me because I simply hadn't been able to get any response out of him at all Simpson presented his views about the role of the weather in Scotts death only once in a scientific lecture he gave in 1923 then he never spoke publicly about it again Simpson was a very meticulous and careful scientist and I think he would have been reluctant to talk about the weather as an issue very much because he couldn't prove that it was unusual I couldn't approved it either until all that nice weather station data was accumulated so it had to be somewhat by extrapolation that he made his argument I think as a good scientist he probably would be uncomfortable with that Solomon's work had established Simpsons legacy as a scientist and had also shattered many of the myths about Scott's ineptitude but she was still troubled by one aspect of the story the thing that kept bothering me at the end was the way they died Scott and his men made camp on March 19 for the last time they never left it March 29th is a date of Scott's last diary entry it's been thought that a blizzard is what kept them in the tent for 10 full days but if you've been for that part of the Antarctic you know that blizzards just don't last more than two or three days and if they had a tenday Blizzard my god they had the blizzard of a century and then suddenly I realized that it actually couldn't have happened Scott's own men provide the observations that show that there was no wizard two men Atkinson and Kane went out onto the Ross Ice Shelf to look for Scott and Bowers and Wilson they didn't go very far but they were experiencing light winds temperatures of 0 to minus 17 perfect weather for for keeping on going this is on March 27 so on March 27th or maybe even before the wind had already stopped that made clear that the reason that the three of them stayed in the tent was not a meteorological reason it had to be a human reason and that I realized was probably the fact that Scott's foot was very badly frostbitten Wilson who was a doctor wrote to his parents that Scott could scarcely walk he didn't say anything about a blizzard in that letter to his parents he said that he loved them that he would see them in heaven and that the captain just couldn't go on and so I believe that Wilson and Bowers decided that they simply couldn't accept going on without him and they perhaps misled him into thinking that the blizzard was still raising Lauer's had tremendous loyalty to Scott he wrote to his mother that I'm Captain Scott's man and we'll stick by him right through Wilson who who was a doctor had talked about if he were ever with a sick companion he would not be able to abandon that companion no matter what Wilson Bowers are probably the the truest heroes of this whole story if what I'm saying is it is correct because not only did they probably sacrifice themselves but they did it in silence they didn't actually write or say what they were doing I think they were too loyal to do that [Music] Scot would not have known what his comrades had done for him but in his final hours he revealed how highly he thought of them he wrote letters to their families making sure they would know how decent each had been to bow his mother I write when we are very near the end of our journey and I am finishing it in company with two gallant noble gentlemen one of these is your son as the troubles have thickened his dauntless spirit ever shone brighter and he has remained cheerful hopeful and indomitable to the end my whole heart goes out in pity for you to Wilson's wife if this letter reaches you bill and I will have gone out together we are very near it now and I should like you to know how splendid he was at the end everlastingly cheerful and ready to sacrifice himself for others I can do no more to comfort you than to tell you that he died as he lived a brave true man the best of comrades and staunchest of friends we can never turn back the clock but I think it's highly likely that if Scot had survived his legacy would be viewed quite differently he still certainly wouldn't have been the guy who got to the pole first but he would have been the leader of a great scientific expedition an expedition that even today is viewed as a cornerstone of Antarctic science he was a man of incredible ability he was a man who could inspire a lot of loyalty and I think we just have to admire what he did achieve and what would all of them achieve the men had covered nearly 900 miles they had climbed 10,000 feet of a glacier strewn with crevasses and had survived on rations of dried meat and lard now they were approaching their final destination On January 17th 1912 the team reached the pole but the glory that Scott had dreamed of was denied him for he was met by the sight of a tent flying the Norwegian flag amundsen-scott straight rival had beaten him to the pole it was a crushing blow the wind is blowing hard temperature is minus 21 and there is that curious damp cold feeling in the air which kills one to the bone in no time Greg got this is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority Amundsen strategy had been very different from Scotts relying on his experience from the Arctic get foregone careful planning and made a dash for the pole you taken a gamble and won beating Scott by a full five weeks Allison got to the pole first because of his transport arrangements very simple a few men on skis with lots of dogs he was able to take less time getting to the pole and back again and he was able to eat the dogs as they traveled he knew about traveling over snow and ice he knew about the Cole they had not been first but scotsman planted the British flag then began the long journey home Scots preparations had served them well they believed they would quickly make it back to the safety of the coast even though Edgar Evans was beginning to have problems with frostbite Scots confidence came from his careful planning and from his understanding of the weather data that meteorologist Simpson had provided him in fact Solomon found that Scot was counting on the weather to bring them home I had to really step back in time because a critical part of putting the pieces of the puzzle together was actually getting a sense of the science that they did their approach to understanding whether to have a sense of whether or not they just blindly sauntered out into Antarctica not knowing what would happen or whether they actually tried to figure out what they ought to expect Solomon was surprised to discover just how attentive Scot had been to the weather and just how determined Simpson had been to understand it long before the advent of modern forecasting equipment they had attempted something that had never been done in Antarctica they had based their schedule on a prediction of the weather Simpson very carefully tried to understand what the weather should be like to figure out how you get to the pole and get back the weather was going to be a key component of that process and Scott's writings make it clear that he was worried about that that he and Simpson talked about it he wrote in his Diaries many times the temperature is minus 17 in formed Simpson and remember to talk about this with Simpson in Simpson Scott had found a man who matched his own passion for science Simpson had been born into a family of umbrella makers in Derby England his father established a department store bearing the family name and Simpson was expected to follow in his father's footsteps but the boy showed an uncanny ability in science and instead became the first member of his family to go to university his advisor there was a personal friend of Scott's and he recommended Simpson for the polar expedition he was an amazing guy the insights that that Simpson had into many different aspects of Antarctic meteorology yard are just incredible he was the first to figure out why the Antarctic summer is colder than the Arctic summer he was the first to really launch balloons in the Antarctic and study how the temperatures changed as a function of altitude which was a really stunning achievement he was clearly a scientist of tremendous capability as Solomon pored over the data in Simpsons papers she realized she was looking at something truly remarkable in front of her on the yellowing pages of century-old diaries were the first ever forecast of the Antarctic interior composed from Simpsons observations in the year prior to the push for the pole Solomon examined every detail of the forecasts I wasn't prepared Scott had thought through every detail how many units of food the men would need per day how many miles they would have to average on the polar plateau and on the ice shelf for Solomon there was nothing sloppy about Scots preparation I think Scott tried to plan the journey to the pole very much as a scientist and as an engineer in a sense he tried to figure out what it would take and how he would do it that's very much I think the modern way it's in a sense he was a man ahead of his time as they approached the top of the Beardmore glacier the excitement began to grow they were nearing the end of the second leg and it was almost time for Scott to pick his final team for the actual assault on the pole it had been 40 days since they left one ton depot the going had been difficult a blizzard had delayed them near the base of the glacier and the ponies had struggled through the heavy snow but Scot had pressed them to make up time and they were now back on track the team had finished with the ponies and was now relying on man holding each 800 pound sledge was pulled by a team of four men in addition to his race against winter Scott had another reason to push the pace on the way to Antarctica it found out that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen who had lost his bid to become the first to the North Pole was now trying to beat Scott to the south Scott realized that actually it was going to be a race between the two of them and that Amazon could very well get there before him but at the same time he tried to push that out of his mind because he was I think just as interested for much of the time about the scientific achievement that he hopes would come from his expedition the work that his team that he was taking down there was going to do above the Beardmore Scott was feeling confident at the last minute he decided on polar party of five instead of the four he had originally intended perhaps he wanted to reward as many as possible the hard work they had done to reach that point [Music] Scots critics regard this change as a crucial mistake but Solomon is convinced that while it may have led to discomfort it was not a big enough gaffe to derail the expedition the problem with having five men had in part to do with the fact that it took longer to cook for 5 min for Scott confess that it was a big problem it took a half an hour more the tent was really too small for five men somebody would get kind of pushed off the floor cloth onto the edge of the of the tent that's obviously not a good situation so for many reasons having five instead of four was a mistake but I don't think it would have been a fatal one finally on the Antarctic Plateau the men continued to trudge southward their spirits were high they were beginning to grow tired after nearly 60 days of marching dragging their sledges behind them [Music] On January 9th they passed the southernmost point reached by Shackleton in 1909 they were now walking on virgin ground Scot was still confident it is wonderful that two long marches would land us at the pole we left our depth today with nine days provisions so that it ought to be a certain thing [Music] Scot had good reason to anticipate success his team was making excellent progress he was impressed with the men he had chosen for the final push Edmund Wilson the expedition's chief scientist was a doctor and a talented artist and Scots best friend Henry Bowers nicknamed birdie for his prominent nose was known for his exceptional stamina [Music] Loren's Hotz the aristocratic but unassuming army captain had been in charge of the ponies on the expedition and seaman Edgar Evans he was the strong man of the group by the middle of January for what I found looking at Simpsons books and other documents it's incredible to me that that he was able to piece together enough information about the weather to make a remarkably accurate forecast for what the conditions ought to have been like for the journey to the pole and the entire journey back the way he did that was it was just amazing Simpson predicted that the temperature at the Cape Evans base camp would be warmer than the Antarctic interior not simply because of the natural warming effect of the ocean but also because the nearby mountains blocked the cold winds coming off the ice shelf he built a weather station just above the hut where readings of temperature wind speed and wind direction were taken on an hourly basis to get data from the interior he trained the men to take temperature readings three times a day on every one of their Depot's supply journeys by comparing the records from the depot trips with the corresponding measurements from Cape Evans Simpson came to the conclusion that throughout the year the ice show was consistently 20 degrees colder than Cape Evans [Music] from his findings it was able to forecast the temperature on the ice shelf for every month the polar journey Simpsons approach was years ahead of its time but it remained to be seen how accurate his predictions really were over the last 20 years technology has allowed modern scientists to learn a great deal about Antarctica's weather patterns one of the most powerful tools in this quest to unravel the continents secrets there's a network of automated weather stations that gather temperature wind and other meteorological data every day of the year sending it via satellite to labs around the world examining this archive Solomon was quickly able to work out typical temperatures for every month of Scott's journey when she compared her modern results to Simpsons 1911 predictions she was amazed to discover that Simpsons forecasts were never more than three degrees off how cold would be at the pole in January he figured that out how cold would it be on the ice shelf how cold would it be on the last part of the journey he had all of that nailed to a tee when Scott left the pole he was relying on Simpsons forecast for the return journey he had planned his schedule around the temperatures he knew he could expect and so far everything had gone according to plan the team made its way back across the high plateau and Simpson had predicted temperatures hovered near a frigid negative 25 degrees Fahrenheit the party was averaging more than 15 miles a day but Edgar Evans was suffering from worsening frostbite and his situation was getting serious Evans was beginning to lose heart Evans as the chief anxiety now his cuts and wounds separate his nose looks very bad and altogether he shows considerable signs of being played out things may mend for him on the glacier and his wounds get some respite under warmer conditions the men's spirits rose when they arrived back at the Beardmore on the way down Evans sustained a severe head injury and he and Scott fell into a crevasse Scot had hoped the warmer temperatures on the ice shelf would help Evans recover but after the accident the situation began to look hopeless his comrades encouraged him to push on but two weeks later Evans collapsed I was first to reach the poor man and shocked at his appearance he was on his knees with clothing disarranged and a wild look in his eyes we got him on his feet but after two or three steps he sank down again he showed every sign of complete collapse [Music] Willson bars and I went back to the sledge while Oates remained with him when we returned he was practically unconscious and we got him into the tent quite comatose he Antarctica the coldest most savage place on earth so remote it's very existence was questioned by navigators for centuries even after it was discovered in 1820 it remained for decades terra incognita a land unknown but by the beginning of the 20th century the age of Antarctic exploration had taken hold and the continent was being visited by a growing number of expeditions much research was being done and there was a growing competition to be the first to reach the heart of the interior one of the main competitors was Robert Falcon Scott this was his Hutton a place quite literally frozen in time start had set out from England to make history trying to become the first person to stand on the South Pole he reached his goal but when he arrived he found that a Norwegian team had beaten him to it disaster struck on the return journey and his entire party perished in the brutal cold Scott's final haunting diary entry shook the outside world had we lived I should have had a tail of the hardihood endurance and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman these rough notes and our dead bodies the stern the tail four years after his death Scott was regarded as a hero a British icon who had shown courage and nobility in the face of insurmountable odds but his time went by critics began to question his aptitude calling him an ill-prepared adventurer whose bad judgment had cost his team their lives he was portrayed as irrational consistently inept a heroic bundler I signed on to some extent to the legend of Scott the bumbler when I first went to the Antarctic but that legend just doesn't stand up against reality not when you get to know these guys not when you look at the facts of what happened to climatologist Susan Solomon has spent years in Antarctica studying the ozone layer she became interested in Scott's story after a visit to his Hut questioning the popular theory of his incompetence she decided to try and find out what had really gone wrong on his expedition her conclusions were startling for rather than confirming his mistakes she revealed evidence of Scott as a careful planner with a deep faith in science ironically it was this very faith that would lead his team to disaster they planned so scientifically they tried to figure out how they would put what resources they had and what nature would normally be expected to throw at them together and be able to succeed they would have succeeded in a normal year [Music] in November of nineteen ten Robert Scott arrived in the Antarctic aboard the ship Terra Nova he established his Basecamp in a hut at Cape Evans and on November 1st 1911 after a year of preparation he set off for the pole two weeks later Scott and his party of 16 men ten ponies and 22 dogs arrived at a location 150 miles inland [Music] they called the site one ton depot because earlier in the year members of the expedition had journeyed there to leave over a ton of supplies one ton was to be the springboard for their assault on the pole and a safety valve for their return despite all their planning and stockpiling of provisions the odds were against them making it to the pole Scott himself had failed in an attempt eight years earlier as had Shackleton in 1909 the continent of Antarctica is larger than India and China combined and from Scotts hot at Cape Evans the Trek to the pole was more than nine hundred miles the first part of the journey would take them 400 miles across the featureless Ross Ice Shelf then they would have to climb the 125 mile long Beardmore glacier finally at an altitude of 10,000 feet the team would face the final 370 miles log to the pole itself if they made it it would then have to retrace their steps back to the safety of the hut Scott's expedition was financed by the Royal Geographical Society which expected him not only to reach the pole but also to oversee rigorous scientific research while he was there Scott was tremendously interested in science I mean not only was he proud of the fact that he was leading the biggest scientific expeditions that had ever gone down south it much deeper than that he drives enormous intellectual satisfaction from the font of hit work which was being done by his team he was he really curious about it Scott was the leader of a well financed and highly publicized Antarctic expedition he was equipped with the very best technology available and he had surrounded himself with the most accomplished scientists he could find Herbert Ponting the team's official photographer made a film documenting the expedition and the scientific work being done outside the hut the Seven Devils would spend hours with his telescope making astronomical observations and intensely called jobs which demanded stoical quality among others the presence of meteorologist George Simpson was featured on the film inside the hut said meteorologist dr. Simpson and a vast collection of scientific instruments for studying weather conditions surgeon atkinson did research work with his microscope Simpson nicknamed sunny Jim became indispensable to Scott he was responsible for recording and analyzing the Antarctic weather and Scott respected him immensely the feeling was mutual Simpson said that he had never met anyone who had the scientific experience so utterly unalloyed all of the scientists particularly admired him they all talked about him as being someone who would get to the nub of any scientific question immediately but later critics of Scott claimed he had made irrational decisions these claims did not sit well with Solomon who discovered much evidence to the contrary wherever she looked she found signs that Scott had been a meticulous planner the scientific method seemed to be at the heart of his preparations captain Scott used to spend a lot of his time in his little den writing up his journal and working out planned for the journey to the pole but every detail had to be carefully thought out beforehand Scott devised a careful plan knowing that it would be impossible for the men to carry all their supplies with them he had ordered a series of earlier journeys into the interior to stockpile provisions along the route for transport across the ice shelf Scott chose ponies because Shackleton had had success with them two years earlier dogs and motorized tractors would provide minimal backup support the ponies would be slaughtered on route to provide food [Music] once at the Beardmore glacier the men would hold their own supplies this would be grueling on the outbound Trek but Scott was counting on light loads and a strong tailwind to drive them back to the depots on the return each leg of the journey had its own carefully thought-out team a party of 16 would set out from base camp to help carry provisions at the glacier half the men and the two dog teams would turn back while the other eight men continued on when they reached the plateau Scot would select three men to accompany him on the final leg timing would be crucial in order to beat the onset of winter the team had to be back at Cape Evans by the end of March

Channel: David Cobham

Views: 129,549

Keywords: Race to Antarctica Documentary, Race to Antarctica, Antarctica, David Cobham, South Pole, Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen, Robert Falcon Scott, Ernest Shackleton

Id: XPgRhnpUfIM

Length: 77min 48sec (4668 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 21 2017