(See below for YouTube video of the talk)
…..no, not the Disney media franchise, but Coastwise speaker Nadia Frontier when scuba diving in the Antarctic Ocean.
Nadia is a marine biology graduate whose CV includes conservation work in Tanzania, work at the MBA in Plymouth and the French equivalent near Roscoff.
She then took a 30-month assignment with the British Antarctic Survey at the Rothera base, which is at 67 degrees S in the Antarctic international jurisdiction.
Her work there covered several projects, designed to understand the effects of climate change on the ecology of the area.
The Rothera Base itself holds 170 people, although there are many other national research bases in Antarctica. It has full facilities for marine research, including a recompression chamber for if divers have to surface too quickly due to objective dangers such as Leopard seals.
There are also full scientific laboratories, for which all equipment has to be sourced well in advance. No next-day deliveries there !
The projects included work on kelp forest ecology, growth and physiology of animals including sea cucumbers, sea urchins and brittlestars. She also looked at microalgae breakdown and detritovores, sessile invertibrates, and participated in a long-term project on time series of several parameters, such as changes of animal reproductive capability over time.
This was clearly a major formative experience for Nadia, but although she enjoyed her time away, plans to rebuild her life back home for the time being.
A great talk with a mixture of real science and living and working in Antarctica.
You can see the YouTube video of Nadia's talk here :-