Polar Expert
Dorothea Moser is at home in the cold. “Snow has been something that I’ve always loved,” she told Your Hot Job. “I’ve skied, I’ve been in the mountains. I was born in November, so sometimes, there’s a bit of snow.” As an ice core researcher, Moser spends her days working with snow and ice gathered from the Earth’s freezing polar regions.
Moser works with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). According to the organization’s website, BAS exists to “uncover the secrets of the . . . frozen regions of the Earth.” Scientists such as Moser travel to the research stations that BAS operates in the coldest parts of the globe.
Moser’s work focuses on ice cores: long cylinders of ice pulled directly from ice sheets or glaciers near the north and south poles. In these areas, which are extremely cold, ice and snow pile up for centuries. Scientists extract ice cores, which contain snow and ice from hundreds, thousands, and even millions of years ago. These cores hold clues about the history of the Earth. “It’s an archive,” Moser says. “You’re time-traveling when you’re holding this ice.”
Life on the Ice
Moser studied geological sciences in college and graduate school. She dove deep into STEM courses and completed several polar research internships along the way. Moser then went to work with the BAS, conducting experiments in Svalbard, an Arctic territory. “The experience of holding the ice in my hands, and working in the cold, putting on the freezer suits—that was just something I really enjoyed. And I then realized I sort of had a talent for staying in the cold.”
Loving the cold isn’t a requirement for polar researchers. Moser spends most of her time working in less-extreme conditions. She’s based at BAS headquarters, in Cambridge, England. BAS researchers “don’t necessarily go into the field,” Moser says. For example, some members of her team conduct research primarily using computers.
Others do fieldwork, hands-on work, in polar regions. Fieldwork exposes researchers to harsh conditions for days, weeks, or months. Teams have to be ready for anything. “You could either have an elaborate setup of camps—maybe containers that are being used as little houses or sleeping barracks—or you might be camping in tents,” Moser says.
To stay warm, field researchers wear what are casually called “freezer suits,” and layer up with sweaters, mittens, and thick socks.
Field researchers spend their days working on the ice. An average day might involve drilling into a glacier or logging temperature data. But field teams also make time for fun. “You need to be aware of how to manage your mental health, because there is not much out there,” Moser says. “There are no trees, very little animal life, especially when you’re inland—there are no penguins high up on the continent [of Antarctica]. So you would want to have something that entertains you.” Teams often bring books, movies, card games, and crafting items, like knitting supplies.
Field researchers also get to know experts from different parts of the world. “When you’re working on such big questions, but also on such vast amounts of data, you need a big team,” Moser says. She adds: “We need to collaborate to make sense of the climate on this planet.”
Back in the BAS office, Moser studies ice gathered from the field. She’s currently part of a team analyzing some very old ice. The ice, which dates back 1.2 million years, was gathered from Antarctica by an international group of scientists. “So far, the oldest ice has been up to 800,000 years,” Moser says. “To go beyond 1.2 million years means that we’re nearly doubling that.”
Moser and her team are melting the ancient ice and analyzing what’s inside. “We’re finding evidence of volcanic eruptions,” she says. “We’ve got temperature indicators over that period.”
They’re also studying bubbles in the ice, which contain gasses from up to a million years ago. Holding the ice, you can “actually hear the bubbles,” Moser says. In a way, it’s like listening to the past. “We're going back . . . to the beginnings of human ancestry. That’s just something we've never explored.”
