A 26-year-old scientist is travelling to one of the most remote locations on earth, where she will study a rare organism that could shed light on our warming world.
Emily Broadwell’s journey by sea to Signy Island takes two weeks – longer than it takes to get to the Moon – and she could face waves up to 60ft tall in the fearsome Drake’s Passage.
Once there, she will live with five others in a former whaling station that has been used as a British Antarctic Survey research station since 1947. Their only company will be penguins and seals.
Signy Island is 370 miles from the Antarctic peninsula and 800 miles from the Falkland Islands. Without space to land a helicopter or aircraft, an emergency extraction takes seven to nine days.
Miss Broadwell, a University of Bristol PhD student, said: “It takes about 48 hours to travel to the Falklands, via Brazil and Chile. I was based there for a few days and I’m now on the MS Fram headed to South Georgia.
“The sea is pretty calm and the fog has lifted today and you can see for miles. I’ve spent some time birdwatching, highlights being a giant petrel and a snowy albatross.
“The journey goes via South Georgia and Drake’s Passage, which will take around a week.”
For many, the three-mile by four-mile island is known for its penguin and seal colonies on the shores. But for the student the focus is on the snowy and icy interior.
She studies snow and glacier algae to learn how they survive in an environment of extreme low temperatures, abundant light and very few nutrients.
These tiny organisms live in places once thought inhospitable to life. Studying them helps experts track climate change in the areas affected most and builds understanding of habitats downstream.
The algae she brings back to MicroLab@Bristol – a University of Bristol research group that studies how life excels in extreme low temperatures – will be compared with other samples she collected in the Arctic and the Alps.
By studying their DNA, she could discover potential new species of algae.
Miss Broadwell said: “For a long time people didn’t consider these extreme environments as habitats for life.
“Much of the research over the past few decades has shown the diversity of the life here, and it’s a race to study it before these environments are lost.
“These landscapes are changing fast, and arctic and alpine glaciers might be some of the first habitats we lose completely to climate change.
“By researching them now we can capture as much as we can about them, including how they are adapted and how fast they are changing.”
She will be at the British Antarctic Survey research station until April, before it closes ahead of the Antarctic winter when temperatures on the island can drop to minus 44C.