Glaciers have shaped the world's landscapes and continue to affect earth's climate just as human caused climate change impacts them. Datshiane Navanayagam talks to two women dedicating their lives to the study of these giant ice structures. Jemma Wadham is a glacier biogeochemist and writer whose research has taken her to glaciers in Greenland, Antarctica, Svalbard, Chilean Patagonia, the Peruvian Andes and the Himalaya. She’s particularly interested in glacier-hosted life and the impacts of glaciers on the global carbon cycle. She’s won several awards for her academic work. Her book Ice Rivers is for a wider audience. She works at the University of Bristol and the Arctic University of Norway. Heidi Sevestre is a French scientist who's studied glaciers around the world, from the French Alps to Greenland, from the Arctic to Antarctica. She’s part of the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme and also works on a project looking at the last glaciers of Africa, found in the Rwenzori Mountains National Park, in Uganda. She is passionate about communicating the wonders of the cryosphere and the threats targeting it. Producer: Jane Thurlow (Image: Heidi Sevestre (L) , Credit Mael Sevestre. (R) Jemma Wadham. Credit T Bruckner)
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When it comes to the natural world, glaciers are some of the earth's most remote and inhospitable habitats.
Many of us will never even come close to stepping foot them, let alone living on them.
Yet humans have an intimate and significant relationship with these vast sheets of ice.
They exert a huge effect on how we lead our lives and the way in which we live, even when we're based thousands of miles away.
My two guests today are acutely aware of their relevance and have spent their careers studying glaciers from around the world.
Gemma Wadham is an award winning glacier biogeochemist.
Her book Ice Rivers is written for a non science audience.
And Heidi Sylvestre is a french scientist who's part of the Arctic monitoring and assessment program and works on a project looking at the last glaciers of Africa.
A very warm welcome to both of you.
Oh, thank you so much.
Super happy to be with you today.
Yeah, thank you, Heidi.