Liz Morris on Antarctic adventures and the melting polar ice sheets

June 3, 2025·28 min·2 clips

A penguin pecked Liz Morris in the knee during her first Antarctic photo, making her fall backwards in the snow.

The setting is severe and quiet. Snow, ice, silence, snowmobiles, and temperatures down to minus 57 degrees Celsius define the world where Liz Morris works. The host starts with place, then lets the science come in through the practicalities of her work. The instrument at the centre is a neutron probe. Fast neutrons change direction and lose energy when they meet hydrogen atoms, so a detector can connect the returning particles with the amount of water present. The host keeps the explanation grounded: more bounced back neutrons means more hydrogen, and because water contains hydrogen, the signal can point to moisture. In snow, Morris says, it can reveal density. The method began in soil. She saw that a technique for wet soil could work in snow too, since snow is water. The hard part was making it useful. Earlier attempts in the States had been dropped, partly because readings taken about every metre did not show much. Morris went smaller. By measuring every centimetre or so, she found changes in snow density that were worth paying attention to. The work was slow and tiring. Each reading took a minute, and the instrument had to be lowered by hand before the next one. Ten metres could take a day. The result is a portrait of science as patient physical work: cold conditions, careful measurements, and enough stubbornness to see what broader readings missed.

As heard by us

A restrained Antarctic profile that makes field science feel tactile and earned.

Liz Morris's Antarctic work comes into focus here, and The Life Scientific gives it the space to register. The episode moves from fieldwork in Antarctica to the practical business of measuring snow density, down to the centimetre.

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Why you'd press play

You want Antarctica science told by Liz Morris, a glaciologist who was among the first British women scientists to work there.

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