'You look up and see light coming through': The divers venturing under the ice in the name of science

'You look up and see light coming through': The divers venturing under the ice in the name of science 1 day ago Share Save Erika Benke Share Save Edd Stockdale It is a world cut off from our own by thick blankets of floating ice, but some scientists are taking the plunge to learn how these frozen depths are changing. "There's probably only a few hundred people in the world who can do polar base diving work at the moment," says Edd Stockdale, coordinator of the Finnish Scientific Diving Academy, who leads the course. Jesse Jokinen Safety is paramount during any underwater dive, but with the ice making it difficult to surface, extra precautions are needed During the week-long course, there were a number of "free flows", situations in which the regulator delivered air continuously at full flow, rather than in a controlled manner synchronized with a diver's inhalations. Edd Stockdale Human divers can take samples and collect data that remotely operated vehicles cannot While there are clearly risks in doing this work, the chance to gather crucial data makes them worth taking, says Anni Makinen, who works as a scientific diver for an environmental consultancy in Finland: "I'd like to help to get some scientific knowledge that will influence politicians."