Peter Neff was not going to see his mission done in by a balky generator. Neff, accompanied by doctoral student Julia Andreasen and engineer Etienne Gros, was working on the Canisteo peninsula in Antarctica in January 2024—a location considered remote even by the standards of the globe’s coldest continent.
The team, along with a group of South Korean polar researchers conducting their own mission, had been airlifted by helicopter from an icebreaker to the worksite, which was otherwise unreachable. (The Korean Polar Research Institute provided logistics and funds for Neff’s expedition, with support from the U.S. National Science Foundation.)
Neff’s project involved taking ice cores with a generator-powered drill. Unfortunately, both the main and backup generators were malfunctioning, and soon the helicopters would return to pick up the teams and their glacial artifacts.
Without a working generator, the research was over. The flummoxed trio then did what any frustrated homeowner would do when faced with a cranky lawnmower or plumbing quandary: they started searching YouTube for repair videos.
Neff is a polar glaciologist and an assistant professor in the U of M’s Department of Soil, Water, and Climate. His research focuses on examining ice cores to establish past climate conditions, which can help predict how global warming will affect sea level rises and other aspects of the environment.
