Ann Curry talks about her trip to the South Pole

In a recent interview, Ann Curry discussed her recent trip to Antarctica and the mcMurdo Station. Here is an excerpt, click through to read the full interview.

Linked from http://allday.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/11/12/462133.aspx
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Q: Most memorable part of the trip?

AC: There were several things. The flyover at the Dry Valleys was a mind-blowing experience. The Dry Valleys is a place in Antarctica near the Ross Sea where the geological history and the biological history of the planet have been preserved. Antarctica was once connected to the continents further north and came south because of tectonic shifts.

So much of the history of the Earth is found in the perfectly preserved freezing temperatures of Antarctica. In the Dry Valleys, scientists can see deeply into this geological history. Waters came through and washed away a lot of the ice, so what you have is what was happening on the planet 160 million years ago, 12 million years ago and all the way up and down between.

So what was really shocking was flying over these beautiful Dry Valleys and seeing scientists in their little huts and tents, trying to understand climate change. They're in bone-chilling temperatures. Their only lifeline are these helicopters that can be stopped by the vagaries of the weather. You really get this admiration -- you feel so amazed by the willingness of the scientists to go out and find these facts.

We got to touch a glacier and touch and go off a glacier, which was really amazing. But the other thing that was shocking to me and sobering was in talking to top scientists, they said our planet should be cooling. Instead, we're warming. In fact, we're warming so fast, with so much CO2 in the atmosphere, that it's frightening to them. That part was very sobering to me, not to look at the political part of the story but to look purely at the science. They all said that we are in trouble. That was very memorable, because it was a clarity that I didn't have before.