01 - The Paradox of Scale

In the first episode of Ways of Ice, we begin with one of the great polar expeditions: Fridtjof Nansen’s daring 1888 crossing of Greenland. From that story, we confront a deceptively simple question: how much ice is there on Earth? Exploring glaciers from mountain valleys to continental ice sheets, this episode reveals the astonishing scale of Earth’s ice and why even small changes to it can reshape coastlines, climate, and landscapes worldwide. Along the way, we begin to see glaciers not as isolated curiosities, but as planetary systems that influence the entire Earth.