MOSCOW, May 19. /TASS Correspondent Kristina Pushkina/. He has descended into hundreds of ice caves, measures how intensively snow and ice melt on Spitsbergen and in the Antarctica, he has participated in renovation of an Arctic base - these risky tasks are nothing special for world-renowned speleologist Bulat Mavlyudov. He co-chairs the Speleology and Karst Studies Commission at the Russian Geographical Society's Moscow Branch. In an interview with TASS, the scientist spoke about the global warming threat, about dreams that emerge at the edge of the world, and about science that is free from political boundaries.

How a geologist becomes a glaciologist

Bulat not just explores the ice, he listens to it, watches its breath, and this conversation continues for half a century already. He did not dream to become a polar explorer, because at the Moscow State University he studied geology. Things developed as they should - geological surveys, including sampling and description, reading aerial photographs, and making geological maps. The studies were thorough, the practice was intense, and future was predictable: expeditions, maps, reports, and field work. He could become a "regular" geologist - to search and explore minerals, spend six months in the taiga working with a geological hammer, or he could build a career at the institute. However, coming to learn the world of caves was a turning point.

"In my second year, I by mere chance joined a caving section. I went to a meeting where they talked about caves, and stayed there. It got clear to me: the underground world attracts more than anything else," the scientist said.

Then followed a chain of geological expeditions. The Crimea, Yakutia, the Pamir. But caves were so appealing that he joined expeditions to the Urals, the Caucasus, the Pamir, and the Pinega River. Enthusiastic, often without sleep, with no money, and with minimum equipment. They descended into caves and ascended using standard caving equipment, and in most difficult caves they had to stay for nights in underground camps without getting to the surface for a long time. In the autumn of 1971, it was the first time that he got to Snezhnaya - one of the world's deepest caves, located in the Western Caucasus.

"Back then, one person managed to descend to a depth of 450 meters, but there the cave did continue. Two years later, my friends managed to get as deep as 770 meters. Further on, there was an impassable blockage of rocks. It had remained as such for many years. At first, the cave descending equipment was homemade - pull-wire ladders, and only later on we switched to ropes. We bought and packed food in advance, carried it inside the cave in shipping bags," he said.

Bulat defended PhD thesis - Glaciation of Caves in the Soviet Union. In that systematic work he described dozens of objects. The work was based on theory, as well as on dirty, hard and often dangerous expeditions into "ice caves". In the 1990s, he said, the Russian Academy of Sciences said exploring caves was "not a science," and he was offered to study glaciers, which was considered to be a major, "serious" scientific direction.

"I realized: caves exist also inside glaciers, and they can be explored. Such caves are similar to karst caves and they develop almost the same way. The only difference is that in this case the rock is ice, and instead of dissolving caves those cave melt. All shapes develop like they do in karst caves. The logic is the same, the impressions are new," he said.

That was how a different life began - among cracks and subglacial rivers. Harder, colder, and more weird. Bulat left behind enclosed stone halls to get into the open spaces of eternal cold: the ice breathes, lives, melts and grows.

Spitsbergen, bears and a red house

Spitsbergen is a special place. Ice, fog, harsh landscapes, and harsh people. Nobody is there without a clear reason. Bulat and his friends lived and worked in a house during expeditions - a red house, built in Soviet times, practically abandoned. Every year, the explorers had to renovate it again and again.

"When we arrived there for the first time, part of the glass was missing, the grill in the stove had burned out. We repaired the burnt-out pipe, glazed the windows, covered the roof, and piled a stock of firewood. The house was ready to accommodate us during field studies, we could dry clothes there and enjoy the warmth," the scientist said.

The house became a base for scientists, as well as a symbol, demonstrating that even in extreme conditions people can create a cozy place. The house saved them from the cold, and, most importantly, gave the feeling they were not visitors, as the house was their own place. "One day, when we were on the route, a polar bear climbed into the red house through the window. Must have been attracted by food smells. It crushed a bottle of vegetable oil on the floor and licked it off, ate up bread and jam. Buckwheat must have been not to its taste," Bulat said.

Since then, they were more careful. The red house was there every time people returned to it: sticking together is a key to survival. It became a point on the map to where they wanted to return and to stay comfortable in bad weather. Due to applied efforts, the house is still there, welcoming travelers and scientists.

When ice united scientists

In the early 2000s, Bulat worked with scientists from Germany, Japan, Chile, France, and China. They participated in expeditions, experiments in a cold laboratory, drilled glaciers, explored caves, wrote articles and made plans. The scientists had one language - English, and one goal - to understand the dynamics of glaciers and its dependence on climate change. They shared a clear understanding that science is above political boundaries. They argued about the ice shapes, shared data, and had fun in tents lit by candles. That wasn't just a joint work. That was a true brotherhood.

"With Germans we worked on Spitsbergen and in the Antarctica. With French, we studied glacial caves. With Japanese, we conducted experiments to form channels in the ice. With the IAEA international group, we studied territories freed from ice as glaciers retreated," the scientist said.

People, sharing work, never asked each other about citizenship. They believed in common work. But everything changed in 2022. "First, trips were canceled. Then stopped articles in foreign magazines. Then we were told the projects were "frozen," or Russian scientists were excluded from them. Despite disputes between countries, almost everything has remained unchanged at the level of individual scientists, although international contacts have become significantly fewer. Lately, fruitful contacts have been with the Chinese, Brazilians and Chileans," the scientist added.

At times, when they meet somewhere during field work, they still communicate and work together, ignoring disputes between countries, because science knows no borders.

Dreams and discoveries

In Kyrgyzstan, the Yuzhny Inylchek glacier has been thawing into the Severny Inylchek glacier's valley, giving birth to the high-altitude Merzbacher Lake. Once a year, it disappears, its water breaks through the ice, and a giant channel or cave appears in the glacier body, possibly up to 14 km long. For some, this may be a myth, but for Bulat this is a goal. He knows that such caves live for a very short time. Getting into it was a biggest dream for him and other researchers.

"I've been dreaming to get there since 1981. We've made attempts for several years, but all in vain. In 2021, we almost got there with the French, but the entrance had already shut, we didn't manage it. Well, maybe another time," he said.

The scientist's name is behind a discovery that has changed the understanding of how water moves in glaciers. For a long time, he could not understand how water, leaving the surface into the ice column, given the glacier's big length, reaches his tongue (a long and narrow layer of ice sliding from the land into the reservoir - TASS).

Ice is impenetrable for water - water can move inside the ice only through cracks, while no cracks run along a glacier's entire length. It was believed that water from the glacier surface always reaches the bed and further on it runs under the ice already. However, there are exceptions, like when its temperature is very low and the thickness is close to a kilometer, like it us in Greenland. Scientists wanted to understand how water moves inside the glacier.

"Later on, in the Antarctica, near the ice sheet surface, scientists found layers that moved at different speeds and sometimes even in different directions. Sliding planes appear between the layers. That's when everything got clear. The water penetrates through ice cracks into the sliding plane and moves along it to the glacier's tongue. This is how appear glaciers' internal drainage systems, or simply glacial caves," he explained.

These findings have formed the basis of a new model of water movement in glaciers and helped explain long-noticed anomalies.

How much time is left for humanity?

Bulat continues taking part in expeditions. He measures the mass balance on glaciers of the Arctic and the Antarctica, installs slats in drilled wells, digs holes in the snow, measures the snow density and describes its structure. He can understand how in some places ice melts faster and faster every year, and how it accumulates in other places. Glaciers are melting particularly actively in the northern hemisphere, but most dangerous is permafrost melting that leads to instability of buildings and cracks in them, to landslide and soil subsidence. Permafrost thawing may wake up previously unknown microorganisms.

Ice sheets are an archive of the planet's climate: the history of atmospheric changes is stored in air bubbles, and eruption of ancient volcanoes can be timed by ash layers. Organic matter particles in ice point to its age, and oxygen isotopes prompt temperature rates at the time of the ice formation. We can say that the disappearance of ice is an irretrievable loss of data about the surrounding world's present and past. That is why it's so important to study glaciers. "We look into the past through ice studies. We can see what the air and climate were like at the times when there were no cities. This is invaluable knowledge," the scientist said.

However, everything may change, since there is no consistency in the climate. Even warming is not a verdict for humanity - a reverse course is possible in the long run. "We know that global glaciations on this planet occur every 25,000 years. We are 18,000 years away from the last glaciation's maximum. This means that in about 7,000 years, the ice sheet edge from Scandinavia may reach Moscow. We will not be able to stop global processes. But we can understand them. And thus we will be able to get prepared for upcoming changes," the scientist concluded.