While much of the U.S. contends with a cold snap this week, the CBS Evening News continues the trend by taking viewers to Antarctica. Correspondent John Blackstone‘s three part series begins tonight. He follows in the footsteps of recently retired CBS correspondent Jerry Bowen who made the trip in 1999. Calling it a “very ambitious project,” Evening News EP Rick Kaplan tells TVNewser the goal of the report is to “map out life patterns.”
In the nine years since Bowen’s visit, the average temperature has dropped four degrees. “You’ll see this one penguin colony that is enhanced because of the closeness of water,” explains Kaplan. “But there are a number of other colonies, with no place to nest.”
Blackstone worked with some of the same scientists this time as Bowen did in 1999. “It’s nice to have a track record on a story,” says Kaplan, who green-lighted the project before his own run-in with a patch of ice in Iowa last month.