Drilling Into the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica
The New York Times • • science
Key Points:
- A team of nine scientists and engineers, led by Won Sang Lee, is drilling through the melting Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica to reach the ocean cavity beneath it.
- The glacier, which covers an area the size of Britain, is being eroded from below by warm ocean currents, threatening to collapse in the coming decades.
- If Thwaites Glacier were to fail, it could raise global sea levels by more than 15 feet over several centuries, posing a severe risk to coastal cities worldwide.
- The team aims to collect critical data from the cavity beneath the glacier to better understand the timing and impact of its potential collapse.
- The drilling process involves melting a hole through half a mile of ice using hot water jets and lowering instruments to gather measurements from beneath the glacier.