Scientists Attempt to Drill Into Doomsday Glacier

If you watch any of the footage from West Antarctica this season, the first thing you notice is how ridiculously physical the work appears. Twenty tons of snow were being moved by ten people using shovels into rubber containers known as “flubbers.”

On paper, polar science may sound sophisticated with all the satellites and sensors, but on the ice, the reality is more akin to manual labor in a wind tunnel. The ocean is doing something that no one has ever measured directly while scientists with frosted eyebrows are shoveling.

This is the most recent incursion into Thwaites Glacier, the British-sized slab of ice that has long been a source of concern for climate scientists. The main trunk of the glacier has finally been reached by a joint team from the Korea Polar Research Institute and the British Antarctic Survey. Previous expeditions were unable to reach this location due to its crevasses, restlessness, and obvious danger. Just downstream of the grounding line—the location where the glacier lifts off the seabed and starts to float—they intend to drill a thousand meters through the ice. Warm ocean water creeps in there and eats away at the ice from below. No one has witnessed it in real time. Maybe up until now.

Speaking with researchers gives me the impression that this mission is more important than the typical scientific curiosity. If Thwaites collapsed, it alone could raise sea levels by 65 centimeters, and the glaciers it supports behind it could raise them by several more meters. Long forecasts that depend on precisely what is happening 3,000 feet below the drill rig have quietly taken coastal cities like Miami, Mumbai, Jakarta, and portions of London into account.

Salinity, temperature, currents, sediment, and the entire oceanographic mess beneath the ice will all be measured by the instruments descending the hole. Some will continue to send daily pings through the ice using Iridium satellites for at least a year. This is the kind of thing that used to seem like science fiction.

Strangely, one of the more traditional methods in the BAS toolbox is hot water drilling. For over fifty years, the institute has been honing it. A 30-centimeter-wide tunnel through the ice is melted when water heated to roughly 194°F is forced through a hose at high pressure. The drill must keep going back to keep the hole open because it refreezes in a day or two. It’s the kind of procedure that, while seemingly straightforward in theory, is practically unfeasible. One of the lead engineers, Dr. Keith Makinson, has joked that the team has roughly 75 years of combined drilling experience. Behind that figure, you can almost hear the dry fatigue.

It’s difficult to ignore the minute details when watching footage from the base camp, such as the orange spool for non-talking instruments, the silver spool of coaxial cable, and the science tent filled with equipment too fragile to bump. The trip’s science correspondent, Miles O’Brien, sat cautiously on a crate and acknowledged that he was terrified to touch anything. That moment revealed a truth about this work: weather that doesn’t care, and a thousand tiny choices that could ruin the mission.

It’s still unclear if the data will change sea-level projections. Most likely, it will. Antarctica has a long history of humbling people who had high expectations too quickly, and scientists are generally wary of forecasting their own discoveries. However, there’s a sense that this is some sort of turning point—quiet, technical, and unyielding. For a very long time, the glacier has been concealing its mysteries. That might be about to change with a frozen shelf, a hot hose, and a few patient people.