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​​​​​​​How quickly will Antarctica’s massive Thwaites Glacier melt, and what will that mean for global sea levels and coastal cities? Researchers are sailing toward Thwaites this month on the first leg of a five-year, international effort to try to answer that pressing question, and along the way they’re enlisting local seals as research assistants. Reporting by Carolyn Beeler of PRI's The World.

A medical emergency aboard the Nathaniel B. Palmer sends the ship and reporter Carolyn Beeler back north just as they’re about to reach the Thwaites Glacier.

Carolyn Beeler of PRI's The World reports that the Research Vessel Nathaniel B. Palmer arrived at Thwaites Glacier on Feb. 26, roughly a month after leaving Punta Arenas, Chile. During its first day in front of the glacier, the Palmer traced a roughly 100-mile path around the edge of Thwaites mapping portions of the sea floor that were previously uncharted.

Snow on Ice: When in Antarctica: the backup to the backup #8

“I think the secret to the work we do in many ways is as much as possible beforehand, asking the question, ‘what if, what if, what if.…’” Andy Smith, a principal investigator on the ITGC GHOST project, commented about working in Antarctica’s isolated and difficult outback. “You have to get used to the fact that you can have a wonderful plan on paper, and it’ll change completely when you’re actually trying to achieve it.” Looking back on our cruise, this mantra has unquestionably held true.

The World's Carolyn Beeler reports on her latest dispatch from a research trip to Antarctica. Climate change researchers aboard the icebreaker Nathaniel B. Palmer sent a robotic submarine for the first look ever at the seafloor under the massive Thwaites Glacier.

These women are changing the landscape of Antarctic research. Polar science used to be dominated by men. An expedition to Thwaites Glacier is helping change that. Elizabeth Rush reports in National Geographic.

Crew and researchers on the Nathaniel B. Palmer compete in a ping pong tournament in the Amundsen Sea, by Jeff Goodell from Rolling Stone magazine.

Snow on Ice: Geology with a Spoon #7

While the seal team sat on one of the smaller Shaeffer Islands tagging their second and third seals (described in a previous blog post), GHC scientists, Scott Braddock and Meghan Spoth from the University of Maine, dug through ancient beaches for the Geological History Constraints (GHC) project of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC).

Jeff Goodell of Rolling Stone magazine reports on why mapping the sea floor in front of Thwaites glacier is so important.

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