After days of navigating sea ice and uncertainty, we finally arrive at an ideal location alongside Thwaites Glacier—and the view stops me cold.
From the deck of the icebreaker Araon, the face of Thwaites rises in front of us: vast, luminous, and unsettlingly beautiful. This is the moment the entire expedition has been working toward. From here, helicopters can reach the glacier’s grounding line—the critical boundary where ice meets land and ocean, and where warm seawater is eating away at the glacier from below.
That’s where scientists plan to establish a hot-water drilling camp, melt a narrow hole through the ice, and lower instruments deep beneath the glacier to measure temperature, currents, and melt rates. No one has ever gathered data like this at Thwaites’ main trunk.
Standing here, it’s hard not to feel the weight of the moment. This is a small piece of scientific history unfolding in real time—and the data collected here will help scientists understand why Thwaites is melting so fast, and what that means for coastlines around the world.
It’s an extraordinary privilege to witness it—and to share it with you.
