.dwbwriter journeys to the heart of Antarctica to study Thwaites, one of the fastest-retreating glaciers on the continent. If the glacier collapses, it could eventually reshape the world’s coastlines.
The helicopters on the Araon were a finite resource. Greenbaum, who sees coalition maintenance as a key part of his job, wanted to make sure that the Koreans got the next turn. He suggested that he go last, giving priority to Lee Choon-ki, a member of the Korean Extreme Geosciences Group, who would fly with other researchers to their G.P.S. stations. Meanwhile, Greenbaum and I started prepping for our journey. “Bring all your survival gear,” John Bishop, our pilot, warned us.
We listened to the Dixie Chicks as we flew over the cracks and mesa-like formations of the Crosson Ice Shelf. We pushed against the forty-knot wind, the helicopter’s movement a slow, prolonged shudder. At last, we reached the edge of Thwaites.Near a stout, jagged white hill, we spotted an opening that might have been the size of an Olympic swimming pool—it was hard to tell from a hundred and fifty feet in the air.
Greenbaum leaned even deeper into the rotor wash, drew the torpedo back, and hurled it outward. As it fell, its drogue parachute deployed—crucial for keeping it upright. I activated the software again. Then the probe plunged through the opening and into the sea. The weather turned bad again. Two days later, on February 14th, Greenbaum, Bishop, and I stood on the bridge with Yun Sukyoung, one of the chief scientists of the expedition, and Dominic O’Rourke, its lanky, easygoing senior pilot. Through the windows, we could see ice and snow whisking across an iceberg. The drill project had been successfully completed, and its hardware and personnel had returned to the ship. Only a week remained until our departure.
We set out that morning. It took us an hour to reach the depot, which first appeared as a single red point in a featureless plain of white. Bishop landed; the engine grew quiet, and an imposing silence took hold. We were surrounded by Antarctic nothingness. The nausea passed, and I looked around. A fluttering scrap of sun-faded fabric tied to a bamboo stake marked the depot site. Gloomy Mt. Murray pierced the sky to the southwest. Seven red jet-fuel drums lay on their sides, half-buried. It took Bishop and me fifteen minutes to dig one out with our gloved hands. He ran a hose between the barrel and the helicopter and began refuelling. Then we resumed our trip.
We flew on. Bishop developed a clever technique, hovering over our targets and allowing the rotor wash to reveal the thinnest patches of ice. As we moved from drop to drop, I watched our supply of probes dwindle. They were ingeniously designed: when the devices were submerged, salt water completed an internal circuit, releasing the sensor, which plummeted downward. Meanwhile, a buoy bobbed to the surface. The sensor and the buoy were connected by a thousand-metre-long wire.
The weather forecast for the next day was ambiguous. There was a chance that we could fly again and drop more probes. But we needed to solve the ice problem first—otherwise, we’d be dropping them for nothing.
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