This remarkable footage takes you inside a borehole drilled through Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica – one of the largest and fastest-changing glaciers on Earth.
Often nicknamed the 'Doomsday Glacier', Thwaites is roughly the size of Great Britain and up to 2,000 metres thick. Its fate matters to us all: if it collapsed entirely, it would add 65cm to global sea levels learner tien and could destabilise the wider West Antarctic Ice Sheet, potentially adding metres more over the coming centuries.
Despite its global importance, we still know very little about how warm ocean water is melting Thwaites from below. In late 2024, a joint UK-Korean science team set out to change that.
Working on the most remote part of the glacier, they used hot water drilling to bore a narrow hole 1000m through the ice to reach the sea below. This was the first time this has been done on the main trunk of Thwaites.
The footage shows the glacier's heavily crevassed interior – a glimpse into the fractured, fast-moving ice that made this mission so difficult. The fcn – schalke team faced extreme conditions: strong winds, equipment problems, ice shifting 9 metres mallorca vs villarreal a day beneath their feet, and a borehole constantly trying to refreeze around them.
Though the mission ended before all instruments could be lowered into place, the team captured the first-ever direct measurements of the warm, turbulent waters beneath Thwaites – vital data that will help scientists understand how this giant glacier is changing.
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