The icebreaker Nathaniel B. Palmer is setting out this southern summer on a seven-week scientific expedition to Antarctica’s massive Thwaites Glacier. The voyage marks the beginning of a five-year international effort to try to find out how quickly the glacier may melt in a warming world, and what that could mean for global sea levels.
The World’s Carolyn Beeler is onboard and will be reporting on the expedition. Her first dispatch comes from the port of Punta Arenas, Chile, on the Strait of Magellan.
Related: What Thwaites Glacier can tell us about the future of West Antarctica
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