Judy: In addition to its
connection with the extreme heat
and weather events here and
around the globe, climate change
is also having a measurable
impact on a much slower moving
development -- the loss of
glaciers and the melting of the
ice.
Science correspondent miles
o'brien has been chronicling one
scientists to track what is
happening with one of the most
important glaciers and here is
his latest update.
Reporter: It was like a scene
from star wars when climate
scientist David Holland finally
made it to ground zero.
>> Just absolute insane fun and
I thought I was going to die.
We flew the helicopter through
the crevasses.
Reporter: These eyes canyons are
in the antarctic appeared it is
the so-called doomsday glacier
and you are seeing it in its
death throes as close as anyone
ever has.
>> This is perhaps the most
important glacier in the world
in terms of its potential impact
this century.
Reporter: The size of Florida,
it stores enough water to impact
global seawater -- 10 fee if the
ice is held in place.
And here the ice is melting at a
stunning rate.
100 meters, more than 300 feet a
year.
How long can it last?
>> That is the question we are
pushing for -- we want to have
an ice forecast.
Without that we have no insight
into our future.
Reporter: Holland is a professor
at New York university.
There, we watched some scenes
from his epic voyage.
Year after year he risks his
life in pursuit of elusive data.
For starters, he wants to know
the water temperature below the
cracks but the probe holding the
instruments is not breaking
through.
>> There is a thin film of ice,
maybe an inch or so.
When you drop the probe it hits
the ice and will not go through.
Reporter: Finding a way through
that layer of ice was the
umpteenth challenge he has
experienced in this long arctic
campaign.
>> This was the most difficult
mission we have ever been on.
Reporter: They arrived in
christchurch, New Zealand on
December 20 and it took three
weeks for their covid quarantine
to lift and equipment to arrive.
>> Ready to set sail next week.
Reporter: Funded by the national
science foundation and its
counterparts in the U.K., Canada
and South Korea, three dozen
researchers joined the south
Korean icebreaker.
Bringing -- brimming with deer,
it set sail.
>> The idea was to go straight
to the ice shelf.
Brilliant idea lead to failure
because we were not planning on
sea ice.
Reporter: Seemingly true to her
name, the ship cuts through most
ice like butter at 14 knots.
Most ice.
For unknown reasons, a huge
conglomeration of cis floated in
the sea between them and their
destination.
Eventually, it was too much.
>> The dreams of reaching our
destination have been dashed.
Reporter: What were your
thoughts?
>> We lost the prize.
We were not going to be able to
get the data.
Reporter: All geared up with no
place to go, team Holland
started eyeing a consolation
prize.
>> It is Monday morning, January
24.
We arrived here at the ice
shelf.
Reporter: The datsun ice shelf
is stable.
Not a threat like the other.
But it is a local target of
opportunity so they got busy
deploying the scientific field
camp they had designed for the
first destination on datsun.
>> The Hilo operations are
moving at lightning speed.
Reporter: They had to airlift 50
tons of gear one ton at a time.
>> Our base camp is about 20
kilometers inland.
Reporter: The mission there --
drill a one foot wide corridor
mile deep hole, drop instruments
in and leave a mooring behind to
monitor what is happening where
most of the melting occurs.
They drilled with hot water made
from snow and hand shoveled into
a 2600 gallon container.
As a set up the gear and started
drilling, Holland scrambled to
make his complex mooring work
and the pressure was on.
>> We think we will be through
in about six hours and after
that we are ready for the
mooring but it is not ready.
Reporter: Up to this point, the
weather had been benign by
antarctic standards.
On the day that everything had
to be ready though, --
>> The weather has gone [beep]
And the snow is really starting
to blow.
Reporter: --There was no time
to hunker down so down went the
mooring fingers crossed.
>> It is Wednesday, February
10th.
The mooring was installed about
a day and a half ago.
1300 meters or 4000 feet below
me is an instrument that is
talking right now with this
computer.
Woo hoo!
A little bit of restraint now.
Yes!
[Cheering]
There was a lot of screaming
even though it was in the middle
of a blizzard.
It was like -- this worked!
Reporter: He wanted the
instruments beneath the place
where the glacier meets the
land.
There warm seawater interacts
with cooler melted fresh water
from the glacier.
A boundary layer which creates
turbulence.
>> It is that turbulence at the
boundary layer is how warm water
on the ocean gets through the
ice.
We don't understand the
turbulence.
We want to capture it.
Reporter: As the ice fractures
and melts, the water flow gets
more complicated.
Understanding this is crucial
for David Holland if he is ever
to succeed at creating an
accurate ice forecast.
But for now, any crumb of data
helps which brings us back to
where we began.
With time and fuel just enough
for a few extended flights,
Holland and his team flew to the
open wound.
After the probes brimming with
instruments refused to penetrate
the eyes, they filled a few with
shackles from the ship.
>> We called it a Shackleton
bomb and this incredibly heavy
piece of metal, you throw that
out the door first and it
creates a whole and then you
throw the real probe after it
and it worked brilliantly.
Reporter: They got a dozen
readings.
>> It is the first ever data
from western thwaits.
What we saw was data that the
warmest water anywhere in
Antarctica is under their,
almost four degrees centigrade
above freezing.
Crazy warm for water near ice.
Reporter: That is 40 degrees
fahrenheit.
You don't have to be a climate
scientist to understand how
serious that number is.
It appears the ice forecast that
David Holland is so determined
to create will not predict if
but rather when.
Until then, the world will have
to wait and wonder how long the
glaciers can teeter on this
precipice.
For the pbs newshour, I am miles
o'brien.
♪♪