if we're thinking about what a sea level
going to be like in ten years whether
you're building a dike around your town
or or anticipating how far inland to
move coastal cities in Florida this
glacier is a big piece of that question
and this is the location to be asking
these questions at where we're standing
right on it
[Music]
this is a historic moment the first time
anyone has tried to drill down through
this grass here beneath the six hundred
meters of ice below me is the most
important point of all the point at
which the ice meets the ocean water
this is ice Vinnitsa it's a nasa-funded
robot submarine this is the first time
any measurements have been taken beneath
what they call the the Doomsday gracia
it's the first time anyone has seen this
this is the point where the ice meets
the warmer ocean water it's the place
where this this huge Gracia is rapidly
melting so this glacier is significant
because it is huge and it's deep it's
thick there's a giant volume of ice here
the bottom of the ice is below sea level
and so that means that it's very
sensitive to change so the ocean can
very easily melt in and thin this
glacier so throats grass is really
remote it's right at the heart of the
vast basin of ice that's West Antarctica
the glasses the size of the UK it's the
stormiest part of the stormiest
continent in the world and more than a
thousand miles from the nearest research
station all this broken ice is almost a
hundred miles long the ice rises almost
a mile from the seabed and it's
collapsing into the sea at two miles a
year
if frights melts it'll increase sea
levels worldwide by half a meter but
it's it's in the middle of the West
Antarctic Ice Sheet and thus three
meters more of sea level rise
locked up in that standby 3/2 we have
just detonated a shot and recorded the
energy the echo from the explosion in
order to map the grounding zone so the
point where the glacier glows afloat on
the ocean it is changing it is migrating
inland and so this huge reservoir of ice
behind us is becoming vulnerable to the
ocean melting that's happening out there
let's be clear that the ice here isn't
going to vanish overnight it'll take
decades maybe even centuries forthe
weights to go but as the work here has
confirmed it is melting increasingly
rapidly and that will mean huge changes
for us all