Scientists to drill into Antarctica’s fragile ‘Doomsday Glacier’ that poses threat to world’s oceans

Researchers have never drilled into the Thwaites glacier before

Scientists are preparing to drill 1m deep into Antarctica’s “Doomsday Glacier” in a bid to understand the “underwater tsunamis”, which could have severe consequences for the climate.

The collapse of the Thwaites Glacier, a huge mass of ice up to 2,000 metres thick that covers an area nearly as large as the United Kingdom, would lead global sea levels to rise by 65cm, researchers say.

Scientists will now drill into one of the most difficult to access and least-understood areas of the glacier in order to directly observe the processes that cause warm ocean water to melt the ice above.

Dr Peter Davis, a physical oceanographer at British Antarctic Survey (BAS), said the project is an “extremely challenging mission” taking place on “one of the most important and unstable glaciers on the planet”.

Scientists will drill 1000m deep into the glacier (British Antarctic Survey)

Over the next two weeks, a team from the BAS and the Korea Polar Research Institute (KOPRI) will use a hot water drill to bore through the ice before sending down instruments which will send data back to the researchers above.

The researchers will be looking into “underwater tsunamis”, which can span from 10 to hundreds of metres, researchers told Sky News Australia.

“These big underwater waves, with amplitudes of 10s to possibly hundreds of meters, what that can do is mix deep water with water closer to the surface. We have to understand that in order to make those better predictions about sea ice melt,” BAS oceanographer Dr Alex Brearley told the broadcaster.

Dr Davis said that “for the first time” scientists will be “watching, in near real time, what warm ocean water is doing to the ice 1,000 metres below the surface”.

“This has only recently become possible – and it’s critical for understanding how fast sea levels could rise.”

Previous research into the Thwaites glacier has focused on more stable areas, but the upcoming research will take place on the glacier’s main trunk, which has been largely unexplored because of its crevassed nature.

If the Thwaites glacier collapses, global sea levels could rise by 65cm (British Antarctic Survey)

The team will drill 1,000 metres deep, to the point where the glacier lifts off the seabed and becomes a floating ice shelf – the point at which Thwaites is most vulnerable, with warm ocean water flowing under the glacier and melting from below.

Water will be heated to around 90C before it is pumped at high pressure through a hose to melt the ice, creating a hole around 30cm in diameter as the hot water melts ice at a rate of around one metre per minute.

“This is polar science in the extreme,” said Dr Won Sang Lee, principal research scientist at KOPRI. “We made this epic journey with no guarantee we’d even be able to make it onto the ice, so to be on the glacier and getting ready to deploy these instruments is testament to the skills and expertise of everyone involved from KOPRI and BAS.”

Drilling engineer Keith Makinson said the BAS team, which he said has 75 years of hot water drilling experience, are “world-leaders in this technology”.

“Over the past four decades, it’s been amazing to see this technology develop, and now it’s helping to answer crucial questions about how we’re all going to be affected by climate change and rising sea levels,” he said.