We’re bringing you the latest from our journey to Antarctica’s fastest-melting glacier, but first let’s get caught up:
JOURNEY TO ANTARCTICA Tantalizingly close to an Antarctic glacierAfter sailing to one of the world’s most remote glaciers, members of our Antarctic expedition have finally set foot on its hostile, deeply fractured surface. One of the trickiest operations on this voyage has begun, sort of. A 10-person team aboard the icebreaker Araon is hoping to drill deep into the immense Thwaites Glacier to better understand why it is melting at such an alarming rate. The helicopter flight from the ship’s deck to the drilling site takes less than 20 minutes. But the Antarctic weather, which can change by the hour, just hasn’t cooperated. When Dominic O’Rourke, one of the expedition’s two helicopter pilots, took to the skies with the first members of the drilling party on Saturday morning, poor visibility quickly made him return to the ship.
The view from above a glacierLater that morning, O’Rourke took Chang W. Lee, my photographer colleague, and me up in his helicopter to see whether conditions were improving. Within seconds, we were soaring above the remnants of Thwaites’s western tongue, a 30-mile-long jumble of flat-topped icebergs that are moving out to sea at more than 20 feet a day. These blocks of ice are thousands of feet across and separated by canyons that glow an otherworldly blue, like a rugged landscape of mesas recast in ice and snow. We were still miles from the desired drilling site when the glacier and the sky started blurring into a zone of pure white. When clouds swallow up the horizon this way, helicopter pilots sometimes can’t tell which way is up, forcing them to turn around, O’Rourke said.
“We do what we can based on what Antarctica allows us to do,” he said as he flew us back to the ship. O’Rourke tried again on Sunday morning, under slate-gray skies. His passengers were Choon-Ki Lee, a principal research scientist at the Korea Polar Research Institute, and two field guides, Jinsuk Kim and Taff Raymond. They were scouting the glacier, looking for a spot that would be safe for the other scientists to set up camp. Using a radar device towed behind a remote-controlled vehicle, they would determine if the ice beneath the proposed drilling site was stable enough.
If they deemed it safe, the team could start ferrying gear from the ship and doing the work they had come to the bottom of the planet to do: bore a hole through Thwaites, then install data-gathering instruments in the warming seawater below. That will help them estimate how much time remains before the glacier could collapse, driving up sea levels worldwide. Read more.
CLIMATE POLICY Under Trump, U.S. adds fuel to a heating planetBy pulling the United States out of the main international climate treaty, seizing Venezuelan crude oil and using government power to resuscitate the domestic coal industry while choking off clean energy, the Trump administration is not just ignoring climate change, it is quite likely making the problem worse. President Trump has never been shy about rejecting the scientific reality of global warming: It’s a “hoax,” he has said, a “scam,” and a “con job.” In recent days his administration has slammed the door on every possible avenue of global cooperation on the environment. At the same time, it is sending the message that it wants the world to be awash in fossil fuels sold by America, no matter the consequences. The moves follow one of the hottest years on record, during which scientists say climate change supercharged raging wildfires in Los Angeles, deadly flooding in Texas, and a Category 5 hurricane that ravaged Caribbean islands. — Lisa Friedman ASK NYT CLIMATE Is grass-fed beef really better for the climate?Whether making a spaghetti Bolognese or getting ready to grill some steaks, Americans buying beef might find themselves wondering if they should spend a few dollars more per pound for the grass-fed option. The image of cows grazing in a pasture is certainly picturesque. And, at first glance, it may seem like a more humane and planet-friendly alternative to factory-farmed beef. But the environmental effects of food are often complex. So, we asked the experts: Is grass-fed beef better for the climate? — Sachi Kitajima Mulkey Read more. And read more from Ask NYT Climate. MORE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION NEWS E.P.A. moves to limit states’ ability to block pipelines: The Trump administration on Tuesday moved to limit the ability of states to block the construction of oil pipelines, coal export terminals and other energy projects that could pollute local waterways. Trump cuts to blue state energy projects were unlawful, judge rules: In a ruling, a federal judge wrote that the cancellation of seven Biden-era grants for clean energy projects, worth some $27.5 million, violated the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection of the laws. More climate news from around the web:
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