Antarctica Dispatch 9: Thoughts on climate change and returning home

The Nathaniel B. Palmer is headed back to port in Chile. Scientists aboard the vessel have spent the last several weeks conducting research at Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica.

There’s a sense of excitement to return home to family.

University of Alabama PhD student Victoria Fitzgerald is excited to see her 10-month-old daughter. “I left and she was barely crawling,” Fitzgerald said. “And now she’s like standing up for herself.” 

Other scientists expressed enthusiasm for simpler things one could take for granted on the mainland like fresh vegetables — long since absent in the pantry of the Palmer. And University of Gothenburg researcher Aleksandra Mazur longed for uninterrupted sleep, “[i]n complete silence. No voices, no ice hitting the ship,” she said.

Oceanographer Peter Sheehan said he’s looking forward to the little things. “I’m looking forward to a glass of wine,” he said. “I’m looking forward to my own bed. I am looking forward to — I suppose just the little things like cycling to work — the little routines you don’t realize that you’d miss until you don’t have them anymore.”

As researchers headed home, they reflected on what brought them to Antarctica in the first place: a changing climate, and their desire to understand it better.

Marine ecologist Gui Bortolotto says the topic can be depressing, especially when he thinks about his 2-year-old son.

“We still have the feeling that he just arrived in this world, and when my wife and I talk about this, we’re like wondering if he’s going to be happy with all the issues the world has,” he said.

Bortolotto also worries about the fate of his own hometown, a low-lying coastal city in Brazil. But he said he works hard to separate these feelings from his work.

“When I’m doing my job, I’m not thinking that my hometown will be underwater, I’m thinking that this is a global issue that I need to help to understand,” he said.

One important takeaway after the long trip to Thwaites Glacier, is just how difficult it is to gather data in places like Antarctica.

And it took seven years for University of Gothenburg oceanographer Anna Wåhlin to get an unmanned submarine down underneath the glacier with its roughly 20 sensors track changes in the water and mapping the seabed.

The researchers on the Palmer are already starting to analyze the data they gathered on this trip and write up their findings. Ultimately, their data will be published and fed into models that will provide more accurate predictions of future sea level rise.