Terra

An abundant but imperiled species draws scientists to Antarctica

In Antarctica, when you sedate a 1,000-pound Weddell seal, it can take a while for the animal to settle down.

Andrew Thurber is a self-described “connoisseur of worms.” He finds these wriggling, sinuous creatures, many with jaws and enough legs to propel an army, to be “enticing.” In the Antarctic, where he dives through the ice in the name of science, a type of worm known as a nemertean can reach 7 feet long.

When Andrew Thurber started his journey in marine biology at Hawaii Pacific University, he got a surprise. “I thought I wanted to work with fish,” he says. “Turns out I don’t.”

We are slowly beginning to understand the anatomy of global climate and how it changes, its geographic fingerprint and its tempo. Ice cores paint a complex and sometimes surprising picture, one that generations of scientists will spend decades trying to fully understand.

With ice coverage shrinking in the Arctic and parts of the Antarctic, scientists are scrambling to predict future consequences.