Antarctica is the largest coldest desert on the planet with snowfall dropping less than six inches of water there each year.

But for such a dry place, Antarctica has an outsized impact on the world's oceans.

The ice sheet that covers much of the continent contains most of Earth's fresh water.

You've probably heard that a lot of that ice is melting because of climate change and contributing to sea level rise.

But glaciers and ice shelves aren't just made of frozen water.

What else is the melt sending out to sea? For Scientific American Science

Quickly, I'm Rachel Feltman. You're listening to the first episode of a four-part fascination

series on Antarctica.

For the next four Fridays, we'll follow award-winning

Brazilian journalist Sophia Motino as she travels on the Nathaniel B

Palmer, a US icebreaker on a mission to help us understand how the climate crisis will unfold.

Today, we'll meet her on the ship as she and her fellow passengers encounter the fastest melting glaciers and ice shelves on the bridge of the D'Artagno B Palmer, a UN size-breaker that is slowly cruising along

the coast of the coldest and most remote continent on Earth, Antarctica.

35 international researchers are on board for a 60 day mission.

Their goal is to collect thousands of gallons of water, plus lots of sea ice to help uncover the future of our oceans and Earth's climate.

Ooh, what is that? That's Phoebe Lab, a chemical oceanographer at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

I think that's land. That's land. Land Ahoy!

Exciting. She is one of three scientists leading these crews

and this is her third time in Antarctica.

Hey, it's our first land since a while.

Our journey started more than 20 days ago when we left port in the small

southern Chilean town of Puncaranas at the end of November 2023.

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