Well, if you've been following Miles O'Brien's reports from Antarctica on our broadcast and online,

you know he's reporting on an international group of researchers trying to measure what's happening to one of the fastest melting glaciers there.

And their work is trying to capture information in ways that have never been done before.

Tonight, he has an update on how all that turned out, part of our periodic

series, Tipping Point. At long last, they got to the core of this far-flung mission. Hot water

was sluicing through glacier ice like a knife through butter. A milestone moment at the most

menacing glacier of all,

Thwaites.

It was a long, strange journey to get to this place and time.

Eleven days on a Korean icebreaker from New Zealand

to West Antarctica.

10 days waiting for the clouds to lift,

so the helicopters could too.

And 10 more setting up camp on the vast void in the teeth of harsh Antarctic winds.

Great.

Lovely.

Researchers at the Korea Polar Research Institute, Kopri, partnered with the British Antarctic Survey,

Bass. They wrote the book on this Blitzkrieg boring method. Pete Davis is a physical oceanographer.

We shovel for days, and then the wind, the wind was too strong. We had to delay.

Partly it's uncomfortable for us, but it also, the wind chill factor.

It just makes everything freeze and freezing is obviously our worst enemy.

This glacier is large enough to raise global sea levels two and a half feet.

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