THE QUICKENING

An account of the first research voyage to the so-called Doomsday Glacier.

In 2019, Rush joined an international group of marine biologists, oceanographers, and geologists aboard a research vessel heading toward the calving edge of Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier. Because Thwaites sits partially below sea level, exposed to the Southern Ocean, it is vulnerable to warming seas and liable to contribute upward of 2 feet to sea-level rise. However, the rate of its disintegration is poorly understood. In this follow-up to Rising: Dispatches From the New American Shore, Rush shows us how data collection happens, capturing the intriguing details of climate science in the field. The scientists’ goal is to “gain a clearer understanding of Thwaites’s past and present to better predict the future,” and the author brings us along as they send their submersible under the ice, take sediment samples from the ocean floor, gather the bones of penguins, and face down uncertainty and stormy seas. The scientists are not the only heroes of Rush’s book, which emphasizes above all the collaborative and interdependent nature of such voyages, where so much depends on support staff and crew. In addition to her own poetic voice (“the edges of Thwaites’s unfathomable fracturing, its hemorrhaging heart of milk”), the author incorporates the voices of everyone on the ship, highlighting women and racial and ethnic minorities, who have been overlooked in the canon of Antarctic literature. As Rush captures shipboard conversations about the planetary future evident in the data, she also weaves in what her fellow passengers are thinking about a quickening of another kind: Given everything we know about climate change, what are the ethical implications of having children? Considering all sides of the debate, Rush finds that “having children can be an act of radical faith that life will continue, despite all that assails it.”

The fascinating inside story of climate science at the edge of Antarctica.