The ice isn't just sitting there. For decades, the narrative around the Antarctic was one of "stable" versus "unstable" zones, but the latest data coming out of the field—specifically the recent findings related to Expedition 33 warming up—is forcing a massive rewrite of the textbooks. It’s a messy, complicated, and frankly slightly terrifying look at how heat moves through the Southern Ocean.
Scientists aren't just looking at thermometers anymore. They’re looking at the belly of the ice.
Recent field missions have focused on the Wilkes Subglacial Basin, a massive bowl of ice in East Antarctica. For a long time, East Antarctica was considered the "safe" sibling of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. While the West was shedding ice into the Amundsen Sea like a leaky faucet, the East was supposedly grounded, frozen solid to the bedrock, and largely indifferent to the warming atmosphere. We were wrong. The Expedition 33 warming up signals aren't just about air temperature; they're about the "deep heat" in the water that's sneaking underneath the ice shelves.
Why the Wilkes Basin is the Real Story
When we talk about Expedition 33, we're really talking about the intersection of oceanography and glaciology. If you look at the bathymetry—the shape of the ocean floor—around the East Antarctic margin, there are deep troughs. These are basically highways. They allow Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW), which is relatively warm and salty, to flow toward the continent.
It’s a bit of a silent killer.
You don't see it from a satellite. You don't feel it standing on the surface in a parka. But at 500 meters down, that water is eating away at the grounding line. That’s the point where the ice stops sitting on the rock and starts floating on the sea. Once that line retreats, the whole glacier behind it speeds up. It's like pulling the cork out of a bottle.
The scale here is hard to wrap your head around. The Wilkes Basin alone holds enough ice to raise global sea levels by several meters. Not centimeters. Meters. Now, that won't happen tomorrow, or even by 2030, but the "warming up" phase we're seeing now is the acceleration of the fuse.
The Tech Behind the Discovery
Honestly, we couldn't have known this ten years ago. The tools weren't there.
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- CryoSat-2 and ICESat-2: These satellites are basically laser tape measures in space. They can detect changes in ice height down to a few centimeters.
- Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs): This is the cool stuff. These yellow, torpedo-shaped robots swim under the ice shelves where humans can't go. They’ve been returning data showing that the water temperatures at the grounding lines are significantly higher than previous models predicted.
- Seismic Sounding: By setting off small explosions or using "thumpers" on the ice, researchers can map the terrain underneath. They found that much of the Wilkes Basin sits below sea level, sloping backward. That "retrograde slope" is a nightmare scenario for stability.
Is Expedition 33 Warming Up Faster Than the Rest?
There’s this common misconception that the poles warm at the same rate. They don't. The Arctic is warming nearly four times faster than the global average because of "Arctic Amplification"—less white ice to reflect sun, more dark water to absorb it. Antarctica is different because it’s a massive, high-altitude continent surrounded by a wild, circling current.
But the Expedition 33 warming up data points to a shift in that current. The Westerlies—the winds that blow around Antarctica—are moving further south and getting stronger.
This wind shift pushes the surface water away, which sucks that deep, warm water up from the depths and onto the continental shelf. It’s a physical process called Ekman suction. Basically, the atmosphere is "pulling" the heat into the ice.
Researchers like Dr. Nerilie Abram and teams from the Australian Antarctic Division have been shouting about this for a while. The data from recent ice cores shows that the current rate of warming and ice melt is unprecedented in the last several thousand years. It’s not just a "natural cycle" that we can ignore.
What People Get Wrong About "Warming Up"
Most people think "warming up" means the ice is melting from the top down. Like a popsicle on a sidewalk.
That’s not it.
The air in East Antarctica is still brutally cold. The melting is happening from the bottom up. It’s basal melt. The ocean is doing 90% of the work. This is why you can see a glacier that looks perfectly fine on top, while it’s actually thinning at an exponential rate underneath. By the time the top starts to crumble, the battle is already lost.
The Impact on Global Coastal Cities
If the Expedition 33 warming up trends continue at this pace, the "static" sea level rise projections from the IPCC are going to look very conservative. We’ve been operating on the assumption that East Antarctica would stay put. If the Wilkes Basin becomes mobile, we have to recalibrate everything.
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- London and New York: These cities aren't just worried about high tides; they're worried about the "base" level of the ocean rising so high that storm surges become catastrophic.
- The Rice Bowls of Asia: Think Vietnam and Bangladesh. A few centimeters of sea level rise pushes salt water into the groundwater, killing crops long before the land is actually "underwater."
- Real Estate Devaluation: We’re already seeing "climate gentrification" where people are moving to higher ground, and insurance companies are straight-up pulling out of coastal markets.
It’s not just about polar bears or penguins. It’s about the global economy.
The Reality of the "Tipping Point"
Is it too late?
Maybe.
Some glaciologists argue we’ve already passed the tipping point for parts of the West Antarctic. For the East—where the Expedition 33 focus lies—there is still a chance to slow the roll. But it requires a massive reduction in thermal energy being absorbed by the oceans.
The Southern Ocean has been doing us a huge favor. It has absorbed about 90% of the excess heat generated by greenhouse gas emissions. But it’s reaching its limit. It’s like a sponge that’s totally saturated. When the ocean can’t take any more heat, that heat stays in the atmosphere or goes straight into the ice.
Actionable Insights and Next Steps
We can’t go down there with a giant refrigerator and cool the ocean. That's not how this works. But understanding the Expedition 33 warming up phenomenon gives us a roadmap for adaptation.
- Support High-Resolution Mapping: We need more AUV missions. We can't manage what we don't measure. Funding for Antarctic research is often the first thing cut in budget cycles, which is insane given the stakes.
- Infrastructure Reassessment: If you live within 50 miles of a coast, check the local "Managed Retreat" plans. Most major coastal cities now have them. It’s better to know the 30-year plan now than to be surprised in 10 years.
- Carbon Deceleration: It sounds like a broken record, but the ocean temperature is a direct lag-indicator of atmospheric CO2. Every fraction of a degree we prevent in the atmosphere buys years of stability for the East Antarctic ice shelves.
The data from the field is clear. The warming isn't "coming"—it's already deep inside the system. The focus now has to shift from "is it happening?" to "how fast can we move?" The ice is moving, and it’s time we did too.
The best way to stay informed on this specific region is to follow the updates from the SCAR (Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research) and the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS). They provide the raw data feeds that eventually filter down into the news reports we see months later. Staying ahead of the curve means looking at the ocean temp anomalies today, not the headline-grabbing ice shelf collapses tomorrow.