Thwaites, a notoriously unstable glacier in western Antarctica, is cracking and disintegrating, spelling bad news for sea level rise across the globe. Efforts are afoot to understand the geometry and chemistry of Thwaites, which is about the size of Florida, in order to gauge the impact that warming waters and climate change may have on it. An 11-foot tube-like underwater robot called Icefin — first developed at Georgia Tech — is offering us a detailed look deep under the ice at how the vulnerable ice shelf in Antarctica is melting. By way of two papers published this week in the journal Nature, Icefin has been providing pertinent details regarding the conditions beneath the freezing waters. Justin Lawrence, a graduate student in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, is one of the co-authors of the papers. (This research is also covered in Wired, BBC.com, and at NYU.edu. Alexander Robel, assistant professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences who leads the Ice and Climate Group, is quoted in the Wired article.)