An international team of scientists has just left for Antarctica to collect glaciomarine sediments at the ice sheet's western edges, which will be used to estimate future ocean level rise. The expedition, which includes technicians and specialists from 13 countries, is part of the SWAIS 2C project (Sensitivity of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to a 2°C rise) and will use paleoclimatic analysis techniques to study sediment samples from the seafloor beneath the Ross Shelf, the world's largest ice shelf. Samples will be extracted through boreholes reaching depths of up to 200 meters below sea level. The National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), the University of Genoa, the University of Siena, the University of Trieste, and the National Institute of Oceanography and Experimental Geophysics (OGS) are participating in the mission for Italy, supported by the PNRA (National Antarctic Research Program) and the Italy for SWAIS-2C project. "The West Antarctic Ice Sheet contains so much ice that if it melted completely, sea levels would rise by 4-5 meters", says Paola Del Carlo, an INGV researcher. "Recent research has shown that, due to the increase in global temperature due to ongoing climate change, the collapse of some parts of it may be inevitable; however, this increase in temperature has not yet affected the waters beneath the Ross Ice Shelf which, therefore, still represents a support that helps stabilize the overlying glacial mass for now—but we don't know for how long." The current mission on the Antarctic continent tries to determine what temperature would cause the Ross Shelf to melt, resulting in the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.