RAYMOND ZHONG

New York Times

When it comes to the future of the world's coasts, few places on Earth matter more than the ice-choked, storm-tossed Bellingshausen Sea.

There, the warm ocean currents whirling around Antarctica first wash up onto the continental shelf and bathe the vast ice sheet, making the region the tip of the spear for the melting processes that are raising sea levels globally.

So when Andy Thompson, an environmental scientist at the California Institute of Technology, got a chance to go to the Bellingshausen next year, he seized it. There's so much to be discovered there that any expedition is the oceanographic equivalent of going to the moon, Thompson said.

Now, President Trump's cost-cutting could take away the ship.

Among the many deep cuts to scientific research

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