On Tuesday, a week after scientists from Britain and South Korea pitched tents on Antarctica’s remote Thwaites Glacier, they were pretty much ready to start drilling into the half-mile-deep ice.

The multiday drilling operation would be the culmination of the eight-week voyage of the icebreaker Araon. If successful, it would allow the researchers to lower instruments through the glacier into the ocean below, providing never-before-seen data on how the water is melting the ice from the bottom up. This melting contributes to global sea-level rise by allowing the part of the glacier still sitting on land to slide more rapidly into the ocean.

But fierce winds, like those that had been whipping for days around the researchers’ campsite, could cause their drill equipment to freeze up or become buried in snowdrifts. They would also make it difficult for the scientists to stay outside while boring the hole and installing instruments beneath the ice, in a process they expected to take more than 60 hours.

Calmer conditions were forecast for Wednesday, which was when the scientists hoped to get to work. They were fine with having to wait an extra day.

“We’ve come this far,” said Peter Davis, an oceanographer at the British Antarctic Survey. “It would be annoying if we failed at the last hurdle, just for the sake of a day.”