The feature was about 112 km long and 32 km wide, and in January 1966 its southern extent was only 5 km north of Thwaites Glacier Tongue. [23][24], In January 2019, NASA discovered an underwater cavity underneath the glacier, with an area two-thirds the size of Manhattan. Photo: David Vaughan, NBP and sea ice in view. Thwaites is especially remote and little studied. The researchers noted with concern, that at the baseline of the glacier, the temperature of the water is already more than two degrees above freezing point.
Anderson, a veteran of more than two dozen Antarctic expeditions, is a member of the collaboration’s Thwaites Offshore Research (THOR) project, as are three former members of his research group – Julia Wellner ’01 of the University of Houston, Rebecca Totten Minzoni ’14, of the University of Alabama and Lauren Simkins of the University of Virginia. The paper notes that Thwaites glacier covers 74,000 sq miles (192,000 sq km), … [13], Extensive calving at the marine terminus of Thwaites Glacier is monitored by remote sensing and seismological observations, with the largest events being seismically detectable at ranges up to 1600 km. [4] The historian Reuben Gold Thwaites was his father.[5].
Having and Being Had, Eula Biss. Learn more about Thwaites Glacier's size, location, and more Click here to download our facts sheet.
Robel, along with scientists Helene Seroussi and Gerard Roe used mathematical analysis and computer models to make projections of sea levels in the future. The melt has increased from 10 billion tonnes of ice a year in the 1990s, to 80 billion tonnes a year now. Nicknamed the Doomsday glacier, the Thwaites glacier flows off the west of the Antarctic and is dumping billions of tonnes of ice into the ocean. On 15 March 2002, the National Ice Center reported that an iceberg named B-22 broke off from the ice tongue. [12] The discovery was a part of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, a US-UK-based research firm. [22] It was first noted in the 1930s, but finally detached from the ice tongue and broke up in the late 1980s. Thwaites is the widest glacier on Earth, at ~120 km (~80 miles) wide. It was initially delineated from aerial photographs collected during Operation Highjump in January 1947. Learn more about the mission. Photo: Linda Welzenbach. “The Greenland Ice Sheet shows clear signs of accelerated decay, with vast areas experiencing melting and retreat that is clearly observed from space,” Anderson said. The danger is the melting could become “runaway”, she says. Visiting the most vulnerable place on Earth: the 'doomsday glacier', International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, Antarctica melting: Climate change and the journey to the 'doomsday glacier', "Thwaites Glacier: Antarctica, name, geographic coordinates, description, map", "Time 'Thwaites' for no one: the story behind Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica", "The Race to Understand Antarctica's Most Terrifying Glacier", "Scientists Predict Faster Retreat for Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier - The Earth Institute - Columbia University", "This Antarctic glacier is the biggest threat for rising sea levels.
Thwaites Glacier (75°30′S 106°45′W / 75.500°S 106.750°W / -75.500; -106.750), sometimes referred to as the Doomsday Glacier,[1] is an unusually broad and vast Antarctic glacier flowing into the Pine Island Bay, part of the Amundsen Sea, east of Mount Murphy, on the Walgreen Coast of Marie Byrd Land. “Scientists need that information to predict future ice loss and associated sea-level rise.”. It was initially delineated from aerial photographs collected during Operation Highjump in January 1947. Scientists are racing to find out", "International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC)", "Scientists drill for first time on remote Antarctic Glacier", U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Thwaites Glacier, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thwaites_Glacier&oldid=970326141, Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the USGS Geographic Names Information System, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 30 July 2020, at 17:08.
The melt has increased from 10 billion tonnes of ice a year in the 1990s, to 80 billion tonnes a year today.
Rice University researchers, alumni and staff are part of an international effort that has discovered a pathway for warm ocean water to melt the underside of Thwaites Glacier, a precarious body of west Antarctic ice that could add as much as 25 inches to global sea level if it were to suffer a runaway collapse. The Thwaites Iceberg Tongue (74°0′S 108°30′W / 74.000°S 108.500°W / -74.000; -108.500) was a large iceberg tongue which was aground in the Amundsen Sea, about 32 km northeast of Bear Peninsula.