January 10, 2022 - Thwaites Glacier

Follow @NASA_MODIS

Thwaites
Tweet
Share

The massive Thwaites Glacier, which slides slowly over 74.5 miles (120
km) of coastline in West Antarctica, has been called “Antarctica’s
riskiest glacier” due to the impact of the release vast amount of water
as it melts. According to a recent publication by the Cooperative
Institute for Research in Environmental Science at the University of
Colorado Boulder (CIRES), the demise of this ice sheet poses the
biggest threat for sea-level rise this century.

The glacier, roughly the size of Spain, has been melting rapidly over
the last decades, but the process has not been thoroughly studied.
Recently, scientists have discovered the unsettling fact that that
warmer water underneath the glacier is causing melting from below,
which means the melting is occurring faster than previously
anticipated. The enhanced melting also increases the likelihood of the
collapse of the glacier—possibly within the next few decades.

At the current melt rate, the glacier currently contributes four
percent of annual global sea level rise. Should it collapse, scientists
currently estimate that global sea levels would rise by several feet, a
scenario that would cause substantial flooding in coastal areas around
the world.

Nearly 100 scientists have joined together in the International
Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC) to conduct a five-year
collaborative set of studies aimed at collecting instrument data
throughout the glacier and adjacent ocean, and then modeling ice flow
to predict the future of the Thwaites Glacier. To date, the ITGC has
discovered many changes in the ice, the surrounding water, and the area
where it floats off the underlying bedrock—insights that will help the
understanding and potential mitigation of glacial change in a warming
climate.

On January 1, 2022, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
(MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a false-color image of
the Thwaites Glacier. This type of image uses infrared and visible
light (Bands 7,2,1) to distinguish ice from water and cloud. Deep water
appears dark inky-blue or black, while cloud looks white, and ice or
snow shows as bright electric blue. Black lines have been overlain on
the image to mark the edge of the continent. The brownish swirls appear
to be sediment although it is possible the coloration comes from
shadows. The long ice tongue of Thwaites Glacier can be seenprotruding
into the Amundsen Sea.

Image Facts
Satellite: Terra
Date Acquired: 1/6/2022
Resolutions: 1km (212.7 KB), 500m (718.8 KB), 250m (2.4 MB)
Bands Used: 7,2,1
Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC



https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2022-01-10
--- up 5 weeks, 1 day, 20 hours, 43 minutes
* Origin: -=> Castle Rock BBS <=- Now Husky HPT Powered! (1:317/3)