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It is with deep sorrow we report the death of Professor David Vaughan who was the UK lead on the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC). He was suffering from cancer and passed away peacefully at home in the UK on Thursday 9 February 2023. David retired as British Antarctic Survey (BAS) Director of Science in July 2021 and remained working as the UK lead in the Science Coordination Office (SCO) for the ITGC.
The rapid retreat of Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica appears to be driven by different processes under its floating ice shelf than researchers previously understood. Novel observations from where the ice enters the ocean show that while melting beneath much of the ice shelf is weaker than expected, melting in cracks and crevasses is much faster. Despite the suppressed melting the glacier is still retreating, and these findings provide an important step forward in understanding the glacier’s contribution to future sea-level rise.
An international team of researchers has combined satellite imagery and climate and ocean records to obtain the most detailed understanding yet of how the West Antarctic Ice Sheet – which contains enough ice to raise global sea level by 3.3 metres – is responding to climate change. The researchers, several of whom are part of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, found that the pace and extent of ice destabilisation along West Antarctica’s coast varies according to differences in regional climate.
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