Over 100 members of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration met in Boulder, Colorado, USA, in June 2022. Teams from across the UK, US and Korea, re-connected at the University of Colorado, both in person and online, for the first time since before the pandemic for a week-long meeting.

Project scientists presented their latest observations and science results that have been published from both fieldwork and modelling studies, and joined in group discussions to link project findings to larger understandings. Funders and operational planners presented the fieldwork planned for the next two field seasons, including the large on ice 2023 season. Enhancing diversity has been a strong focus of the overall ITGC program, and this was emphasized throughout the presentations as well as in special workshop sessions held for all participants.

James Wake, operations lead at British Antarctic Survey, said:

“With the backlog from Covid restrictions, the 2022/23 season is hugely ambitious. We will start major fieldwork for the GHOST project which will use the tractor traverse and involves over 20 people”.

Ted Scambos, Senior Research Scientist and US principal investigator for ITGC based at the University of Colorado Boulder, said:

“It was great to finally get everyone together again – our first in-person meeting since 2019. It was a chance for all the teams to meet and work across the projects to see how Thwaites Glacier is behaving and ultimately contributing to global sea-level rise.”