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ITGC: 2021 What is happening at Thwaites Glacier?


ITGC: How quickly could a massive Antarctic glacier collapse?


Photo of Danny May
Department
Department of Geophysics
PhD Student
Affiliation
Stanford University
Email
dfxmay@stanford.edu
Project
TIME
Danny May is a PhD student in Geophysics at Stanford University interested in using bistatic radar measurements to infer the spatial distribution of material properties within and at the base of glaciers. Danny took part in the 2021-22 TIME field season to rescue buried geophysical equipment and carry out radar surveys at the Thwaites Eastern Shear Margin.
Photo of Nicole Bienert
Department
Department of Electrical Engineering
PhD Student
Affiliation
Stanford University
Email
bienert@stanford.edu
Project
TIME

Nicole is a PhD student in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. She is inventing radar techniques to measure ice properties at scales previously unexplored. The systems she develops provide measurements that better constrain ice sheet models to improve accuracy of sea level rise predictions.

Photo of Ronan Agnew
Department
Ice Dynamics and Palaeoclimate
Postdoctoral Researcher
Affiliation
BAS: British Antarctic Survey
Email
rognew91@bas.ac.uk
Project
TIME
GHOST

Ronan Agnew is a geophysicist and glaciologist at the British Antarctic Survey. He is interested in using active seismic techniques to investigate conditions beneath and within glaciers in Antarctica. As part of the GHOST team, he is involved in the acquisition and analysis of seismic data during the 2023-2024 field season, and aims to determine the materials that make up the bed beneath Thwaites Glacier - this will help inform the sliding laws used in ice sheet models. Prior to his work at BAS, he undertook fieldwork for the TIME project in the 2021-22 season.

Celebrating International Women’s Day on 8 March 2022

International Women’s Day is celebrated every year on 8 March. This year’s theme is #BreaktheBias

In the field at last! TARSAN collects data at Thwaites Glacier

The TARSAN ice team swung into action quickly after arriving at WAIS Divide camp (Figure 1 above). WAIS Divide, located on the highest part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, was first opened in 2006 in support of a major ice coring effort to gather a record of past Antarctic and global climate data reaching back nearly 70,000 years. Since then, the camp has served as a logistical hub in support of additional work on the borehole, and for other science in the region. WAIS Divide camp is the gateway for the on-ice research on Thwaites Glacier conducted by ITGC scientists across our field seasons.
In early January 2022, a ship-based team disembarked to the Thwaites Glacier region equipped with a fleet of underwater robots. A team of 32 international scientists set sail on the U.S. National Science Foundation icebreaker Nathaniel B. Palmer from Punta Arenas, Chile, with the aim of investigating present and past conditions close to and underneath the Thwaites ice shelf and surrounding areas, including the nearby Dotson Glacier.
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