Thwaites Interdisciplinary Margin Evolution - The Role of Shear Margin Dynamics in the Future Evolution of Thwaites Drainage Basin (TIME)

TIME is an ice-based project using state-of-the-art geophysical techniques to observe rapidly deforming parts of Thwaites Glacier (shear margins) which may have significant control over future stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). The TIME project will observe rapidly deforming parts of Thwaites Glacier which may have significant control over the future evolution of WAIS, and use these new observations to improve ice sheet models used to predict future sea level rise.


Principal Investigators

Co-Investigators

Team Members

Blog Posts

TIME field teams retrieve seismic, GPS, and radar data from Thwaites' eastern shear margin

There was a whole lot of digging during this Antarctic summer season (2021-22) at the Eastern Shear Margin (ESM) of Thwaites Glacier by ten intrepid International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC) scientists and mountaineers. Two Thwaites Interdisciplinary Margin Evolution (TIME) field teams - one deployed through the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and one deployed through the U.S.

TIME update from the field 26 Dec 2019

Greetings from WAIS Divide. Jake Walter here, co-I on the TIME project, which is part of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC). I am the State Seismologist at the Oklahoma Geological Survey and they have loaned me out to the project to lead the field team this season.

TIME blog 2018-2019

Thwaites Interdisciplinary Margin Evolution (TIME) is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Environment Research Council (NERC) to study the Eastern Shear Margin of Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica. The project is trying to better understand the response of the glacier to changes in climate and the contributions to sea level rise of this collapsing glacier.

Related News

The final field season of the ambitious, international effort to understand Antarctica’s giant Thwaites Glacier is complete. Teams of scientists and support staff with the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC) have spent the past couple of months working on the Thwaites Glacier to advance our knowledge of how it interacts with the ocean and climate, and improve the predictions of its future contributions to sea level rise.
December 2023: Thirty-seven scientists and over 24 support staff are on their way to Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica. They are part of the ambitious international effort to understand the glacier and surrounding ocean system to determine its future contributions to global sea-level rise. This season represents the final large scale field season of the collaboration.
On the 100th anniversary of the polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton’s death, a research mission using a fleet of underwater robots to determine the impact of Thwaites Glacier on global sea-level rise, departs from Punta Arenas, Chile (6 January 2021). A team of 32 international scientists will set sail on the U.S. National Science Foundation icebreaker Nathaniel B. Palmer bound for the remote glacier in West Antarctica.
The sheer scale of the glacier captivated Ted Scambos as he looked on from his plane window, thousands of feet above the ice. The widest glacier in the world, the frozen white Antarctic landscape of Thwaites seemed to stretch on forever—an area as large as Florida, and a mile or more thick.