It was just a few short weeks ago, and iceberg B22 was stuck on a sea mount 62 miles from Thwaites glacial tongue located in the shallow and highly vulnerable Amundsen Sea Embayment, which contains the West Antarctic glaciers of Pine Island, Ninnis, and Thwaites.
For twenty years, the massive iceberg (53 miles long and 40 miles wide), with a melange of sea ice and icebergs cemented together, protected the remaining tongue and buttressed the ice behind it from the stormy waves of the southern ocean. But in December 2022, the iceberg broke away from the Amundsen sea mount it was stuck on and drifted out into the Southern Ocean, taking the sea ice behind it along with it. Since then, icebergs B28 And B29 also drifted away, and smaller unnamed icebergs have crumbled.
when the grounded iceberg [B22-A] is removed from the Thwaites embayment (likely in the near-future), a change to less favourable landfast sea-ice conditions is likely to occur. Any decrease in landfast sea-ice persistency or extent would ultimately increase the prospect of further retreat or disintegration of the Thwaites Ice Tongue. Miles et al. (2020) Journal of Glaciologyand
Removal of this iceberg and subsequent loss of landfast sea ice is not only likely to modify regional ocean circulation, but an open-water regime might also allow the seasonal inflow of solar-heated surface water that increases basal melting. Wild et al.(2022) The Cryosphere“Iceberg names are derived from the Antarctic quadrant in which they were initially sighted. The quadrants are divided counter-clockwise in the following manner:
A = 0-90W (Bellingshausen/Weddell Sea) B = 90W-180 (Amundsen/Eastern Ross Sea) C = 180-90E (Western Ross Sea/Wilkesland) D = 90E-0 (Amery/Eastern Weddell Sea)”
Four systems are buttressing Thwaites's land ice from sending two feet of sea level rise into the ocean. They are the sea ice protecting Pine Island Glacier (the Eastern Thwaites Ice Shelf), Icebergs B22A and B29 (have drifted away), and B45 are all located in the Western Thwaites ice shelf and lastly, the Thwaites ice tongue. All four are simultaneously collapsing. Over time, the collapse will release ten feet of sea-level rise. The loss will inundate Lagos, Shanghai, London, Miami, Boston, and New York, just a few of countless coastal cities that will eventually lead to civilizational collapse.
No major news outlet has had the cojones to report on the unfolding fuckery in the Amundsen Sea despite the enormous threat that the embayment poses; most work in New York and Washington DC where a breakup will flood reporters' cities. It is just remarkable.
I have seen plenty of retweets on Twitter from previously published articles from years prior. So more people know about the crumbling, but the current news is woefully lacking. Citizens and some scientists are on the beat.
New Scientist (behind a paywall) is the first online magazine to report on the breakup besides Daily Kos. They reveal nothing new and less detail than what I have written.
They write:
The Thwaites glacier has already lost most of its ice shelf, and part of the remaining ice shelf is currently pinned in place by an undersea mountain. It could soon break free.
“The ice shelf is heavily broken up already,” says Miles. “The sea ice is acting a little bit like glue, sticking it together.”
The glacier and the ice sheet are expected to collapse over the following centuries. They are unstable because they sit on land that is below sea level, and further inland that land surface is deeper below sea level. What this means is that as the glacier retreats, more and more water can get under it, a positive feedback leading to accelerating retreat. “It’s the one we’re most concerned about,” says Miles.
Nowhere do they report on the lowest sea ice on record since satellite imagery emerged.
Zach Labe, Climate Scientist (Atmospheric) Ph.D. Postdoc shared the below graphic by dumping the can of worms on the dining room table for all to see.
Clik here to view.
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However, the European Space Agency and the Copernicus Satellite follow the developments. They have developed AI to monitor fractures in the marine extension of Thwaites and adjacent glaciers.
Scientists have developed a new Artificial Intelligence, or AI, technique using radar images from Europe’s Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite mission, to reveal how the Thwaites Glacier Ice Tongue in West Antarctica is being damaged by squeezing and stretching as it flows from the middle of the continent to the coast. Being able to track fractures and crevasses in the ice beneath the overlying snow is key to better predicting the fate of floating ice tongues under climate change.
Clik here to view.
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The analysis revealed that over the last six years, the Thwaites Glacier Ice Tongue has sped up and slowed down twice, by around 40% each time – from 4 km a year to 6 km a year before slowing. This is a substantial increase in the magnitude and frequency of speed change compared with past records.
The study found a complex interplay between crevasse formation and speed of the ice flow. When the ice flow quickens or slows, more crevasses are likely to form. In turn, the increase in crevasses causes the ice to change speed as the friction between the ice and underlying rock alters.
Dr Anna Hogg, a glaciologist at the University of Leeds, said, “Dynamic changes on ice shelves are traditionally thought to occur on timescales of decades to centuries, so it was surprising to see this huge glacier speed up and slow down so quickly.
“The study also demonstrates the key role that fractures play in un-corking the flow of ice, a process known as unbuttressing.
“Ice-sheet models must be evolved to account for the fact that ice can fracture, which will allow us to measure future sea-level contributions more accurately.”
Clik here to view.
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In February 2022, pinning points kept the glacier in place by fastening it to the bedrock. The European Geosciences wrote on the dislodging of Thwaites.
From the discussion:
Since the breakup of the Western Glacier Tongue in 2009, the ice flow on the Eastern Ice Shelf has slowed down and rotated counterclockwise and now funnels through a bathymetric saddle between the two remaining portions of Thwaites pinning point. Model simulations using ISSM reproduce this counterclockwise rotation of ice flow with the removal of the Western Glacier Tongue from the stress balance and attribute the satellite-observed ice funneling to weakening of the pinning point and opening of the saddle. Whether the consequent flow acceleration is short-lasting or causes sustained ice speedup across the grounding line can not be answered with our diagnostic experiments. Transient model simulations with evolving geometry and ice flow are necessary to shed further light on the future dynamics and stability of Thwaites Glacier. Given current rates of surface lowering from ICESat-2 laser altimetry data in this area, in combination with the advection of thinner and mechanically damaged ice upstream, Thwaites pinning point could reach flotation within less than 1 decade, with implications for the stability of the Eastern Ice Shelf and thus the whole Thwaites Glacier.
Compared to other proposed scenarios of ice-shelf breakup in the near future, such as cracking through the central part of the Eastern Ice Shelf or failure along rifts within the narrow shear zone upstream of the pinning point, our analysis strongly supports unpinning of the Eastern Ice Shelf from the seafloor ridge and subsequent loss of its structural integrity as a short-range mechanism for breakup. We conclude that unpinning within the next decade, followed by breakup similar to the Western Glacier Tongue, is a very likely scenario of regional destabilization in light of the involved meteorological, glaciological, and oceanographic processes. Following other ice-shelf disintegration events (e.g., Scambos et al., 2004; Rack and Rott, 2004), we expect increased ice discharge of up to 10 % along a 45 km stretch of the grounding line thereafter.
Research begins on the ice with the help of Weddel seals.
For those who may be wondering, the tag collar falls off when the seal molts.
We are still in a La Nina climate pattern. El Nino is expected in late summer in the Northern Hemisphere. The planet will likely breach the milestone 1.5 C temperature rise for the first time, at least temporarily.
NASA science notes that El Niño episodes affect the Weddell and Ross Seas. "These areas are considered critical sources of cold and dense bottom water influencing global ocean circulation. The most vital links were observed in the Amundsen, Bellingshausen, and Weddell Seas of the west Antarctic. Within these sectors, higher sea level pressure, warmer air temperature, and warmer sea surface temperature are generally associated with the El Niño phase".
Gulp.
For your listening pleasure.