Thread by @maolesen

1-7

Here's one of the most disturbing images I've seen in some time.

2-
Zoomed in. The red pin is the Thwaites Glacier. I drew a red line around the Thwaites Tongue. It's the part of the glacier that is not over land, but over the ocean where most of the calving takes place.

3- This is a view from 2019. The important piece here is the Eastern Ice Shelf, which you can see is greatly eroded in the above images.

4- This is a series of satellite images of the region I just created. Notice how the Eastern Ice Shelf is breaking up.

5-
This could have been expected given the crevasses forming in prior years, which indicates stress in the ice.

esa.int/ESA_Multimedia…

6- "Ice shelves do not contribute directly to sea level rise when they break up because they are already floating on water. However, ice shelf collapse contributes to sea level rise indirectly because the glaciers that flow into the ice shelf accelerate."

nsidc.org/learn/parts-cr…

7-7 "If the Thwaites Glacier collapses and destabilizes the heart of West Antarctica, then sea-level rise jumps to five meters, placing the homes of at least 20 million U.S. people and another 50 million to 100 million people worldwide below high tide."

scientificamerican.com/article/antarc…