Rapid fragmentation of Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf, West Antarctica

• Main Authors: Benn, Douglas I., Luckman, Adrian, Åström, Jan A., Crawford, Anna, Cornford, Stephen L., Bevan, Suzanne L., Gladstone, Rupert, Zwinger, Thomas, Alley, Karen, Pettit, Erin, Bassis, Jeremy
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: Antarctic; Thwaites Glacier; West Antarctic Ice Sheet; West Antarctica; Antarc*; Antarctica; Ice Sheet; Ice Shelf; Ice Shelves
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2021-288; https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2021-288/

Ice shelves play a key role in the dynamics of marine ice sheets, by buttressing grounded ice and limiting rates of ice flux to the oceans. In response to recent climatic and oceanic change, ice shelves fringing the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) have begun to fragment and retreat, with major impli...