Kris Van Steenbergen provides critical information on the seventy-mile-wide glacier front of the Thwaites Glacier.
As you know, Iceberg B22A recently floated off the sea mountain it was attached to and now flows in the highly vulnerable Amundsen Sea Embayment on its way to the open ocean.
The iceberg still provides some minimal blocking of southern ocean storm waves to the glacier front. Kris notes that once B22A enters the open ocean, warm water and powerful waves will likely remove the smaller iceberg B45 ( pinning point 9) from its sea mount and likely cause the collapse of the remaining ice tongue. A domino effect of the remaining pinning points is threatening reality.
The tweet below includes the entire conversation on the remaining pinning points and their threat to the stability of the Amundsen Sea Embayment.
I have replicated Van Steenbergen’s tweets. Many Thwaites experts have left Twitter, and Elon Musk has significantly damaged the science reporting on the glacier. Twitter has been instrumental for climatologists to share information.
The media has yet to report on the fuckery unfolding at Thwaites.
The Thwaites Glacier Tongue, its debris & a few neighbouring features are losing grip. Pinning points (or anchor points if you want) like point 4, 6 & 8 are very important to monitor, because when the fast ice above them will melt a little more they'll be lost as buttress system.
I’ll keep you posted as conditions warrant.
For further reading:
The Thwaites' tongue goes when Iceberg B45 goes A/K/A, pinning point 9.
Somewhere on Thwaites Glacier is a fissure so deep that it threatens the world's coastlines.
Lowest sea ice on record powers ocean gyres as a heat source that is poised to take out W Antarctica
Iceberg B22 moves toward the open ocean, a verified source of volcanic activity upstream of P.I.G.
Ice is cracking further up from Thwaites, an unexpected source of heat damage from Pine Island.
Update on Thwaites Glacier: Iceberg B22a implodes.
The fingernails clinging onto Thwaites Glacier appear to be peeling off.