Thwaites glacier has its own complexities, including proximity to dozens of underwater volcanoes. Wikipedia says it’s ‘nicknamed the Doomsday Glacier’ and ‘The Thwaites Ice Shelf, a floating ice shelf which braces and restrains the eastern portion of Thwaites Glacier, is likely to collapse within a decade from 2021’. Statements like ‘computer models show’, ‘how soon a transition to more rapid ice retreat might occur’ and ‘collapse of the glacier’ (the size of Florida) arouse a certain amount of scepticism. More than a whiff of climate alarm enthusiasm here.
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Nearly 60 scientists and support staff are on their way to Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica, says the British Antarctic Survey.
It’s part of an 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 fourth of five planned field seasons.
The International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC) ambition started in 2018 and, after two successful field seasons, was then slowed by the effects of the pandemic.
This led to a cancellation of major land-based field work in 2020-2021, although some instrument data were recovered, and a greatly reduced land-based field season last year. Despite these limitations, progress on understanding the glacier and surrounding system has continued apace.
About Thwaites Glacier
Thwaites Glacier, covering 192,000 square kilometers (74,000 square miles)—an area the size of Florida or Great Britain—is particularly susceptible to climate and ocean changes. Over the past 30 years, the amount of ice flowing out of the region has nearly doubled.
Computer models show that, over the next several decades, the glacier may lose ice even more rapidly. Already, ice draining from Thwaites into the Amundsen Sea accounts for about four percent of global sea-level rise. A collapse of the glacier would lead to a significant increase in sea levels of around 65cm (25 inches) over the coming centuries.
Dr Robert Larter, a senior marine geophysicist at British Antarctic Survey, who is part of the ITGC Science Coordination Office, says:
“This work is important. Data collected from Thwaites Glacier will underpin future sea-level rise predictions, providing our governments with the right information for policy and business actions that will help protect coastal cities, ecosystems and vulnerable communities.”
. . .
ITGC is a five-year, $50 million joint US and UK mission to learn more about Thwaites Glacier, its past, and what the future may hold. Significant contributions to the research are also coming from Sweden, Germany, and South Korea.
The ultimate goal of the project is to predict how much Thwaites will contribute to global sea-level rise, and how soon a transition to more rapid ice retreat might occur.
Full article here.
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Related: High geothermal heat flow beneath Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica inferred from aeromagnetic data (2021 study)
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
Endlessly chasing their tails by studying the known rather than the unknown. How much will it contribute? Nothing if your hypothesis is wrong. But let’s not look at the enormous holes in that.
Sea level calculated to 5 thousands of an inch accuracy??🤔. Quite, quite remarkable what scientists can do and say these days.(\s.
Will this be done with Net Zero Emissions equipment? If not will the grant and media income be subject to a carbon tax?
Finally what do you measure to determine future tectonic/volcanic activity years ahead?
Looks suspiciously like the hunt for a peg to hang climate scare stories on, implying humans are the problem instead of volcanoes, natural variation etc. as in the past.
Tallbloke 2014 — https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2014/06/09/wais-outlet-glacier-being-melted-by-magma-not-co2-global-warming-after-all/
This was written:
Computer models show that, over the next several decades, the glacier may lose ice even more rapidly. Already, ice draining from Thwaites into the Amundsen Sea accounts for about four percent of global sea-level rise.
Repeat that: four percent of global sea-level rise
Lets look at facts, sea level is hard to measure and hard to average, they can say anything and there is no way to know if they are right or wrong or just lying.
About Sea Level Rise:
A rising sea level would increase the Inertia of the Earth Crust.
More Land Ice is near the spin axis of the rotating earth crust while much more ocean is near the equator where sea level rise would significantly increase the inertia of the spinning earth crust.
Conservation of Momentum would slow the Rotation Rate of the Earth Crust.
The Atomic Clocks were put in place to measure Time Extremely Accurately, in 1972.
More Leap Seconds would need to be added more frequently, but Less Leap Seconds have been added to the time every decade since 1972. The last leap second was added in 2016 and none expected to be added.
This is valid Proof that Sea Level is Lower Now than it was in 1972!
Sea Level has Fallen for Fifty Years, yet they say it has risen and the rise rate is accelerating.
If sea level Ever Rises, Added Leap Seconds will be an Immediate Indicator.
I repeat: sea level is hard to measure and hard to average, they can say anything and there is no way to know if they are right or wrong or just lying, except accurate time and conservation of momentum, and basic real science.
Reblogged this on Climate Collections.
DECEMBER 13, 2022
Scientists map heat beneath Antarctica’s icesheets
by University of Tasmania
“Heat moving outward from the deep Earth creates geothermal heat flow (GHF),” said Professor Anya Reading, an ACEAS Chief Investigator based in Physics at the University of Tasmania School of Natural Sciences.
. . .
“GHF also supplies a small component of heat to the base of ice sheets.
“It’s important to note that there are many different maps of GHF for Antarctica, which conflict as they are each calculated using different techniques.”
https://phys.org/news/2022-12-scientists-beneath-antarctica-icesheets.html
[…] From Tallbloke’s Talkshop […]
New cause of melting Antarctic ice shelves
Date: December 22, 2022
Source: University of East Anglia
Summary:
Researchers have discovered a process that can contribute to the melting of ice shelves in the Antarctic. An international team of scientists found that adjacent ice shelves play a role in causing instability in others downstream. The study also identified that a small ocean gyre — a system of circulating ocean currents — next to the Thwaites Ice Shelf can impact the amount of glacial-meltwater flowing beneath it. When that gyre is weaker, more warm water can access the areas beneath the ice shelf, causing it to melt. [bold added]
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/12/221222101001.htm
It really does make one despair reading the comments by some of these scientists who appear locked into the CAGW Mindset.
They are even talking about Antarctica when in fact they are looking at a tiny bit of it on the West, sitting over an active volcanic region. —:Chalk and Cheese. Add in the scary sea level nonsense and there you have it: A publicly Grant financed bit of Greenie Propaganda with little accountability.