Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier is melting fast; this much, scientists already know. However, according to a new study, it's melting faster than we thought — and that spells trouble for sea-level-rise projections.
Using observations from the ICEYE Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite constellation, a joint project between the U.S. and Finland, researchers have taken a detailed look beneath the Thwaites Glacier for the first time, specifically at an area called the grounding line. This is where a tidewater glacier (that is, one that flows into the ocean) transitions from being anchored to land to floating on the sea. Here, physical processes contribute to a tidewater glacier's ice mass loss, which is why it's crucial to study this boundary.
