Heterogeneous melting near the Thwaites Glacier grounding line.

Thwaites Glacier represents 15% of the ice discharge from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and influences a wider catchment. Because it is grounded below sea level, Thwaites Glacier is thought to be susceptible to runaway retreat triggered at the grounding line (GL) at which the glacier reaches the ocean. Recent ice-flow acceleration and retreat of the ice front and GL indicate that ice loss will continue.

Suppressed basal melting in the eastern Thwaites Glacier grounding zone.

Thwaites Glacier is one of the fastest-changing ice-ocean systems in Antarctica. Much of the ice sheet within the catchment of Thwaites Glacier is grounded below sea level on bedrock that deepens inland, making it susceptible to rapid and irreversible ice loss that could raise the global sea level by more than half a metre. The rate and extent of ice loss, and whether it proceeds irreversibly, are set by the ocean conditions and basal melting within the grounding-zone region where Thwaites Glacier first goes afloat, both of which are largely unknown.

Channelized ice melting in the ocean boundary layer beneath Pine Island Glacier, Antarctica.

Ice shelves play a key role in the mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheets by buttressing their seaward-flowing outlet glaciers; however, they are exposed to the underlying ocean and may weaken if ocean thermal forcing increases. An expedition to the ice shelf of the remote Pine Island Glacier, a major outlet of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet that has rapidly thinned and accelerated in recent decades, has been completed. Observations from geophysical surveys and long-term oceanographic instruments deployed down bore holes into the ocean cavity reveal a buoyancy-driven boundary layer within a basal channel that melts the channel apex by 0.